I specialize in working with couples who, from the outside, appear to have it together — a functioning partnership, a shared life, perhaps a family. But underneath, something has shifted. You may feel more like roommates than partners, caught in the same arguments that never really resolve, or simply growing distant in ways that are hard to name. Couples tell me the connection they once had feels buried under resentment, miscommunication, or the relentless pressure of daily life. One or both partners may feel unheard, dismissed, or simply exhausted from trying. Sometimes there’s a specific crisis — infidelity, a major life transition, or a parenting conflict — and sometimes it’s the slow, quiet erosion of intimacy and trust. Either way, the relationship feels stuck and continuing t drift apart. I’ll listen to both of you. Not to assign blame or declare a winner, but to understand what’s really happening beneath the surface — the patterns, the triggers, the unspoken needs driving the disconnect. My non-judgmental approach creates a space where both partners feel safe enough to be honest, and heard enough to stay open. Together, we won’t just manage the friction — we’ll work to understand the deeper dynamics each of you brings to the relationship, including old patterns formed long before you met. We’ll build new ways of communicating, responding, and showing up for one another. My practical focus means we’ll identify specific, definable problems and design real paths forward — while also addressing the broader relational angst that’s harder to put into words. The goal is not simply to stop arguing. It’s to restore genuine connection, rebuild trust, and help you create the partnership you both envisioned.

Treatment Approaches

I take a cooperative and strength-based approach to couples work, focused on mutual understanding, diffusion of blame and finding positive outcomes. I particularly incorporate personality and emotion-based perspectives into therapy. After our joint first session, I will meet with you individually to identify personal perspectives and goals before our next session together. With this perspective, we can identify sources of conflict, misunderstandings and the emotional base for relationship issues. We will also discuss the different therapeutic approaches we can use and chose a direction and process:

• Creating a ‘safe’ environment for disclosure of vulnerabilities.
• Facilitating calm, thoughtful and reflective communication to ensure everyone understands what is being said and meant.
  • Identifying the format and process of your interactive cycles of conflict and responses to stress as a target for behavioral change.
  • Restructuring power dynamics and boundaries.
• Identifying specific problems and developing practical solutions.
• Finding commonality when faced with different styles to address shared problems:
  • o Parenting styles
  • o Child discipline
  • o Budgeting
  • o Leisure
• Developing empathy and the emotional understanding of each other.
  • Creating communication and resolution for couples who have ‘given up on each other’.
  • Using personality strengths and adaptation.
  • Where necessary, developing positive paths forward to separation.

Two people, Together

A couple without others involved can find themselves in conflict to levels of distress that renders the relationship unpleasant or even jeopardize remaining together. This dispute may be an isolated issue or a broader concern. Often, the conflict has existed for quite some time and has now become intolerably magnified and confounded.  Attempts at resolution have failed, and the situation has worsened. Therapy is a positive way to unravel and resolve these issues, and develop new skills to prevent problems from developing in the future.

Links to Family, Children and Adolescent Problems

Problems can develop between parents as a couples. The hard truth is that many children’s and adolescent’s problems are linked to conflicts between parents. Research demonstrates that include oppositional-defiant behaviors, disrespectful attitudes, truancy, school performance deficits, mood disorders, substance abuse, promiscuity, self-harm and eating disorders – all associated with subsequent problems as adults. Our children our very observant – your conflicts are readily evident to them. But because of their maturity, verbal expression skills and coping skills adolescents and children ‘act-out’, rather than express them appropriately. Consequently, kids become ‘pathologized’ and little progress in their therapy reflects the persistence of parental conflicts. So, sometimes the treatment of children and adolescents involves work on parents’ relationship. I’d like to help.

Links to Individual Therapy

Occasionally, couples sessions are initiated as a result of problems identified in adult individual sessions. My approach in subsequent couples sessions is to remind both parties that I am ‘biased’ or at least ‘influenced’ by the individual relationship, and that for more extensive couples therapy, it might be more appropriate to refer to a neutral and independent therapist.