Work To Make It Work

It is through intimate relationships that we re-experience our deepest ability to feel love.  Relationships can also be a place where we experience our most painful wounds.  Within relationships, we know ourselves differently than we do when we are alone.  Couples may come into couples therapy in San Francisco to deepen a bond that feels distant or numb, and may also come in to work through a dynamic that has been stuck, locked, and hard to overcome.  My work as a couples therapist is introspective and engaged, typically focusing on the moment, the deeper feelings beneath what is being said, and some of the communication skills that can be implicated to unlock the stuck places. My work has been strongly influenced by Stan Tatkin's PACT training, which is a psychobiological approach to understanding attachment within couples. I also look to Sue Johnson's work , EFT,  (Emotionally Focused Therapy), which is a method that seeks to de-escalate a negative cycle and restructure an emotional bond within a couple or a family.

 

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Learn To Negotiate:  Yes,  You Read that right.  There is a way to hash things out that is more respectful and less hurtful, and I would like to show you how.

Learn To Communicate: About the things that scare you. Because chances are, they aren't as scary as you think.

Learn to Let Go: of the right things, and hold onto the right things, as a relationship is often not perfect.

Learn to Trust: your partner and yourself. 

Learn to Show Your Love in a way that reflects what your heart wants.

 
 

  • Finding a couples counselling therapist in San Francisco or the greater bay area can feel tricky at times because it often requires a lot of research, and many times, people don’t know exactly what they are looking for. It is important to find the right relationship therapist or marriage therapist for you and your partner. I am a couples counselor and a licensed marriage and family therapist in the state of California. I specialize in attachment styles and how they interact within relationships. As a pact level one couples therapist, I have been trained to help couples read each other’s psychobiological cues using awareness of the nervous system and of body language. As a couples psychotherapist, it has been important that I have experience with sexuality, intimacy, sexual abuse, attachment problems, and much more.

  • The simple answer to this question is, it’s not that different. The only difference is that marriage counseling may have a specific set of life circumstances that are different than in relationships outside of marriage. For example, many married people also have children and are co-navigating parenting, finances, and extreme tension in their marriage that they never felt before their life became a partnership. Once in a committed relationship that only becomes more committed, people may question their commitment and sometimes think about breaking it, which is much more painful step once married.

  • Before the pandemic most therapy was in person. During the pandemic, people realized that it was in many cases easier and more convenient to meet remotely in between meetings during the day. Because my work hours are from 8:30 to 4 pm, I am mainly remote as a therapist. I offer quarterly in person sessions in an office in San Francisco to give us the opportunity to meet in person on special occasions so that weekly therapy can still be convenient through remote therapy.