COUPLES

I work with couples from a systemic perspective.  This means that I look at a couple's functioning in relationship to their families of origin, their individual functioning and their functioning as a couple.  I also look at the duration and intensity of their problem.  I assess a couple's communication style, intimacy, style of resolving conflict, sexual relations, and stage in life cycle.  Some couples begin to seek treatment for a short-lived conflict or adjustment.  Yet other couples seek treatment for deeply entrenched conflicts that have been persistent for years.  It is often easy to identify ineffective mechanisms that were inherited from an individual's family of origin that may reach back many generations.  By looking at couples systemically, I am able to provide a thorough assessment and tailor a treatment plan that addresses them uniquely.

Often there is intense emotional conflict that may be the result of a couple not really hearing each other's true thoughts and feelings.  There can be a very powerful benefit bringing in a third impartial party that can assist the couple in understanding what the other person may be experiencing.  Sometimes this is all that is required to decrease the emotional reactivity that has become such a powerful impediment. 

Also, an issue I commonly see in my practice when working with couples is a lack of trust.  The lack of trust becomes so pronounced that it is experienced as emotional distance.  Sometimes one of the partners may have broken this trust by an act of insensitivity, unkindness or even betrayal.  Intimacy is not possible under these circumstances.  Trust must be rebuilt in order for the couple to experience connectedness again. 

As a marriage counselor, I believe that treatment is useful for clients when it is educational.  Clients today are much more psychologically savvy.  Many couples respond well to treatment that is educational, directive and explorative; therefore, I naturally include all of these elements into my treatment. 

Research on couples counseling has proven to be very optimistic.  Research reports that couples counseling is very helpful in providing symptom relief.  This is very good news for couples who are feeling hopeless and/or doubtful about entering treatment!   

As a licensed marriage and family therapist, I have specific training that provides me with a specialty to provide couples counseling, pre-marital counseling, marriage counseling, and intensive couples counseling 

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