Therapy for Strained Relationships
Helping you make sense of the distress in your most important relationships as you strengthen connection, friendship and intimacy
You might be considering therapy for relationship issues because…
You are longing for acceptance, closeness, and understanding in your relationships but don’t know how to communicate your needs and fears to those you love.
Frequent arguments are making it difficult for you to see whether it’s possible to trust and understand each other again.
You may be in couple’s counseling and want the additional support of individual counseling to understand the role your history and experiences play in your negative communication and learn how to emotionally engage with your partner without becoming overwhelmed or shutting down.
Maybe you or a loved one have become overwhelmed by difficult emotions and trapped in constricting, negative patterns. Or you might be noticing distance and a lack of emotion in yourself or someone that matters to you. You can’t reach each other and that feels terrible.
It could be the way you are coping with feelings of hurt, anger, loneliness, fear, and distress are impacting the people you love. You vow to handle it better next time but find it hard to express yourself in a way you can feel good about.
Possibly you or a loved one is suffering with an addiction and you don’t know what to do.
Maybe your relationship is ending and you want help as you grieve and move forward.
Whatever your reason for seeking therapy for a strained relationship, there is hope, understanding and a path toward creating a resilient, satisfying life. Read on to see if my therapy services might help you.
What does attachment science tell us about adult relationships?
You may be experiencing distress in one or more of your primary relationships as a result of an unmet relational need. These needs are necessities for experiencing connection and a strong bond.
Most adults long to feel seen, understood, wanted and appreciated in relationships. We want to know the important people in our lives will be there when we need them and have our best interests at heart.
There is a need to know we can trust our people and they trust us.
We look to see that we can get it right in the eyes of those that matter most and that they can handle our vulnerability. We hope to hear we are not too much as well as see the vulnerability of our closest companions.
Loving, safe, secure relationships are built from validation, empathy, comfort, reflection, listening, presence, vulnerability, touch, and support.
Cultivate resilient relationships with yourself and those you love.
The first step in changing troubling interactions is becoming acquainted with the communication pattern that sends your relationship spiraling. We will examine what’s getting in the way of connection as we explore barriers to responding with compassion and reassurance. Through this process I will help you foster curiosity, flexibility, and empathy.
I will help you identify ways to re-establish emotional safety and security after a conflict. We will work together to develop a process for repairing your connection after a disruption.
As we explore your relationship goals, you will identify ways to decrease conflict and increase friendship, intimacy and connection.
To gain insight into your inner world, I will assist you in deepening your awareness of emotions and the impact of expressing or not expressing them. We will explore the impact of unmet relationship needs and develop your strategies for coping with feeling hurt, lonely, inadequate, or disconnected.
Together we go beneath the surface to reveal the burden of unhealed hurts and unmet needs, bringing them forth with curiosity, courage, and empathy. We explore the role of emotion and the connection between emotion, meaning and action tendencies.
Throughout our work together, I will collaborate with you on your care to best align with your goals and desired outcome. Engagement, compassion, and acceptance are foundational to my beliefs about how people change and create fulfilling, resilient lives.