Couples Therapy
In couples therapy, we work together to find patterns that aren’t serving the relationship, identify the root causes of those patterns, and commit to concrete work that each partner can do to improve the relationship.
In our first session or two, we identify goals for couples therapy and agree to a target treatment duration. I find that 1–6 months of work together is sufficient for most of the challenges couples bring in.
I facilitate quick change when possible and support deeper work when necessary.
Sometimes, changing a behavior is relatively quick. You might start by identifying a behavior you want to change, get clarity on its contexts and triggers, begin to notice when you’re about to do the problematic thing before you do it, then pause so that you can respond rather than react.
Other times, the roots of a behavior are deeper and changing it requires slowing down and going inside to hear from the part of us that doesn’t want to change. When this is the case, I typically invite folks to IFS or Coherence Therapy work. This can be done in couples sessions with the partner observing, or in a separate individual session to support couples therapy.
Who I Work With
I work with a broad range of couples, with goals ranging from a relationship tune up to working through a crisis. I welcome with an open heart folks holding a wide range of sexual (gay, straight, queer, kink, poly, etc.), gender (cis, trans, nonbinary), racial, ethnic, religious, and political identities. Love Trump? Hate him? Either way, you’re welcome in my office.
General Flow
1. Intro Session
We meet each other, discuss goals and concerns for therapy, and pick a timeline for achieving the goals.
2. Individual Sessions (optional, recommended)
After the first couples session, I offer separate one-on-one sessions with each person in the relationship. We explore your relationship’s origin story, your attachment history, and relevant emotional experiences. We discuss any concerns, hopes, or expectations you may have for couples therapy.
3. Core Work
- Identify problematic patterns
-
Who owns what? — Ideally, both partners begin to see and take responsibility for their own role in the relationship dynamics and identify what they can do differently in support of the relationship.
-
Homework — We collaboratively craft homework designed to shift patterns, inviting both partners to commit to their homework between sessions.
-
Reflect & Repeat — We reflect on the homework’s usefulness and monitor your relationship’s dynamics as they shift or remain stuck, adapting our work to respond to your shifting needs.
4. Closing Session
We reflect on progress and discuss how you can continue to move forward in your relationship without the support of couples therapy.
My Orientation
Intimacy From the Inside Out (IFIO)
Intimacy From the Inside Out (IFIO) is an experiential approach to couples therapy that draws primarily from Internal Family Systems (IFS) and includes psychodynamic therapy and mindfulness. Some couples love IFIO, others don’t. We’ll decide together how much we want to adhere to IFIO’s approach to couples therapy.
A few IFIO principles:
- “U Turns” — If you’re speaking to what your partner should be doing differently, I’ll often invite you to make a “U-turn” – to shift to noticing what parts of you are showing up, what they need, and how you can meet their needs.
- Use parts language — The shift from “I am scared” to “I have a part of me which is scared” gives you the space to hear from the part of you holding fear and bring curiosity to it so that it can feel heard by you and understand that you’re here to meet its needs.
- Speak for parts, not from them — For example, if you’re noticing anger, speak for the part of you that’s angry (e.g. “I have a part of me that is really pissed about what you just said.”), not from it (“How dare you?”, etc.).
- Listen from Self — When listening to our partner, it’s super common for parts of us to come up (e.g. parts that feel they know why our partner is saying something, or parts waiting with our response while they talk). As you listen, work to notice the parts of you that are present and ask them to soften back, letting them know that if they do, you can bring more curiosity to what your partner is saying in order to improve the relationship.
Nonviolent Communication (NVC)
Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is a set of principles for better communication. I love NVC and I bring it into session when prudent. It’s especially helpful when communication is highly emotionally charged. When you’re feeling charged and want to share something with your partner, NVC recommends you slow down and share (from your perspective):
- my observation (facts of the situation)
- my feeling
- my need
- my ask
For example, say you’re having dinner with your partner and a group of friends, someone makes a comment that feels disparaging of you, and your partner says nothing. After dinner, your gut might be to confront your partner: “WTF!? I can’t believe you didn’t stick up for me at dinner tonight. What were you thinking?”
NVC offers that you’re more likely to be successful by slowing it down and sharing what happened for you in the four steps listed above:
- “Tonight at dinner, Sarah said I wasn’t exactly the most poised of our friend group.” (my observation)
- “I felt hurt and sad hearing that.” (my feeling)
- “I need to feel like I have people in my corner when someone disparages me.” (my need)
- “As a favor to me, if someone says something disparaging about me in a group, would you speak up about how much you love me and how the comment felt wrong to you?” (my ask)
When we’re highly activated, we often react by making demands of others or collapsing inside. It’s common not to know what emotion we’re experiencing because that emotion has overtaken us. Part of the magic of the above approach is that it invites you to shift from being overtaken by emotion to awareness of the bigger picture of what’s happening. This approach also slows things down for your partner. By presenting the story of what happened for you in these four parts, they too can more easily track what happened, how it affected you, and what you’re asking of them. If there’s divergence between you and your partner, using this four-part communication brings clarity to where the divergence is happening and where we should focus.
General Guidance
- Identify and own how you’re contributing to the challenging dynamics. When beginning couples therapy, it’s common for one or both partners to want the other person to change, without curiosity about how they themselves are contributing to the dynamics and without taking the time to reflect on how they might change to improve the relationship. It’s generally more useful for each/all of you to orient to how you want to change to improve the relationship.
- When activated – one at a time. In a partnership, when one partner is highly emotionally charged, it sometimes activates the other. Progress generally requires at least one partner to be relatively centered. If both/all partners are highly activated, I’ll name that and we’ll pause and decide whom it feels right to center.
Resources
Interviews & Podcasts
Books
- Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. Marshall Rosenberg, 2015.
- Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy. Jessica Fern and Nora Samaran, 2020. While this book focuses on attachment in the context of nonmonogamy, I recommend the first 3 chapters to everyone looking to examine their attachment patterns, as they're some of the best writing on attachment I’ve encountered.
- The Polysecure Workbook: Healing Your Attachment and Creating Security in Loving Relationships. Jessica Fern, 2022. The companion workbook to Polysecure, this helps you get your hands dirty looking at your attachment history.
- The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. John Gottman, 2015.
- Eight Dates: Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. John Gottman and Julie Schwartz Gottman, 2019.
Websites
Games
Worksheets
