Couple Counseling & Education

Whether you’re married, living together, or dating, couples counseling can help you achieve your relationship goals

Are you interested in strengthening your bond, restoring affection, resolving conflict, or building trust with your partner?

If so, I offer two counseling options:

  • A skills-based, therapist directed, 10-module program

  • Couples counseling to address a specific challenge

Skills-Based Program (10 Modules).

Premarital Counseling / Relationship Check-Up.

Are you seeking to enhance relationships skills, improve communication, and increase connection?

Invest in your relationship with this online program that combines relationship education and counseling. This 10-module program was created to help couples improve communication, deepen understanding, increase appreciate of individual differences, and prepare for potential challenges. Each module and counseling session focuses on a specific learning opportunity.

Couple Counseling

Grief. Losing a loved one (especially a child) changes your life in VERY PROFOUND ways. Your heart hurts so much. And the pain often feels overwhelming. It may feel as if no one really understands. You may be experiencing sadness, denial, guilt, anger, and anxiety, as well as many other emotions.

Grief counseling for couples focuses on the shared experience of the loss, living with the loss, respecting different ways of grieving, understanding your own grief experience, and maintaining connection with those living and deceased.

Trauma. Experiencing a traumatic event can have a lasting impact on the couple relationship. Couples counseling provides partners with an opportunity to explore what happened with regard to a specific event (i.e. injury, illness, natural disaster, etc.). It is often important to look at each partner’s life and personal history to develop a deeper understanding of how each partner views and understands the event, as well as the lasting impact on the relationship.

Other Significant Challenge. There are times in every relationship when partners must face a significant transition or challenge. Some examples of transition points include having a baby, moving, empty nesting, retirement, illness, injury,. Other challenges may include differences with in-laws, disagreements over money or parenting roles.

What to expect…

Couple therapy is much different than individual therapy.

And you might be wondering what to expect.

You and your partner will meet with me for our first session. During our first session we will talk about the history of your relationship and the challenges that bring you to therapy. You will be asked about your goals for the relationship. If you are unsure about your goals - that’s okay. It’s the first session. We can work together to figure it out.

Working on your relationship doesn’t stop once your therapy session ends. In fact, a major part of couples therapy is what happens in between the sessions. You’ll have homework to complete between each session. The goal of this homework is to practice working on issues outside of therapy.

I take an integrative approach to couples therapy. I’ve received training in a variety of therapy models (including the Gottman Method, Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, the Developmental Model, Solution-Focused Couples Counseling, and more). I utilize different aspects of each model, depending on client need.

Lastly, I also tend to be more directive during couples counseling. I find that it is occasionally necessary to interrupt negative or harmful interaction patterns that emerge during session.