Couples Therapy
My intention is to help you ‘mend, not end’ your relationship. The couples therapy I offer will focus on the way in which you communicate, both intentional and unintentional.
Sessions will help you understand and support each other in a safe and secure partnership. My role is exploratory, thoughtful, and strategic. In our sessions we will explore the impact of early attachments on your present relationship, and your abilities to regulate your emotions.
Couples therapy provides a context for both partners to improve their communication skills, to heal and grow. You will learn to improve communications, to read each other better, to help each other feel calm and soothed, and to understand and accept each other’s strengths and emotional deficits.
My treatment approach has been strongly influenced by the principles of the Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy® (PACT) developed by Dr. Stan Tatkin. Since 2011 I have been impressed by how easily and quickly couples are able to integrate these skills into their everyday lives. The introduction of these simple techniques is remarkably effective.
Experience in my office has illustrated the effectiveness of the PACT methodology. Once the basic principles are grasped and adopted by a couple, their levels of contentment and communication within the relationship improve.
Together we will search for the reasons why you are not thriving in your relationship. Couples sessions are time set aside for you to talk with each other and about your thoughts and feelings. Couples therapy can be challenging, exciting, hard work, empowering and relieving, and believe it or not, fun!
Gay or straight, in a long term or new relationships, therapy can help you understand and change how you interact with each other.
Learn how to support each through the stormy times. Understand how to make each other feel safe and secure at all times.
PACT integrates neuroscience, arousal regulation and attachment theory. Facial expressions, voice and gestures all impact reactions and relationships at a fundamental level. Awareness of this teaches couples to look beneath the surface of the issues and enables partners to explore the obstacles to contentment, harmony, comfort and safety. Becoming ‘experts’ on each other will help you overcome and change some of the very basic communication issues and misunderstandings which often occur in a love relationship. This might seem frightening at first, but it will enhance your understanding of each other.
“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
George Bernard Shaw
PACT Couples Therapy
For more about PACT see: http://thepactinstitute.com
PACT PACT…What is PACT?
How does PACT compare to other ways of doing couples therapy?
Since I discovered PACT and started learning more about it, I made it my go to way of working with couples. It quickly gets to the heart of the issues and, believe it or not, can be fun. When it is integrated into a couple’s life, because it is skills based, it quickly teaches you ways of dealing with each other in a more constructive manner.
Individual or couples therapy, which is better for me?
If the most pressing issue for you is your relationship, it is important not to ignore the complexity of a two-person system. Talking to a therapist without your partner being present is a bit like clapping with one hand.
What will we talk about?
What we talk about will vary according to your needs and pressures. It is not formulaic. I can help you look, beyond the argument, to what is really going on and what each partner is bringing to the relationship in terms of attitude, assumptions, misunderstandings and history. You will be encouraged to understand yourself and your partner in new ways, be helped to communicate more effectively, and feel safer and closer to each other.
What are some of the issues you can help with?
Conflict over children, stepchildren, in-laws, work, different parenting styles, infidelity and issues of trust, differences in sexual desire, or lack of sexual/emotional intimacy are some of the many issues that bring couples into therapy. Misunderstandings sometimes originate in experiences that predate the relationship.
Why do you do such long sessions? 2 hours sounds agonizing.
Couple’s sessions lasting 2-3 hours give us time to get into the issues and move towards relief.
With long sessions you come less often, since we cover more ground in each one.
How do I know that we won’t just fight more with each other?
No guarantees on this, but rather than rehashing arguments, hurts and failures, we look for the underlying difficulties that create so much unhappiness and stress. Working together with your partner helps you move towards a better understanding of yourself and of each other. I will try to teach you how to fight more efficiently.
Other Couples therapies have not helped. Why should this?
No promises are offered. But even if you have done other couples therapy, you will.
find that PACT quickly gets to the core of your issues, giving you an understanding of where your difficulties originated and some tools to better deal with them in the future.