Couples Therapy

All committed relationships go through difficult times and can get stuck in patterns that simply aren’t working. Creating a healthy relationship with your partner can help in all in all areas of your life. Through the rebuilding a strong bond between partners, individuals often experience increased self-confidence, resilience and a better ability to manage stress.

Couples counseling often involves, one of three separate courses: decision therapy, marriage therapy and divorce therapy. Often couples arrive in therapy after struggling with issues on their own for several years and in many cases the subject of separation has already been broached. Many times one of the partners may be ambivalent about whether or not to continue the relationship. Decision therapy creates the environment and direction to resolve this ambivalence. Other times couples come into therapy with a commitment and a desire to work on their marriage or arrive at this conclusion through decision counseling.

Finally, some couples enter therapy for support with divorce or the separation process. It is important as a therapist to identify these counseling modalities early in the process to best support a struggling couple. In each case my secret hope is to eventually be able to work with a couple to strengthen and heal their marriage.

Therapeutic Emphasis

• Communication

• Infidelity

• Blended families

• Trust issues

• Emotional distance

Individual Therapy

Effective individual therapy is a healthy guided form of self-reflection and interpretation, to aid in personal growth. We all have a story. That story shapes who we are and how we interact with and view the world. It determines how we get our needs met, defines rule, identifies roles and sets boundaries in our lives. Evaluating your personal story helps you learn to identify the belief structures and notice how they continue influence your present life, thus providing an opportunity for reevaluation.

Through the self-discovery process, we learn what makes us tick and make meaningful sense of our experiences. This often leads to the resolution of impactful memories, the release old burdens, a decrease in challenging mental health symptoms and the development of adaptive coping skills. These changes allow us to create healthy choices in all areas of our lives and begin to fully embody the life we want and deserve. Life can be extremely challenging, but it does not have to be a burden you bear alone. Individual therapy can provide the support you need to begin creating healthy changes in your life.

Therapeutic Emphasis

• Depression

• Anxiety

• Life transitions

• Emotional reactivity

• PTSD

• Grief and Loss

• Bi-polar

• Relationship challenges

Benefits

• A better understanding of yourself

• Significant decrease in depression and anxiety

• Development of healthy coping skills

• Improved relationships

• Increased ability to manage anger, depression, and other emotional pressures

• Improved communication

• Increased self-esteem and confidence

• Increased problem solving flexibility

• Becoming unstuck from unhealthy patterns

Family Therapy

Typically, family therapy is recommended when a particular member of a family is exhibiting difficult behavior challenges and/or a family is having trouble adjusting to changes in the family dynamics. As a family therapist, I look at how a family’s interactions and relationships are helping to create and/or sustain a behavior issue or preventing the family from acclimating and adapting to the changes present in their lives.

Depending on the needs and presenting situation, therapy may involve all or just parts of the family. Therapy will help family members learn to interact in different ways, resolve conflicts, redefine roles and rules and notice their unique strengths.

Therapeutic Emphasis

• Teens

• Divorce

• Blended families

• Life changes

• Illness in the family

Benefits

• Conflict resolution

• Improved communication

• Decrease in behavior issues

• Ability for family members to self-soothe and cope with stresses

• Clear and flexible family roles and rules

• More harmonious family dynamics