Couples Therapy

It happens more than you might think. One partner is ready and the other is skeptical, hurt, or just not sure therapy is the answer. That ambivalence is real, and it is worth respecting — not overriding. A good starting place is a free consultation together, where you can both ask questions, feel the room, and decide without any pressure. You do not have to be equally enthusiastic to show up. Sometimes the partner who came reluctantly is the one who gets the most out of it. What matters most is that both of you are willing to try, even tentatively, and that neither of you is being pressured or coerced into being there. If something about the situation makes you uncertain whether couples work is safe or appropriate, bring that to the consultation — that is exactly the kind of thing worth sorting out together before we start.

No. My job is not to decide who is right. In most couples, both partners are doing something that makes sense given their own history and nervous system — and both are hurting. The framework I work from, Emotionally Focused Therapy, treats the cycle you are both caught in as the problem, not either of you as the villain. That means I am genuinely curious about each of you, and I will challenge each of you at different points — but always in service of understanding, not as a verdict. If one session ends and you feel like I was harder on you, bring it up. That is useful information and worth talking about openly. What you will not get from me is a scorecard.

Yes — and the repeating fight is usually one of the clearest places to start. When a couple has the same argument on a loop, it is almost always because the surface topic (the dishes, the in-laws, the spending) is standing in for something older and deeper. One partner moves toward in protest; the other moves away to manage the conflict; both end up feeling alone. Once that underlying cycle has a name, it stops feeling like a character flaw and starts feeling like something you can work with together. That is not a quick fix — naming the pattern is just the beginning — but most couples notice a real shift once they stop fighting each other and start looking at the cycle side by side.

Couples therapy is not only for saving a relationship — it is for making a clear-eyed decision about one. Some couples come in already knowing they want to stay and need tools for how. Others come in genuinely uncertain, and the work is about figuring out what is true, separately and together. Both are legitimate reasons to be here. What therapy offers in that second situation is a slowed-down, supported space where both people can say what has been hard to say, hear each other without the conversation immediately escalating, and get a clearer sense of what each of you actually needs. Whatever you decide, doing that with some structure around it tends to be less painful — and less ambiguous — than circling the question alone for another year.

More than most of us realize. The ways we learned to get our needs met — or protect ourselves when they weren't — follow us into adult relationships. Someone who grew up in a household where conflict meant danger learns to go quiet when things get tense. Someone who grew up feeling overlooked protests loudly to make sure they are heard. Neither is irrational; both are strategies that made sense once. The trouble is that those strategies tend to read as threats to the other person, which triggers their own protective response, and the cycle takes over. My somatic and depth training means we can work directly with those patterns when they come up in the room — not just talk about them in the abstract, but actually slow them down and help each of you find a different way through.

Before a first couples session I usually meet with each of you individually — once, briefly — so I can hear each person's perspective without the other in the room. That context helps me show up better when we are all three together. The first joint session is mostly about getting oriented: what brought you in, what you each hope for, and what you have already tried. I will ask questions, listen for the pattern underneath the content, and give you a sense of how I think we might work. You will not be put on the spot or asked to recreate your worst argument in the first hour. It is more like a careful beginning than a performance — a chance to see whether this feels like the right room.

Yes to both. I see couples by secure video all over California, and that works well for most of the work we do together. If you and your partner are in the same place, you join from one screen. If you are temporarily in different cities — travel for work, a trial separation, or just one partner who is usually remote — each of you can join from your own device. The screen does require a little more intentionality: a private space, no interruptions, and some willingness to stay present without the physical cues you would have in a room together. Most couples adapt quickly. If you prefer in person, I see couples at my Irvine office as well. We can figure out what makes the most sense for your situation on the consultation call.

Not necessarily, though sometimes it helps. Couples therapy focuses on the dynamic between you — the cycle, the communication, the connection. Individual therapy goes deeper into one person's interior: their history, nervous system, and the parts of them that predate the relationship. Some people find that doing both at once accelerates things; others find it is too much to hold. I will not push you toward individual work unless it seems genuinely useful for what we are doing together. If it does seem useful, I will say so and we can talk through what that might look like — whether with me, if I have availability, or with someone else. Coordinating care between therapists is normal and something I handle regularly.