As a marriage and family therapist I work with couples, individuals, and families with relationship challenges. Therapy helps clients recognize and resolve conflicts and improve their relationships. Some couples seek marriage therapy to strengthen their bonds and gain a better understanding of each other. Through dissertment therapy, you can make thoughtful decisions about woking on your relationship, keeping things status quo, or going your separate ways.
Individuals and couples seek counseling for a variety of reasons. Often the reasons are to improve communication, resolve ongoing conflict, increase levels of intimacy, resolve sexual desire or dysfunction problems, power struggles, infidelity, addiction, parenting conflict, or blended family concerns. You can use couples counseling to address many specific issues, including:
- Communication problems
- Sexual difficulties
- Conflicts about child rearing or blended families
- Substance abuse
- Financial problems
- Anger
- Infidelity
- Divorce
The basic principles of the process of counseling include: normalizing feelings, allowing a neutral open place for each person’s feelings and thoughts to be heard, change or broaden each person’s view of the relationship, improve communication, recognize and change unhealthy patterns in the relationship, and understand and manage reactive emotions.
I have a strong commitment to helping clients find the tools to create their own happiness in relationships and enrich their connectedness to the world and the people around them. My theoretical orientation is based on Bowen Family Systems Theory and the work of Dr. David Schnarch. Both are centered around the concept of differentiation – a person’s ability to maintain a sense of self while in an emotionally and physically close relationship with another, balancing the need for attachment with the need for autonomy. Managing our own emotions and intellect allows us to more fully enjoy our own lives as well as engage in more meaningful, less conflicted relationships.