What is it like to work with me?

I offer both short-term & long term counseling depending on your emotional, financial, & scheduling needs.

If short-term, we'll set clear & manageable goals to keep the focus fairly narrow. Some examples of short term goals would be to process a recent breakup, learn how to talk about money, or navigate a holiday season. If longer term, we'll work on the broader communication & connection issues that you struggle with daily.

I use a depth approach that acknowledges the communication underbellies, that underneath a simple fight about taking out the garbage or coming home late are layers of history & emotions that keep us cycling through the same arguments. I will work with you to recognize these stuck places and help you break the patterns of anger, frustration & disconnection. Counseling is hard work, sure -- but it is also engaging, intense, fun and dynamic.

I will help you build a foundation.

Here are some articles I've written that will give you a feel for my counseling style.

WHY INDIVIDUAL RELATIONSHIP COUNSELING?

If you find yourself repeating the same relationship patterns over & over again, I will help you assess how you get stuck & work with you to change these patterns.

If you've just begun a new relationship & want to be sure you are showing up for it in a real and honest way, we will take a look at your attachment style and how it affects your connection.  

If your relationships at work, your family connections, or friendships feel challenging, we can check out where the complications show up, locate patterns, say good-bye to toxic relationships, and practice nurturing the ones that need tending. Working one-on-one gives you the focus to look closely at how you contribute to disfunction in your relationships and to work intensely with me to make changes.

WHY MARRIAGE COUNSELING?

WHY COUPLES COUNSELING?

If you are like many couples, by the time you start the search for marriage counseling or couples counseling, it is hard to believe anything will help you get back on track. Maybe the distance between you and your partner feels like a huge chasm. Maybe you can't remember a time when you weren't fighting over every seemingly small thing. Maybe that romantic feeling hasn't been there in years.

Or maybe you are just starting out and want to be sure your relationship doesn't blow up or the passion doesn't burn out once you are beyond the honeymoon phase.

Couples come to counseling for many reasons. For some, it is simply an opportunity to “fine tune” their relationship by adding new communication tools to their already well-stocked kit. Some couples may have hit an impasse, dealing with major life changes such as becoming parents for the first time, facing a newly empty nest, coming to terms with the aging of their own parents, or a change in career or financial status. Other couples are at a precipice, and know that without some intervention and dramatic changes, their marriage or relationship will end.

"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."  
 -T.S. Eliot