Marital Counseling

Marital Counseling facilitates the care and regulation of each other’s arousal states so that couples can discuss and resolve problems and keeping a safe and secure relationship. At the outset of the therapy process, I will conduct a thorough assessment of the couple’s family dynamic and attachment experiences and explore the goals and intentions of the couple. Some come to therapy because they feel that their relationship is “okay” but that it is missing something and they’d like to enhance their relationship. Others may come because they feel their relationship is really broken and need help fixing it. For some, one or both of them are trying to figure out how to leave the relationship but learn they really want to stay in it. Helping the couple identify their goals and intentions of therapy is very important and will greatly help the marital counseling process.



Couples usually come in reporting that they want to communicate better, find better ways of dealing with disagreements and disputes, have more caring experiences, cultivate fondness and loving feelings toward each other, achieve a higher level of emotional and physical intimacy, and have a greater understanding of their partner. They may have issues related to sex, money, jealousy, infidelity, parenting, illness, in-laws, or life transitions problems that need to be resolved. These are really important things to work on, however, in order to have a constructive discussion and find a resolution to the problem, the couple will need to learn how to attune, care for, and regulate each other’s arousal states. If couples are not able to do this, during such discussions, chances are the couple system will become dysregulated and one person or sometimes both will shut down or storm out. Unresolved conflicts/injuries that result in storming out or shutting down will go into your long-term memory. Empathic failures increase in number and intensity and misappraisals of each other’s intention increase. When this pattern of interacting continues, over time, it leads to lack of safety and security in the relationship. Marital therapy will help the couple learn how to regulate the couple system so they can resolve problems and still keep your relationship safe and secure so that you can have a lasting affection and connection in your marriage. When needed, a therapist will also use the PREPARE/ENRICH assessment tool. My couple therapy sessions are 80 minutes, much longer than the insurance standard sessions of 45-50 minutes. Insurances will not authorize it, thus a portion of the time will be contracted out and paid out of pocket.