I use a combination of Gottman Method Couples Therapy with Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, and concepts of maintaining and sustaining relationships while expressing your deeper values and needs.

While I love helping all couples engage in productive conflict, create stronger bonds, and connect through vulnerability, I particularly enjoy working with members of my own LGBTQ+ community.

Do you find yourself in unproductive arguments that don't go anywhere or never seem to get resolved? The kind that immediately become problematic, leave you feeling frustrated and angry, and just don’t go away?

We experience conflict quickly, like an instinct. When someone throws something at us, we immediately cover our face with our hands. This happens without thinking. It is only later that we take the time to assess what has happened, when our brains can intellectually make sense of what was thrown at us, why it was thrown at us, what the level of danger really is. But initially, our survival instinct kicks in.

Many times conflict occurs when we are navigating the point where acting as an individual and acting as a member of a couple overlap. I can help you remain an individual while also being in a couple.

Conflict taps into our survival instinct and our need for connection, relationship, and attachment with others. We can feel overwhelmed with an instinctual level of fear. Physiological sensations, hormones, thoughts, and feelings flood our systems.

Putting words to these experiences may sound like:

“If I tell them how I’m feeling, will they still love me?”

“I’m so scared, I must fight for this!”

“I hate conflict so much; I need to stop this immediately or get out of here.”

“I love them, so I’ll leave them alone.”

“They’re important to me, so I’ll remain silent and tend to their needs.”

Many times, conflict occurs when we are navigating the point where acting as an individual and acting as a member of a couple overlap. I can help you remain an individual, state your needs, address the feelings of straining the bond between you, while also maintaining the connection you have and want as a couple.

I can help you express your deeper values, fears, and vulnerabilities to each other without breaking the bond you share.

You can learn how to slow arguments down and see that there are spaces and gaps where changes can be made. Spaces where you decide to do things differently. Where you can allow your brain to catch up with your body and feel good about how you act and who you are when you disagree.