Many couples live with the myth that a loving relationship should be easy, effortless -- and if it isn't, something is seriously wrong and perhaps the relationship just wasn't meant to be.  I approach couples therapy from a different point of view - that it takes hard work to sustain an authentic intimate relationship.  Often couples simply lack the tools and resources they need to build a long-lasting and evolving intimacy. Couples therapy is a place to develop these tools and resources.  In couples therapy, the "relationship" is the client - my goal as a couples therapist is to support and explore this relationship so it can nuture the individuals in it.

Couples therapy is a place to slow down the system so that each person in the relationship can be fully seen, heard, and known.  I believe that couples often find each other because the other is an excellent teacher and healer of earlier wounds - although it can take some time and a process of deepening to understand how and why this may be the case!  My somatic background lends itself to direct work with the information available in couples' bodies - how does a couple turn toward or away from each other? How do they touch each other?  Often these small, non-verbal ways of connecting are the 'missing things' that a couple just can't figure out, but also can't live without.  Couples therapy is a place to talk about sex - what's working, what isn't working, what are each person's fantasies and how can they be explored within the boundaries of the relationship?  I believe that a passionate and lasting sex life is available to couples who are willing to work for it.  I work with couples who want to have less conflict, and I work with couples who feel stagnant and stuck and want to turn up the heat.  I work with couples around issues of infidelity, and believe that a relationship can survive it and that trust can be restored.  I also work with couples who may decide to break up, but want to do it in a loving and respectful way.