EMDR Certified
EFT Trained
Underneath the repeating arguments, distance and tension is a longing to feel close again.
Even when you're with your partner you constantly feel alone at best and criticized or frustrated at worst. You’re stuck in the same cycles of misunderstanding which only lead to more hurt, disappointment and disconnection.
Perhaps you're struggling with a specific set of issues such as difficulties around finances, parenting, sex, or work-life balance. Or maybe you're not sure where to start. You just know that you need a new way of reaching your partner.
EFT is an evidence-based approach to therapy that allows you and your partner to talk about disagreements in more constructive ways and rebuild trust, intimacy, love, connection, confidence and pleasure into your relationship
Most couples have similar or identical fights over and over again irrespective of what they are arguing about. For example; when one person is upset, they might say something which the other partner perceives as critical, which triggers a natural defensiveness, which leads to an argument. It doesn’t matter whether we are talking about taking out the trash, lack of sex, parenting issues, or finances. It’s not about what you are fighting about, it’s about how you are fighting and the meaning each partner makes of the issue(s) at hand and the fight itself.
In EFT, we slow things down to help each partner notice what’s really happening beneath the surface of this repeating “negative cycle” of communication.
We explore:
The specifics of what triggers each of you during conflict.
Why your attempts to reach your partner don’t land the way you hope they will and instead, lead to triggering your partner, and what and how to change
The automatic reactions that follow- and what those reactions are trying to protect
How this all adds up to a repeating “negative cycle” between you
The underlying emotions which we are often unaware of or unsure how to communicate to our partners which fuel these reactions in the first place.
By slowing the conversation down in this way, you and your partner will begin to develop not just an intellectual understanding of what is happening between you in these conflicts, but also begin to intuitively notice it in real time. This type of noticing will begin to create space for you to do something different.
During this process, I will also help you try out numerous strategies for avoiding this negative cycle; this means that I will help you express the same needs in ways which don’t trigger your partner, and which they are more likely to receive positively and vice versa. Eventually with enough repetition, this way of relating will become the “new normal”.
Couples therapy with me is about more than just improving communication. It’s about reshaping the foundation of your relationship so you never encounter these problems again.
EFT goes beyond helping couples stop fighting. It focuses on deeper questions fueling every conflict such as—do I feel safe & loved? Able to be myself? Do I matter to my partner? When the answer is “no” or “I’m not sure,” communication tools alone rarely create lasting change. This is why other forms of therapy often lead to couples needing to return months or years later with the same problems.
In the second part of therapy, we will work directly with these deeper beliefs and also address past hurts such as infidelity, addiction, or abuse in a way that helps couples truly move forward. This deeper process is why EFT is the only couples therapy model consistently shown to create long-term, lasting change.
By the end of our work, many couples feel closer than they have in years or decades- sometimes closer than they’ve ever felt. For some, it’s the first time a relationship has truly felt like home.
It is not uncommon for partners who have gone through this process to report a stronger bond than they ever had. Some partners even report feeling truly understood by their partner for the first time ever. This also makes it far more likely that you and your partner can solve the problems that brought you here to begin with; once you feel like you are on the same team as your partner, this opens the door to newfound creativity and flexibility in solving your problems. For more about this, see my FAQ.
EFT Can Help You…
Name the patterns of communication which leave you feeling stuck and unable to reach your partner and learn how to bridge the gap
Identify and believe in strengths- yours, your partner’s and your relationships as a foundation to lean back on when things are difficult
Create a safe enough relationship culture such that new, more positive styles of communication become available to you and your relationship
Learn how to get in touch with and express how you feel to your partner from a place of vulnerability- so that conflict can become a source of connection instead of loneliness and hurt
Reshape your relationship such that you both feel secure, loved, valued, safe and connected