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Approach
Consulting. Observing. Workshopping. Feedback.

Couples bring questions like these to therapy:

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  • Why aren't we communicating like we used to?

  • How do we fight less but productively?

  • How do we get attraction, synergy and romance back?

  • How do we resolve apparently recurring problems and disagreements?

  • How do we bring into being the better future we can imagine?

  • How can we heal from a betrayal?

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"Couple therapy" as the overall umbrella is something of a misnomer. Stimulating processes of change in couples work is usually better handled through consulting and workshopping than through traditional talk therapy. Consulting means identifying blocks to satisfaction in how you function as a couple, some of which is by your own report but much of which is by way of my observing how you work with each other in session. Workshopping is giving you feedback on your efforts and deciding on how to tweak or fundamentally alter how you go about working with each other, then trying these out in session with more feedback and further tryings out.  Consulting and workshopping integrate seamlessly to create a fluid learning process that is therapeutic because it addresses difficult, painful complaints. An important exception is injuries created by the discovery of recent betrayals. In these cases we shift to a more overtly therapeutic mode in order to foreground a partner's recovery until the couple is ready to rebuild the relationship.

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We leverage and stitch together several areas of knowledge​ to support change:

  • Interaction, language, communication

  • Attachment

  • Affect, arousal, will

  • Memory

  • Adult learning & change 

  • Trauma

and for some couples:

  • Culture and cross-cultural communication patterns.

 

The goal for this work is always sustainable secure functioning – creating fair, sensitive, just & collaborative arrangements that work for everyone. 

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