Couples Therapy
If you are currently in a relationship, our general recommendation is to come to the first appointment together with your partner. This helps us hear both perspectives on the issue, get a sense of your relationship dynamic, and hopefully get you both on board for treatment. Typically, but not always, we will schedule personal sessions for each of you so that we can get a deeper understanding of your individual histories or feelings. After this thorough assessment, we can make recommendations about how to best proceed. We tailor our approach to meet your unique needs. Sometimes we recommend couples therapy only. Other times, we may suggest an individual treatment focus.
Our couple’s therapy approach is pragmatic and collaborative, meaning we determine together which method is best for you. Our approach tends to be informed by the work of John Gottman, Sue Johnson (Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy)
Couples Therapy & Intimacy Issues
Couples therapy and Intimacy Issues are also our focuses. There are many causes for intimacy issues, and one may be that one person finds out that the other has same sex attraction and is struggling with their sexual preference. When this happens in a relationship, it can be devastating. We have mixed orientation marriage counseling, and other special groups that focus on women and men who have been in mixed orientation partnerships, and suddenly find out their spouse/partner may be gay. Treatment is directed towards helping the mixed orientation partners both understand what has happened, deal with the overwhelming emotions, and help them to decide what their course of action will be.
Other intimacy issues can focus on differences in desire, inability to talk about sexual issues, pain disorders, arousal disorders and a myriad of problems that can arise in a relationship. Sexual treatment and treatment of other intimacy issues focuses on helping the couple communicate and sorting out what the particular issue is and ascertaining if the problem is medical, psychological or both.