Growing a Loving Partnership 

• Do you or your partner become angry, defensive or attacking over seemingly trivial matters?
• Do you find yourselves trapped in repetitive cycles that end in disconnection? 
• Do you fear sharing what scares you? 
• Do you routinely keep the peace by denying your own needs and wants, only to become resentful?
• Do you long for greater emotional or sexual intimacy with your partner? 
• Have you discovered your partner is mis-using internet pornography?
• Do you worry that your partner is having or had an affair?
• Do you simply want to grow a stronger bond with your partner?

Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) is an evidence-based, person-centered approach to couples therapy (married or not). It is grounded in adult attachment theory, which views human beings as innately relational, social and wired for intimate bonding with others. 

The EFT model prioritizes emotion and emotional regulation as central to our experience of relationships, and works to create healing experiences that address dysfunctional communication and reactivity that can keep us from emotional intimacy.

You will gain the ability to communicate in more powerful ways that foster greater security, trust, and emotional intimacy with your partner. Through a structured approach, you will become aware of your negative cycles, including how and what triggers them; practice new ways of communicating with greater vulnerability; and develop more emotional awareness and regulation. 

With empathic support, I create space where you can become fully aware of your unrecognized, unshared “primary” connective emotions—such as fear and shame—and aware of your reactive disconnecting “secondary” emotions—such as anger and resentment—that often trigger a couple’s fights. This is the first step in making powerful shifts.

“No one can dance with a partner and not touch each other’s raw spots. We must know what these raw spots are and be able to speak about them in a way that pulls our partner closer to us.” —Sue Johnson

Through our sessions, you’ll create a more conscious partnership.

• Come to know yourself and your partner in more emotionally profound ways
• Stay emotionally engaged and available
• Express your needs clearly and directly and in a way your partner can respond to
• Define yourself rather than reacting to how your partner may define you
• Establish new positive patterns of communication
• Create safe, secure bonds between one another