Couples therapy

Intimate relationships have the potential to be among the most sustaining and fulfilling experiences in our lives. They can also evoke some of our deepest vulnerabilities and become the setting for recurring conflict, disappointment and injury.

My goal in couples therapy is to help partners build a more secure and robust relationship—one that is more open, intimate, playful and fulfilling, and better able to withstand the inevitable stresses of a life shared over time.

Couples come to therapy struggling with many different issues: recurring conflict, parenting, work and family demands, money, sex, illness, infertility, infidelity, ageing, loss, in-laws, or simply a growing sense of distance from one another. Whatever brings a couple into therapy, I am interested not only in the problem itself but in what happens between the partners as they try to deal with it.

Much of my couples work is informed by PACT (Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy), an approach grounded in attachment, developmental neuroscience and the close observation of partners' moment-to-moment interactions.

Together we work to understand the self-protective strategies each partner brings to the relationship and how those strategies can interact to produce recurring cycles of misattunement, conflict and injury. We pay close attention to what happens between you in the session: how you respond to one another, where communication breaks down, what happens when either of you feels threatened or misunderstood, and what makes repair possible.

An important goal of this work is the development of a secure relationship characterized by mutual care. This does not mean eliminating conflict or asking partners always to agree. It means developing a relationship in which each partner becomes increasingly able to remain aware of both self and other—to recognize the impact of one's behavior, respond to the other's vulnerability without abandoning one's own experience, repair injuries more quickly, and participate actively in protecting the relationship.

Over time, these capacities can provide a stronger foundation for emotional and sexual intimacy, greater vitality and more effective partnership in facing the demands of a shared life.

I have completed the highest level of PACT training, have worked for seven years as senior PACT faculty and clinical editor and remain actively involved in ongoing professional training and consultation.