Great Couples Counseling in Mountain Lake Park, MD. Therapy to heal relationships.

Couples counseling is a type of therapy where a couple meets with a therapist to help them improve their relationship. My approach to couples counseling is to look at different areas of your relationship to determine what is missing from the relationship. Often when a relationship isn’t working, it’s because one or both partners aren’t getting their needs met. This can happen because there is a lack of communication or because they lack awareness about what their partner’s needs are or how to meet those needs. Either way, a discussion about what each person’s needs are and how they can be met will often resolve many problems in the relationship.

There are two most basic fears of intimacy that we all have: one is fear of abandonment, the other is fear of being taken over, of losing my autonomy. In a relationship, people often become polarized with one clinging and the other seeming distant. With awareness of our fears and how to take care of ourselves and each other, we will bring out the best in each other. Everyone knows how to speak and listen, right? Not so. The most difficult skills to learn are to speak self-responsibly about your own experience and to truly listen and understand the other person's experience even when you don't like it. To learn these skills enables love. I can help.

Couples therapy can be like inviting someone into your “home,” the special relational zone that you share with your significant other. Teletherapy can offer further enrichment to the therapeutic process, in addition to convenience factors. I strive to maintain a neutral and gentle perspective, helping you each observe and better manage your relational patterns of communion or disconnect. I can adapt my style to help you learn and practice new ways to empathize with your partner’s perspective, communicate effectively, resolve conflict and enjoy healthy connected-ness. I use tools such as the Myers-Briggs temperament styles, IMAGO techniques, and the Prepare-Enrich assessment survey.