Great Couples Counseling in Upper Montclair, NJ. Therapy to heal relationships.

In session, our couples learn to build a strong marriage and healthy relationship through improved communication, conflict resolution, managing expectation, reconnect and more. We work with couples living together or long distance. We guide them along the way implementing various methods to help them develop new attitudes towards life’s most complex matters. 

Couples counseling is the focus-area of my practice. Within that specialization, more specifically, I work with couples coping with infidelity and affair recovery. At the cornerstone of my approach to couples counseling is to help couples deepen their trust and establish a safe emotional climate between them. Counseling is conducted with compassion, warmth and respect. I have helped many couples restore and deepen their connections with one another and I would be honored to help you and your partner too.

Each couple is unhappy in its own way, but the core of the unhappiness is always miscommunication. Generally each member of a couple brings bad communication habits to the relationship and these habits clash. I use an eclectic approach to couples therapy that combines the latest research, utilizing psychoanalysis, role playing, role reversal, video and practice in constructive communication skills. In time, couples learn to communicate in a way that leads to resolution, not conflict.

The quality of relationships is central to your well-being; however, relational stress is often difficult to manage. Your ability to develop meaningful and healthy connections can greatly improve when you learn strategies to improve your communication. With my therapeutic support, we will examine your interactions to determine what is causing or maintaining your interpersonal conflicts. I look forward to help you improve your relationship style and connections with others. My therapeutic strategies aim at gaining confidence, effectively communicate your needs in a warm and non-threading manner, and experience greater joy in your personal connections.

Marriage counseling, couples therapy, premarital counseling and help with all tpes of relationship problems. I help couples dealing with all types of relationships problems such as dealing with conflict, communication, intimacy, and perhaps, infidelity. I'm experienced helping people with common relationship issues including problems communicating, fighting about sex (lack of or lack of interest), arguments about money, children, exes, not feeling respected, appreciated, or not making your relationship a priority. All relationships encounter problems from time to time and if you and your partner are unable to resolve issues on your own, therapy may help.

Relationships can be a most demanding part of life, especially when the best of intentions seem to deteriorate into bickering and useless arguments. I help couples understand and change the patterns and dynamics that keep them stuck. Areas addressed can be communication, conflict resolution, roles played, family interactions, and many other relevant stress-areas.

Audrey believes strongly that good couple's therapy does not aim to fix the relationship, but rather uses the relationship as a opportunity to develop individual insight and personal growth for both members of the relationship. Through this insight, you will develop behavioral changes that help to optimize your joint relationship experience. I use communication exercises, insight through inherited family wounds, and light challenging techniques to help couples work better together.

In my approach to couples counseling, I integrate the Gottman Method, a research-based approach designed to improve communication, resolve conflicts, and deepen emotional connection. Using this method, I help couples identify destructive patterns and replace them with healthy, constructive interactions. By focusing on building trust, fostering intimacy, and enhancing problem-solving skills, I guide couples toward a stronger, more resilient partnership. Couples benefit from a deeper understanding of each other, improved conflict resolution, and a renewed sense of connection and commitment.

We know that even the healthiest relationships experience times where they feel lonely, and like their love has run its course. It is easy to let the stress of work, family and unexpected life events you affect you. Couples counseling gives couples the tools to improve communication, strengthen intimacy and deal with conflict. When you attend couples counseling with Transformation Counseling Services, we dig deep beneath the surface to uncover what has caused unhealthy communication. Our therapist specialize in working with all types of couples in every type of relationship. We work with LGBTQ+ couples as well as couples in non-traditional relationships. Please contact us for more info

Dr. Joel Stukalin and Dr. Sara Mandelbaum are particularly sensitive to the needs of unmarried couples, such as conflicts regarding trust, fidelity, emotional-bonding, finances, future-planning, resistance to committment. We have specialized in couples work for 40 years and have been highly praised by clients as attuned psychologists who truly understand the problems and frustrations of couples living together. As child psychologists, we additionally help couples negotiate important issues with child-care concerns. Dr. Joel and Dr. Sara offer realistic models to improve empathic-communication and problem-resolution with minimum disruption. Meaningful change can start within 4 sessions.

I love working with couples and especially high conflict couples. I draw on the Gottman Method, an evidence-based couples therapy that starts with a detailed relationship checkup and great communication tools that will transform how you talk and listen to each other. Couples come to me for everything from dating challenges, premarital counseling, and marital check-ups to serious conflict, infidelity, ambivalence about staying together, and even recovering from emotional or physical abuse. I am trained to help you strengthen your relationship.

Our intimate relationships can be our greatest source of happiness or the source of our deepIest pain. My desire is to help you explore how your beliefs and choices have disrupted your relationship and have undermined your personal happiness. Good relationships require mutual respect, flexibility, and commitment. If you have lost your way and find yourself stuck in repetitive and destructive patterns of interaction, I can help you identify and understand what is driving those patterns and determine strategies for overcoming them.