Great Couples Counseling in Snohomish, WA. Therapy to heal relationships.

Communication problems are listed as the number one reason why couples come into my office. Learning effective communication, how to love and be loved, how to cherish a relationship and enjoy one another, are areas I help couples with. We give love like we like to receive it. Not everyone likes to receive it the same way. Finding out your love language and your partners can make a huge difference in your relationship.

I deeply appreciate working with couples. Discovering the gifts and teachings you have for each other, supporting the deep love that is so often part of the pain between you, deepening the continuing journey of more authentic awareness of each other, and even working to let go of a relationship that no longer serves you is often magical. We explore the patterns that support and undermine your relationship, the constructs of belief, habit, and expectation that these hold in place, the ways to shift your part in them, and what is core to those fights about "stupid things". Working with how you communicate and moving you away from blame and shame builds a foundation for relational healing.

The goal in Couples Counseling is to reroute the patterns that cause distancing and wall-building between couples. This creates a space that fosters tighter bonding and a team orientation. Couples Counseling teaches individuals how to disarm communication that leads to conflict, increasing the couple's sense of intimacy, and restoring the respect and affection often lost in the process of learning to live together. Couples learn to remove the barriers that lead to stagnancy in relationship. The hard truth is that couples fight. Feelings get hurt. People often feel betrayed. Relationships can be turned around as couples learn to fight effectively, with the intent to resolve, not to "win!"

Having a third party present can make it much easier to talk about what is troubling your relationship without descending into fighting or avoidance. In a supportive environment, your therapist will help you understand how your history as individuals as well as a couple is contributing to your current disconnection, breaches of trust, lack of intimacy, and inability to communicate and reach workable agreements. Learn skills to better understand and respect one another, be able to reach toward each other for love and support, have fulfilling experiences of intimacy and connection, and create a life that represents each of you and both of you.

Our work together encourages open and honest relating • increases listening without judgement and speaking without anger • decreases fighting, bickering and cold shoulders • enhances intimacy, sexuality and satisfaction • dissolves hurtful and dysfunctional patterns of behavior. The process is available to anyone willing to invest time and energy. All that is required is an open mind.

Healthy relationships are central to our well-being in life. Couples in distress are stuck in unproductive patterns that overshadow the love that brought you together. Couples counseling is neutral ground to deal with challenges, from infidelity to finances. Our time together will help you develop communication skills, solve problems, and improve intimacy. I use Emotionally Focused Therapy and Gottman techniques to help you repair and restore attachment bonds in your primary partnership.

Relationships are difficult and many relationships can be healed if given the opportunity. I believe in addressing core issues in a relationship that address the couple itself. Why is the couple acting in this cycle and what can I do to help you identify your cycle and find a healthy way of interacting. I draw much of my work from Dr. John Gottman's research on healthy relationships and am not afraid of giving frank feedback when I feel couples are being verbally or emotionally abusive to each other. I believe in setting clear boundaries so couples learn to fight fairly so both sides can communicate their needs with each other without feeling shamed, degraded, or criticized.

Your relationship with your partner is one of the biggest determinants of your overall happiness and wellbeing. I provide integrated Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (attachment style focused) and Gottman Method couples therapy. I am trained and have over a decade of clinical experience in providing couple's therapy. You and your partner will be supported in identifying the patterns in your conflicts, getting confident in creating solutions to old unresolved issues or injuries, and making sustained connection a part of your relationship. Living resentment-free and moving past old hurts is possible. I also provide pre-marital sessions for couples preparing to get married.

When I work with couples, I am very intentional about first listening to both individuals and then seeking to slow down the process of how you communicate with one another. By doing this, we are practicing and preparing you both for those real, in-the-moment conversations that seem to keep you stuck in the same place. By growing in your ability to listen to each other, you will begin to understand what it is that your significant other needs and you will begin to feel more heard and understood. When you do this, more often than not, you are able to break those old habits of communicating and relating to each other. Call me to find out more about this process.

You can be happy in your relationship. We can help! Being a couple can be hard these days and couples counseling is very helpful in solving relationship problems, teaching positive and effective communication, encouraging intimacy and healthy connections with each other, recognizing and stopping destructive relationship behaviors, and promoting understanding, love, acceptance, and compassion for each other and yourselves. Being a couple takes knowledge, skill, and practice. It takes a willingness to be open and learn new ways of talking with and seeing your partner. For most people change is possible. We can guide you on this journey of discovery and growth.

I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) with years of training and experience helping couples to navigate the most painful and difficult chapter in their relationships. I will guide you with compassion, empathy, and a skill set that is born in working with couples across the country in their healing journeys. I have been featured in Forbes, the Knot, and other leading media outlets discussing relationships, intimacy, and communication. I’d love to connect with you and your partner about the unique circumstances that you are facing and how I might be able to help.

Couples come with all sorts of problems. Maybe there's no sex in your life (or not enough). Maybe there's been infidelity (or one or both of you is considering it or suspecting it). Maybe you find it difficult to talk with one another. Maybe it's in-laws or your partner's friends that don't quite mesh well with you. Regardless of what the problem is, I can help you reignite the passion in your life for one another. Come talk to me.

When we choose a partner in life we hope for good times shared together--and to have someone to lean on and mutually support through the tough times. That's why it's so deeply painful when your relationship is strained or broken. Our counselors at Mill Creek Family Services help you get to the heart of the matter and rebuild the relationship you desire. Through the counseling process you find that you're communicating more effectively, resolving conflicts much more quickly, and deepening the love and fulfillment that first brought you together.