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Couples Therapy

Hands-LogoThe Science and Art of Relationship

"For one human being to love another;
that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks,
the ultimate, the last test and proof,
the work for which all other work is but preparation  "

- Rainer Maria Rilke

We are biologically wired for relationship.

Despite relationship being so natural, it tends to be an area of human experience that is equally challenging, puzzling, and painful as it is rewarding, transformative, and blissful.

Why?

I am committed to finding answers, and I believe they can be found in contemporary neuroscience, direct observation and deeper introspection.

All too often, couples get stuck in cycles of fighting, withdrawal, and shutdown, without understanding the primitive biological and personally historic underpinnings that color the experience. When couples are caught in these dysregulating cycles, the loving connection once enjoyed in the relationship begins to wither. When this repeats in an ongoing way, our lover begins to seem more like an enemy than someone with whom we have been deeply in love. Add to this the stresses of careers, child rearing, and an over-scheduled life, and we inadvertently end up battling, in power struggles, or fleeing towards safety rather than utilizing the relationship's full potential for intimacy, nourishment and connection.

My work with couples involves an experiential study of the habitual patterns that lead away from connection and instead trigger those primitive strategies of fight, flight and freeze. With mindfulness (the ability to observe our experience while it is occurring) and small experiments in real-time, a couple begins to understand the unchecked forces driving their relationship towards stress, reactivity or boredom, away from deeper satisfaction. This understanding allows for greater empathy and an increased sense of responsibility to the relationship. Couples begin to co-create a relationship where they can experiment with more mature and satisfying ways of interacting. This deepens intimacy on all levels, including sexuality.