Marriage & Couples
Relationships thrive when there is understanding. We can help!
We can help you reduce misunderstandings, manage conflict and get to a place of more meaningful and understanding interactions. Our approach to working with couples is authentically individualized for each client. Each therapist is uniquely gifted at building rapport, connecting with your concerns, and using our clinical training to provide you with the most authentic and meaningful therapeutic experience that you could ask for. We understand that you do not fit into a box and that you have genuine and unique needs. That is why we treat each client with absolute integrity and care, working to understand your concerns and help you understand each other's concerns.
Marriage and Couples Therapy - What To Expect: The first session will be a dual session with you and your partner together, assessing your couple issues, presenting problems, history of your relationship and get an overview of your couple goals.
Between the first and second session, you will be asked if you would like to participate with an online Gottman Assessment - Gottman Connect tool where you will complete an assessment online, helping your therapist develop a more thorough treatment plan. There is a $39.00 fee for the online assessment.
The second session will be an individual session with each partner. In this session we will hear your individual narrative of the problem, relevant family and relationship history, and a range of assessment questions to help us better understand your needs.
The third session is typically a dual session, sometimes called the feedback session, discussing the clinician's assessment summary, online assessment results and some psycho-education and treatment planning. If there is domestic violence or untreated substance abuse present in the relationship, we may recommend other services, and couples therapy may be contraindicated. If this is the case, we will give our recommendations for referral to other therapy and/or resources.
Subsequent therapy sessions will be spent helping you and your partner identify stuck areas and problem dynamics such as criticism, defensiveness, contempt, stonewalling and negative perspective. We will attempt to help you strengthen foundational areas such as rebuilding/strengthening friendship, turning towards, fondness and admiration and the positive perspective. We will help you with communication skills, gentle start-up, reflective listening, not taking things personal, more understanding, compromise, problem solving, and establishing a deeper more meaningful commitment and trust for each other. It is important that each of you invest yourself in the endeavor of understanding, gentleness, accountability, and self-control in order for seeing positive results.
Marriage & Couples Therapy FAQ’s
How many sessions are recommended?
We recommend 3 sessions for the initial assessment.
Initial interview with couple
Individual interviews
Feedback session with couple
We do not give an estimate of the number of sessions required to improve your relationship or marriage. The number of sessions is determined by your level of commitment and motivation to do the self-work and relationship work required for success. We often start with weekly sessions until you and your partner are mastering the skills and insight learned in therapy. Once both you and your therapist feel that you have demonstrated healthy communication, interaction and satisfaction, then we schedule less frequent check-in sessions. Most of our client's start off by committing to 6 months, and some stay with us even longer.
What is the investment cost?
Your first intake and assessment sessions will be 60 to 120 minutes at the cost of $105-$210 per session. If you elect to participate with the online Gottman Connect Assessment, that will be an additional $39 per couple. Follow up sessions are $105 for 55-minutes, $150 for 90-minutes and $200 for 110-minutes.
We believe in the principle of making therapy affordable. Our fees are already below market value ($150-$200 per 55-minute session). However, we want to make these services even more accessible. We have a select number of deeper discounts available upon request and discussion about your financial means and motivation towards treatment.
We do not accept insurance for marital and couples therapy at this time.
Why are you recommending me for individual therapy?
Sometimes couples therapy is contraindicated, meaning that there are times when couple therapy may put yourself and your therapist in danger. If there is active domestic violence in your relationship, and/or if one or both persons carries narcissistic traits or disorder, then therapy could be harmful. When this is the case, it is best to seek individual therapeutic supports and/or other community based supports.
Sometimes trauma contributes to being easily triggered, dysregulated and unable to communicate without conflict. When one or both persons is experiencing this kind of dynamic, we may recommend that you do individual therapy either prior to your couples work or side-by-side.
Sometimes one person is more invested in the relationship. Sometimes one person does not see the value of therapy or is not wanting to participate in therapy. When this is the case, we recommend that the person who is invested start/continue to see us to help build insight, process and work through problems associated with the difficult relationship.
There may be other reasons why we recommend individual work. Please talk to your therapist if you have any other questions or concerns.
Do you provide marriage intensives and/ or weekend retreats?
Marriage intensives are typically 3-5 day therapeutic events that help you and your spouse get to the root issues and achieve the deeper healing for more lasting mental health and relationship strengthening.
We do not provide intensives at this time, but are working toward the training and certification to provide these valuable services in the future.
If you would be interested in these types of intensives, please let us know.