How I Work with Couples

At the heart of my work is attachment theory - the understanding that our closest relationships become the place where we seek comfort, security, belonging, and emotional safety.

When those needs don't feel secure, couples often become trapped in predictable patterns of pursuing, withdrawing, criticizing, or shutting down. What appears to be "poor communication" is often a nervous system trying to protect itself.

Together, we'll slow those moments down, understand the attachment needs beneath them, and create new ways of reaching for one another that feel safer, calmer, and more connected.

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is one of the most extensively researched approaches to couples therapy because it helps partners move beyond recurring arguments into the deeper emotions driving them.

Rather than teaching you how to argue differently, EFT helps us understand why the same conflict keeps happening in the first place. We'll identify the cycle that has taken hold between you, soften the defenses protecting each partner, and build new conversations rooted in vulnerability, responsiveness, and trust.

When couples feel emotionally safe again, communication often changes naturally.

Insight is powerful - but lasting relationships also require practical skills.

Drawing from the Gottman Method, I help couples strengthen the everyday habits that support healthy relationships: repairing after conflict, navigating difficult conversations, managing emotional flooding, expressing needs more effectively, and creating meaningful rituals of connection.

These tools transform insight into something you can carry into everyday life, long after the session ends.

None of us enters a relationship without a history.

The families we grew up in quietly influence how we experience closeness, conflict, responsibility, love, and emotional safety. Often, those patterns continue without us realizing they're there.

A family systems perspective helps us recognize what belongs to your past so you can make intentional choices about the relationship you're creating today - not simply repeat the one you inherited.

The most important part of a conversation is often what isn't being said.

Relational and psychodynamic psychotherapy helps us understand the unconscious patterns, protective strategies, and early experiences that continue to shape how you relate to yourself and the people you love.

This depth-oriented work allows therapy to move beyond managing symptoms toward creating lasting transformation. Rather than simply changing behavior, we explore the emotional meaning behind it - because sustainable change begins with understanding.

Relationships are beautifully complex. That's why I don't believe in forcing every couple into the same framework.

Instead, I thoughtfully integrate attachment theory, Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), the Gottman Method, family systems, relational psychotherapy, and psychodynamic perspectives according to your unique relationship, goals, and stage of life.

Some couples need practical tools. Others need to heal old attachment wounds. Most benefit from both.

My role is to help you understand not only what's happening between you, but why - and to guide you toward a relationship that feels more secure, emotionally connected, and resilient.

I practice as a Marriage and Family Therapist Trainee and doctoral researcher under the clinical supervision of Dr. Markus Rogan, PsyD, LMFT. His depth-oriented work in relational and existential psychotherapy has been an important influence on my clinical development.