Thoughts From a Therapist
Marriages & Couples
Tips for keeping your relationship happy and healthy
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How to Become a Better Communicator: The Four Purposes of Communication
Good emotional communication begins with recognizing what a conversation is for. We may be playing, solving a practical problem, seeking connection, or creating shared…
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What Is Cycle Work in Couples Therapy? How Every Interaction Can Spiral Into Conflict or Connection
In couples therapy, a cycle is the circle two people create when each person’s response becomes the other’s next stimulus. Inside every turn, each…
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Why Can’t I Change Even When I Understand My Patterns?
Why can’t we change patterns we already understand? Analysis can circle a problem endlessly until curiosity, regulation, and connection create an off-ramp.
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What Makes Your Partner Feel Loved? The Pathways to Importance
People feel loved in very different ways. A therapist’s map of the pathways to importance – from desire and felt safety to being truly…
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How to Make Your Partner Feel Important: The Attachment Habit Most Couples Miss
The foundation of a secure relationship isn’t better conflict repair – it’s consistently helping your partner feel important. A therapist on the maintenance habit…
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What Is a Long-Term Relationship For?
Most of us know what we want from a relationship, but few of us stop to examine what a long-term partnership is actually for.…
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Treading Water / the Addiction to Doing
Some people believe that if they stop kicking, they will drown. They are exhausted, and they also trust the effort more than the water.…
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Intellectualization in Relationships | When Insight Replaces Contact
Highly intelligent couples often default to analysis instead of connection. This post explores how intellectualization protects us—and how it can quietly limit intimacy when…
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How to Listen Empathically | Staying Present When Defensiveness Takes Over
Listening empathically is less about technique and more about staying present with your partner’s experience—especially in the moments when defensiveness begins to reorganize your…
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Why Do People Get Divorced? | The Myth We Blame and What Is Actually Happening
Most people believe divorce happens because couples fight too much. In reality, conflict is usually a symptom of deeper relational structures. Understanding differentiation, systemic…
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Love, Acceptance, and Growth | What Real Love Actually Asks of Us
Love involves more than blind acceptance; it requires balance between acceptance and growth. Authentic love respects individual uniqueness while also encouraging partners to develop…
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Double Binds in Co-Parenting After Divorce
The parenting plan is essential post-divorce, as it navigates the emotional conflicts partners face regarding time with their child. It provides a pre-negotiated structure,…
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Emotional and Social Intelligence as a Living Balance | A Map for When You Want to Grow
This content discusses the importance of emotional and social intelligence for personal growth, emphasizing the need for balance in various capacities such as self-awareness,…
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Codependence and the Quiet Agreement Not to Grow
The content explores how comfort can create a codependent environment that stifles personal growth. It highlights that prioritizing stability often leads to enabling behaviors,…
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When Intimacy Feels Unsafe: Understanding Fear Responses in Trusting Relationships
We flinch from the very thing we long for. This is one of the most painful paradoxes in human relationships. In moments where trust…
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Resilience, Humility, and the Temptation to Be Neurotic
Resilience involves embracing uncomfortable emotions like shame and guilt rather than avoiding them. True resilience is relational, allowing for emotional presence and accountability, particularly…
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Interventions in Relational Counseling
Relational therapy utilizes various acronym-based models to guide therapists. It emphasizes the importance of integrating different theoretical approaches for effective interventions, highlighting key intervention…
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Happy Relationship – loving another as yourself – loving we to love me
A relationship is a system… it is a whole with interconnecting parts – and the whole ends up being greater than the sum of…
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What is the purpose of Marriage?
In this post I will share some of the variables that can be experienced from a life long commitment or marriage. The purpose is…
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Feedback loop in a Couples interaction
Quick summary: In a Couples interaction there tend to be dynamics that are reoccurring which spiral out of control and lead to a vicious…
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