Couples may experience a need for professional assistance in helping them understand why areas of their relationship are so painful or frustrating. Other couples may want to take a longer time to explore specific emotional areas of their relationship that have been unfulfilled and hurtful. And other couples may want to improve their relationship in order to feel more connected and fulfilled.

Concerns couples frequently express:

• Sexual problems
• High reactivity
• Partner is experienced as overly critical
• Unable to resolve problems
• Disappointment with their partner
• Partner’s can’t connect, feels like there is a wall between them
• Too close or too demanding – one or both need some space
• Relationship lacks safety, vitality and passion

The goal for couples:

• To create a safe space in which couples can work toward re-connection
• To assist couples through their power struggles
• To teach communication skills (we call this “the Couples Dialogue”), which will assist each partner in understanding the other.
• To coach each partner in the “art of containment and listening” in order to create a safe context for connection.
• To provide a skill for converting frustrations that have led to power struggles into opportunities for reciprocal growth and healing.
• To explore the origins of frustrations and understand how these unconscious old patterns tend to repeat themselves within the current relationship
• To learn how to use one’s partner as a consultant on our own “shadow” self. To begin to see the world through your partner’s eyes, even for just a brief moment, can be enlightening and magnificently growthful.
• To encourage couples to move beyond their power struggles and to learn to accept their partner as a whole person desiring to grow and heal emotional injuries from their past