Couples & Relationship Services

The Dance of Intimacy can be hard at times creating emotional distance rather than security, safety, and inherent closeness. My approach is to help couples turn toward one another in order to find support and solace, believing one’s partner’s most important priority is to be present and available to meet their needs. Even life’s normal ups and downs can create distance between people trying to cope with everyday stressors let alone crises. Through therapy one learns to take full responsibility for your own thoughts, feelings, actions/inactions, rather than finding fault, blaming, or judging your partner. The emphasis is on being open, honest, and direct. Responsibility and accountability shape healthy and adaptive emotionally intimate relationships.

---

Communication

Learn to truly listen (not just hear) your partner, child, friend, or colleague. Create an atmosphere where everyone feels they have a voice; feels heard, respected, appreciated, valued, and cared for. Learn simple strategies to help you look forward to engaging in conversation (even difficult dialogue) that feels good, meaningful, and productive. Engage in communication that enhances confidence, esteem, and security. Feel comfortable in letting your guard down so vulnerability becomes a strength not a weakness. Learn to stop seeing difficult conversations as confrontation but rather as addressing one’s need for emotional intimacy, support, and security.

---

Parenting/Co-parenting

In my clinical experience parents are working too hard to create cheerful and compliant children. Stop trying to force your children to understand and change. Learn how to not get drawn in to power struggles. Feel confident in your abilities as an effective parent. In fact, feel confident in your abilities to raise your children to be healthy, happy, productive individuals even in single parent, separated/divorced, or blended families. Create a parent child alliance where your intrinsic values and healthy boundaries are the basis for communication. Rear children who are happy, healthy, responsible, respectful, and productive and who are engaged socially and academically.

---

Children and Teens at Risk

Without a doubt it is harder than ever for children and teens to be happy, healthy, and resilient. With all the now normal stressors it is harder than ever to be an effective parent.

Some of the stressors affecting our children’s health and happiness today are:

• Advanced academics
• Social media/cell phones
• Video games
• Year round and travel athletics
• Lack of physical activity/exercise
• Lack of sleep
• Poor nutrition

My 17 years of experience with child and adolescent clients shows the hyper-accelerated pace at which they live with little time to just be kids and teens. There are always more and more demands to be constantly thinking and analyzing in ways that are shaping their brains to need immediate gratification which leads to less ability to balance needs and set priorities.

I provide guidance in:

• Rearing children and teens that have healthy boundaries, who make choices that are in their own best interest and not making choices based on what others think and feel about them.
• Encouraging them to learn to balance their comparative experience (natural developmental stage) to fit in – to find or experience acceptance and approval versus rejection.
• Helping them learn that nothing is more important than what they think and feel about themselves.
• Help them learn that healthy self-esteem is a choice and not believing one is different or less than.
• Learning that acne, braces, weight, being introverted, being A.D.D., or lacking athletic prowess doesn’t determine who you are.
• Learning to embrace their uniqueness in all their strengths, gifts, talents, and abilities.
• Keeping them from marginalizing themselves in order to fit in. And not becoming like other kids and teens on the periphery who check out and potentially turn to alcohol, drugs, promiscuity, poor academic performance, and truancy to cope.