Relationships can be hard. People who care about each other often disagree, and even fight. While conflict is a normal part of any relationship, hurting each other doesn't have to be. Even with the best of intentions, destructive patterns in relationships and marriages can be difficult to change. Partners who work hard to make their relationships better still may fall into the same-old damaging routines during stressful times. Communication problems are often central to relationship strife, but they are seldom the whole story. Psychoanalytic therapy can help couples improve how they interact, from basic communication to deeper levels of connection and intimacy.
As we mature, our ways of interacting can return to tendencies that came about when we were younger. These relationship patterns are hard to change without help. People find themselves reverting to unhealthy behavior in their relationships, even with new partners. They realize that they feel the same old ways and have the same old fights. While it can be convenient to blame the partner, when people realize that they themselves bring certain kinds of conflict into their relationships, constructive change may begin.
Marriage Counseling & Couples Therapy
Couples counseling involves understanding and changing problematic relationship patterns in a safe, respectful atmosphere. I approach psychoanalytic therapy with couples from the perspective that both partners have deeply held relational habits that can cause trouble. Looking at one’s own problematic ways of relating takes courage. Still, it is the most powerful tool for making productive changes in relationships. Improvements are set in motion when people face their core relational struggles. Positive strategies for improving communication and resolving conflict in marriages and relationships are then formulated in the spirit of transforming blame into cooperation; resentment into emotional alliance.
