Couples & Marriage Therapy
Our Approach
It seems that a popular narrative now is that we must love ourselves before we can love another. Certainly, it is important to cultivate kindness and patience towards ourselves, to be our own cheerleaders, with self-validation and self-care. If we rely only on others for love, we will inevitably falter because others can only sometimes fulfill our needs. At the same time, as human beings, we are tribal in nature. This is our wiring. This is how we have survived and prospered. We truly do need others to survive. The pain of emotional loneliness is real. This is where the terms heartache and heartbreak originated. Moreover, we are all (hopefully) forever works in progress. If you struggle with loving yourself, this does not mean you are not worthy of and eligible for love from others. Indeed, this essential pillar can be the pivotal missing piece to your life's meaning.
With this understanding, couples therapy at Centered Ground encourages a middle path of individual responsibility and skills to empower connection.
This approach usually takes a DBT structure, including diary card monitoring of targets and homework assignments between sessions; skills training; behavior chain and solution analysis, e.g., of conflict; and coaching support between sessions. Skills primarily focus on dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and radically open (RO) DBT, including validation, intimacy-building communication, and forgiveness. Role-play and practice in the session are also included.
Couples therapy is available to couples at all stages.
Clients have included couples across the spectrum of relationship stages, including premarital preparation and dissolution, transitioning to separation, and divorce as co-parents. Individual therapy for each couple member may also be clinically indicated and necessary. This is informed by the screening and orientation process.
Change is possible.
You may be less far apart than you realize, lacking skills that can make all the difference once you learn them. Part of the process may be to stop trying to fix everything. One of the most transformative shifts can be acceptance. Not complacency, but true openness to what is, rather than what you think should be - welcoming emotion and what it is trying to tell us rather than dismissing it if it does not meet our standards of acceptability. Anger, sadness, anxiety, fear, guilt, and even shame are not drama. They are teachers, bringing us lessons that can draw you and your partner closer together if you embrace the wisdom of vulnerability, safely moving into what you might otherwise reject or avoid. Holding hands, for the sake of growth and most profound authenticity - thriving together.
