Couples Therapy in Chicago, IL

Common Reasons People Begin Couples Therapy

While everyone experiences relationships a little bit differently, here are some common issues for couples:

• Recurring conflict and communication issues

• Not feeling heard or understood

• Feeling disconnected, emotionally and/or sexually

• Changes in intimacy, physical affection, and sex life

• Life transitions (marriage, career changes, grief, and loss)

• Pregnancy, postpartum, and transition to parenthood

• Difficulty finding time to prioritize your relationship

Relationships take work and intention, and sometimes it’s a struggle to work together as a team. That’s normal. Conflict is a healthy part of a relationship. You also have a sense of when things are starting to feel past that edge of healthy and normal—into unhealthy territory for you—and that’s why you’re here. There is no reason to go through the struggle alone. Marriage counseling in Chicago, IL can provide a dose of hope and support when you need it. First, take this opportunity to take a curious look at your relationships. Second, practice what you learn with your partner. Finally, start to see and feel the progress and healing in your relationship.

Couples Therapy Can Help You Reconnect

As a couples therapist in Illinois, I have worked with so many couples who come to therapy feeling frustrated, stuck, and unsure of what to do next about their problems. They feel disconnected from their partners, and they’re looking for strategies and tools to improve communication. They’re also looking for answers. It’s not an easy place to be — when the person and relationship you prioritize most is also the one leaving you feeling angry, sad, alone, or unheard… maybe even a little hopeless about the future of your relationship. You start to keep score and measure the positives against the negatives. You start looking at everything with a more critical, slightly catastrophic perspective (which makes sense, this doesn’t feel good). “If I feel this way now,” you think to yourself, “it’s only going to get worse when we go through even harder stuff together. Are we screwed if we’re already thinking about couple’s therapy?” As a couples therapist, I’ll tell you: No! I commend you for choosing to work on your relationship instead of avoiding this issue and staying stuck where you are.

I’ve seen people leave couples counseling feeling more connected and more confident in their ability to really understand their partners, even if they don’t have the answers or solutions to every issue. Yes, even with those age-old, recurring topics that always seem to push a button. They trust that they’ll keep working together to face current and future issues and that they’ll know how to respectfully express what they need (or repair when they make mistakes).

I’m hopeful that through couples therapy in Illinois, you can improve connection, trust, respect, and presence within your relationship, too.

My Approach as a Couples Therapist in Chicago, IL

With extensive clinical training and experience providing couples and sex therapy, I’m here to help you better understand and express your needs and goals, build empathy and emotional intimacy, and work towards more connection and presence in your relationships. I use evidence-based approaches to marriage counseling (such as Emotionally-Focused Therapy, which helps you to slow down and better understand unhelpful patterns of interaction and expression of emotion). You’ll learn about yourself, your partner, your relationship dynamics (helpful and unhelpful patterns, strengths, and more), and you’ll practice speaking and really listening to each other. No couple is exactly the same, so I tailor treatment to you, your relationship, and your goals.

Your Effort Matters

In my experience as a couples therapist in Chicago, IL, what my clients get out of therapy is directly tied to the effort and intention they put into therapy AND their relationship. Both in and outside of sessions. Gaining insight into the problem is important, but taking action and trying things differently is at the core of this kind of work. I’ll help you to think about how you’re going to be intentional with your relationship work in between sessions. I’m trying to work myself out of a job (truly!) so that you can feel confident reducing the frequency of sessions or ending marriage counseling when you have the skills and insight you need.