When couples come to therapy
Relationships can be one of the most meaningful parts of our lives, and one of the most painful when communication breaks down, conflict starts repeating itself, or you stop feeling understood by the person who used to understand you best.
Most couples I see aren’t in crisis every day. They’re tired. The same argument keeps coming back in a new outfit. One of you has started keeping things to yourself to avoid a fight, and the other can feel it. You still care about each other, and you can’t work out why caring isn’t enough to make it better.
- For some couples, the relationship has shifted slowly through stress, work, parenting, moves, illness or loss.
- For others there has been a betrayal, a breach of trust, or a long pattern that keeps creating distance.
- Some come in to strengthen things before they get worse. Others arrive unsure whether the relationship can continue.
All of those are good reasons to start. You don’t need to wait until things are falling apart.
What couples therapy can help with
Arguing about little things, constantly
The dishes, the tone, the text that went unanswered. Small fights tend to carry bigger questions: do you notice me, can I count on you. Once we find the question underneath, the fight usually loses its grip. If arguments escalate quickly or feel out of control, see therapy for high-conflict couples.
Feeling like roommates
Life got full and closeness got scheduled out. Often one partner has been reaching and the other has gone quiet to keep the peace. Both of you have become complacent with the absence of intimacy and connection. We work on getting you back in contact with each other, emotionally and physically. Intimacy and reconnection goes deeper on this.
Trust, affairs and betrayal
After an affair or a serious breach of trust, both partners are hurting in different ways. Recovery means understanding why it happened, repairing it honestly, and deciding together what comes next. Read more about infidelity and betrayal recovery.
Different needs around sex and desire
Mismatched desire is one of the most common reasons couples come in, and one of the hardest to talk about at home. Sessions give you a place to say what’s true without it turning into blame.
Parenting, transitions and stress
A new baby, a move, a career change, caring for a parent. Big transitions put pressure on the places a relationship was already strained. We look at how stress is landing on each of you and how to stay on the same team.
Deciding whether to stay or go
When one of you is leaning out and the other is leaning in, typical couples therapy can stall. Discernment counseling is a short, structured process for getting clear first. If you’ve decided to separate, conscious uncoupling helps you do it with less damage.
Opening your relationship
More couples are exploring ethical non-monogamy. It can bring up jealousy, agreements, old attachment fears and a lot of questions. Exploring these things with a therapist who isn’t judging the structure is important. See non-monogamy and polyamory therapy.
Marriage counseling in Los Angeles
People search for marriage counseling and couples therapy as if they were two different services. In my practice they’re the same work, and you don’t need to be married to do it. Whether you’ve been married for twenty years, just got engaged or have decided never to marry, marriage counseling with me focuses on the pattern between you: the fight that keeps repeating, the distance that keeps growing, and what each of you needs to feel safe enough to reach for the other again.
Couples counseling for every kind of relationship
Couples counseling isn’t only for partners on the edge of a breakup. Many come in because they’re stuck, not because they’re done. They still love each other and keep having the same argument. I see married and unmarried couples, same-sex and queer couples, and people in open or polyamorous relationships, in person in Highland Park or online anywhere in California.
Specialized couples therapy
Some couples come in with a specific issue. Each of these pages goes deeper on how I work with it:
- Therapy for high-conflict couples: for arguments that escalate fast and leave damage behind.
- Infidelity therapy and betrayal recovery: affair repair for both partners after an affair or a serious breach of trust.
- Discernment counseling for couples deciding whether to stay: when one of you is leaning out.
- Non-monogamy and polyamory therapy: opening a relationship, or repairing agreements that broke.
- Conscious uncoupling for couples separating with respect: ending the relationship without poisoning what comes after.
- Intimacy therapy for couples: for closeness, desire and sex that have gone quiet.
- LGBTQ+ couples therapy: affirming work without having to explain yourselves first.
- Co-parenting counseling: for parents raising children across two homes.
- Couples communication counseling: for conversations that keep going wrong in the same place.
- Couples therapy intensives: three or six hours of focused work in one block, when weekly sessions move too slowly.
How I work with couples
Many couples who come to me have already tried couples counseling. They learned communication techniques, took turns sharing feelings, and left understanding each other better. Then the old patterns and loops started up again.
Insight alone rarely changes a pattern. When an argument starts, both of your nervous systems react faster than any script you learned. So I work with what happens in the moment: how each of you gets triggered, what you do to protect yourself, and how that lands on the other person. We slow it down while it’s happening in the room, and try something different together.
I draw on several research-based approaches and use what fits the two of you best:
PACT
The Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy, developed by Stan Tatkin, focuses on how your attachment histories and stress responses play out between you in real time. Much of the work happens in the room, as it happens.
Imago
Imago uses structured dialogue to slow conversations down, so each partner actually hears the other, and looks at how earlier experiences shape what we bring into adult relationships.
Attachment-based work and interpersonal neurobiology
Both look at how our earliest relationships shape the way we connect, react and protect ourselves now, and how a relationship can become a place where those patterns change.
Gottman Method
Developed from decades of research by John and Julie Gottman, it looks at friendship, conflict and shared meaning. It gives couples practical tools, like how to start a hard conversation gently and how to repair after a fight goes wrong.
Emotionally focused therapy (EFT)
Emotionally Focused Therapy, developed by Sue Johnson, helps couples see the negative cycle they get caught in and the needs underneath it, so they can reach for each other instead of against each other.
Nobody is the problem. The pattern is.
What to expect in your first session
It starts with a free 20-minute video call. You tell me a little about what’s going on, ask anything you want, and we see whether I’m the right fit. There’s no pressure to book.
In the first session together, I’ll want to hear how each of you sees the relationship: what brought you in, what’s working, what keeps going wrong, and what you’re hoping changes. We’ll start to map the cycle you keep landing in. You won’t be asked to perform or to defend yourself, and I won’t take sides.
We usually meet weekly at first to build momentum. As things change, sessions space out to every other week and then monthly. Some couples also add a Couples Intensive to make faster progress on a specific issue.
Is couples therapy worth it?
It depends on what you want from it, and on whether both of you are willing to look at your own part. Couples therapy can’t guarantee a relationship survives. What it can do is help you stop repeating the same painful pattern, understand each other more accurately, and make your next decision, whatever it is, from a clearer place.
Many couples wait years before starting. Starting earlier, while you still like each other on good days, usually makes the work easier.
How much does couples therapy cost?
- 60-minute session: $250
- 90-minute session: $325
- Couples Intensives: $600 for 3 hours, $1,100 for 6 hours
I don’t bill insurance directly. For regular sessions, I can give you a superbill to submit to your insurer for possible out-of-network reimbursement. Superbills aren’t available for intensives or retreats. It’s worth calling your plan to ask what they cover for couples or family therapy before you start.
In person in Highland Park, or online across California
My office is at 5317 North Figueroa Street in Highland Park. Couples come from across Northeast LA and nearby, including Eagle Rock, Mount Washington, Glassell Park, Silver Lake, Echo Park, Pasadena and Glendale.
I also see couples and families online anywhere in California, and many clients prefer virtual sessions. Online sessions work well for busy schedules, for partners in different places during the week, and for anyone who simply feels more at ease at home. Some couples mix the two.
An inclusive practice
Healing Collective is LGBTQIA+ affirming, sex-positive, culturally aware and anti-racist. I work with married and unmarried couples, couples who don’t live together, and people in open, polyamorous and other relationship structures. You can show up as you are, without pressure to fit someone else’s idea of what a relationship should look like. See also LGBTQ+ couples therapy.
Choosing a couples therapist
Fit matters more than almost anything else. In a first call with any therapist, it’s worth asking:
- How much of your practice is couples work?
- How do you stay balanced so neither of us feels ganged up on?
- What happens in a session when we start fighting?
- How will we know if it’s working?
If you’d like to ask me those questions, book a free consultation.
