About Relationship Therapy
Although we all want to feel more acceptance, closeness, and connection in our relationships, many of us face conflict and tension with our partner.
We offer skilled relationship therapy using empirically validated approaches, including:
EFCT
What is EFCT?
Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFCT) is a well-validated, structured approach that is designed to help couples understand each other’s emotions and respond effectively to each other’s needs. It is a collaborative model based on adult attachment theory and is widely heralded as one of the most successful approaches to creating loving relationships and lasting bonds.
In EFCT, couples learn to identify their negative communication cycle, how to be with feelings together, reach towards each other, and be responsive in more loving and positive ways. When couples can clearly communicate and respond to attachment needs, it can create the safety, trust and support that couples long for.
EFCT recognizes that we are doing the best we can to feel close to our partner, even in the midst of conflict and disconnection. Unfortunately, the strategies we use often cause more distance, conflict, and distress. We often do not know what we or our partner is feeling or how we can be there for each other. Many of us need help learning and experiencing how to be more accessible, responsive, engaged to improve our connection and communication with one another.
How does EFCT work?
70-75 percent of couples move from distress to recovery. These couples report being much happier with each other (compared to 35 percent for cognitive-behavioral counseling).
90 percent of couples make significant improvements due to EFCT.
The foundation of EFCT is built upon partners recognizing their emotional dependence on each other. This includes:
Love
Comfort
Support
Protection
Emotional security
Some Goals When Using EFCT for Couples
Re-organize our palette of emotional responses
Create new cycles of communication
Cultivate a more secure bond between partners
Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy is based on the following assumptions:
There is an inherent, universal need in all humans for a safe haven relationship where a loved one is experienced as accessible, responsive, and emotionally engaged.
A relationship is a series of powerful emotional feedback loops where each person shapes the other’s responses. One person cannot solely be “the problem”.
Feelings are often hidden, unexpressed, misinterpreted, or misunderstood.
All relationship responses are understandable and reasonable. Partners are not viewed as deficient or damaged - but instead viewed as struggling to find the best way they know how to manage painful feelings of disconnection and vulnerability.
Relational responses (such as acting out or withdrawing) are strategies to manage emotional distress and often work to some degree, in certain contexts. If couples are to understand their own and their partner’s responses, there is need for acknowledging the validity of these strategies and the emotions driving them.
Gottman Method
What is the Gottman Method?
The Gottman Method is an approach to couples therapy that includes a thorough assessment of the couple’s relationship, and integrates research-based interventions based on the Sound Relationship House Theory. The goals of Gottman Method Couples Therapy are to disarm conflicting verbal communication; increase intimacy, respect, and affection; remove barriers that create a feeling of stagnancy; and create a heightened sense of empathy and understanding within the context of the relationship.
The Gottman Method is designed to support couples across all economic, racial, sexual orientation, and cultural sectors.
Interventions are designed to help couples strengthen their relationships in three primary areas: friendship, conflict management, and creation of shared meaning. Couples learn to replace negative conflict patterns with positive interactions and to repair past hurts. Interventions designed to increase closeness and intimacy are used to improve friendship, deepen emotional connection, and create changes which enhances the couples shared goals. Relapse prevention is also addressed.
Some of the relationship issues that may be addressed in therapy include:
Frequent conflict and arguments
Poor communication
Emotionally distanced couples on the verge of separation
Specific problems such as sexual difficulties, infidelity, money, and parenting
Even couples with “normal” levels of conflict may benefit from the Gottman Method Couples Therapy. Gottman-trained therapists aim to help couples build stronger relationships overall and healthier ways to cope with issues as they arise in the future.