Couples Counseling
Focused on Relationships & Communication.Be heard by your partner.
Do any of these sound like you?
- We used to feel connected but now are roomates!
- Does the love you DO have doesn’t land with your partner?
- Are you overcoming infidelity?
- Pre-marriage: Do you want to set up your new relationship to last?
- Are you guys caught in the competing to be right cycle?
- Does your partners trauma get projected onto you?
- Are you caught in nagging, petty repetitive fights?
- Or do you get stuck in patterns of silent-treatments, numbing out followed with outbursts, or condescension?
- No matter how much you fight to be seen, it doesn’t seem to work?
- Did your partner “forgive” you for something but still can’t help holding it over you?
- Does the person you love is focus on “being right”, rather than really getting you!
I am here to help!
Helping You Find Success With Couples Counseling
Working together towards a common goal is not always easy or straight forward.
Every person is unique and has their our own set of life experiences. These have gotten us to this place & time, and yet… are we happy? are we fulfilled? Is there MORE?
The answer is yes, and I am here to support you and guide you to this next evolution in your journey. Have you experience “Trauma” or “Wounds of betrayal” or just some “rough luck” that have left you wondering why? Of course, I think we all have. I am here to let you know that you do not need to navigate this next step alone. Let’s get started today.
Couples Therapy can help with?
Premarital counseling / Preventative Couples Therapy
Starting something new can be an amazing time. It can also be stressful. Start on the same page.
That "power struggle" and negative fighting patterns.
Learn some common language and supportive skills.
High Conflict Couples
You know that you Love each other. Though you also know that you drive each other crazy. Let’s take a look at this and see why this happens and what to do with this new found knowledge.
Creating a stable foundation
Learn how to be a stable loving empathic base for each other.
SPECIALIZING IN COUPLES COUNSELING:
It really hurts when the person you love is focused on “being right”, rather than really getting you! Does your relationship create a deep pain or numbness in your heart? When we start to believe that our LEGITIMATE needs for connection will not be adequately met with our partner, it is easy to focus on our personal needs (at the expense of our partner’s). A NORMAL human response to this is: nagging, petty repetitive fights, silent-treatments, numbing out, outbursts, being condescending, focusing on being right (rather than really listening).
I don’t play referee. I FOCUS ON SHIFTING THE CULTURE OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP from its current negative painful cycles into being a safe place for both of you to GET YOUR ATTACHMENT NEEDS MET! Once that is in place, the painful repetitive power struggles that creates so much pain will become more easily addressable.
I’m extremely good at helping MEN WHO MIGHT OTHERWISE NOT WANT TO BE IN COUNSELING feel comfortable giving it a shot.
I am the co-founder of COUPLES BOOT CAMP, a fun couples group dedicated to powering up relationships with couples skills. I am also the founder of Bay Area Couples Counseling.
For information on HOW DOES TODD WORK?, check out my link, EFT Couples (Emotion Focused Couples Therapy. In a nutshell, I first help you (on an emotional level) pathologize the dance that you get caught in, rather than each other. Once there is a unified team against the nasty dance, we create space for both of you to safely express your underlying attachment longings. Once these underlying attachment longings are able to be held by both of you; then the previous protest behaviors and withdrawing strategies (that are quite painful) will have less of a charge and be less necessary.
WHAT KIND OF COUPLES DOES TODD WORK WITH?
I provide a therapeutic space for premarital couples, high conflict couples, couples with communication problems, and couples having that same old fight again and again.
1) Premarital Counseling / preventative couples therapy
2) Couples caught in negative fighting patterns with communication challenges.
3) High Conflict Couples: You love each other, but drive each other crazy!
4) After couples are stabilized (learn how to be a stable loving empathic base for each other), I work with couples to work as a team to help each other heal their underlying personal work. Basically, I have found that doing individual work in the context of couples therapy, for many people, can be more trans-formative than individual therapy.
My approach works for…
- Couples who live together
- Non-traditional couples
- Couples with kids
- Couples who are thinking about marriage
And it works best if…
- You care about your relationship and want to strengthen it
- You’d like for you and your partner to work more as a team
- You’re willing to listen to your partner, even when you don’t agree
- You’re willing to be honest about your values and what’s important to you
- You want practical tools that will help you move forward quickly
- You’d like a proven, researched approach that has helped 75% of couples resolve their problems
My Approach
I help people navigate painful transitions
When you meet with me, you can expect to find an empathic space where you can be who you are without any judgement. Having a space to talk about what is going on in your life with somebody who has your side and no vested interest in convincing you to be somebody other than who you are can be quite healing by itself in helping you through your painful experience that brings you to therapy.
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