The intimacy and connection in a healthy love relationship can work to sustain and buffer us. When it works, our relationship will serve as a place to be comforted and reenergized. When our relationship is troubled, in any way, it creates a ripple effect that can feel destabilizing. This can happen rapidly. Often a person has little or no understanding of what went wrong.
In general, our families have provided the blueprint for how we will navigate intimate relationships. If those blueprints are not to our liking, or are not working for us, we have to learn new ways of being in a relationship. Even in the most loving and nurturing of families, we are rarely taught about the nitty gritty of what it takes to have a successful long term relationship or marriage. And it takes a lot.
My work with couples is highly interactive, goal oriented, and relies heavily on skill building. My objective is to help each partner feel understood, safe, and loved. Teaching communication skills is central. To these ends, I use primarily EFT and AEDP as my theoretical models.