Marriage and Family Therapy

​

small moment

​ ​Couples counseling is an important focus in my practice.  I work with couples who are facing difficult times and hard choices in their relationship. My goal is to help couples develop skills and discover ways that enable them to learn, grow and heal themselves. 

Assessment is the first step in finding important areas of focus.  Once these change and growth areas are identified, couples can learn new ways to interact and communicate with each other.  

     In November of 2016, I had the honor and privilege of being trained by Dr. Sue Johnson in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT).  Dr. Johnson is the creator of EFT.  This training externship provided powerful tools to help heal relationships.  Below is an overview (from The Los Angeles Center for Emotionally Focused Therapy) of what EFT Therapy is all about:

​ABOUT EMOTIONALLY FOCUSED THERAPY (EFT)
Couple distress is a common reason adults seek psychotherapy. It undermines family functioning and is strongly associated with depression, anxiety disorders, and alcoholism. Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples (EFT) offers a comprehensive theory of adult love and attachment, as well as a process for healing distressed relationships. It recognizes that relationship distress results from a perceived threat to basic adult needs for safety, security, and closeness in intimate relationships.  This experiential/systemic therapy focuses on helping partners restructure the emotional responses that maintain their negative interaction patterns. Through a series of nine steps, the therapist leads the couple away from conflict deadlock into new bonding interactions. EFT is now one of the best delineated and empirically-validated approaches in the field of couple therapy.
GOALS OF EFT
To expand and re-organize key emotional responses.
To create a shift in partners’ interactional positions.
To foster the creation of a secure bond between partners.
STRENGTHS OF EFT
Clear, explicit conceptualizations of relationship distress and adult love. These conceptualizations are supported by empirical research on the nature of couple distress and adult attachment.
Change strategies and interventions are specified. The change process has been mapped into nine steps and specific change events.
EFT is empirically validated and there is also research on the change process
and predictors of success.
EFT has been applied to many different kinds of problems and populations.

​

​​​ Copyright 2014 The Los Angeles Center for Emotionally Focused Therapy – All rights reserved.

​