Take control of your relationship
Many people say that relationships take work.
But few describe what that work is.
Identify your relational stance
Based on Terry Real’s relationship grid, identify what patterns you fall into in your intimate relationship. Attachment style exploration is also included here.
Practice!
Once you bring awareness to your patterns and habits, in-the-moment practice is needed to shift those patterns. We’ll practice in sessions and then discuss action steps for outside of sessions.
Develop Couple Agreements
With your partner, develop couple agreements to be used as guardrails for your relationship. The key here is both partners must wholeheartedly agree on the principles.
Creating Win-Wins
Develop balance in your relationship by considering the framework of being both pro-self and pro-relationship at the same time. You’re fully yourself and also a supportive partner.
Here to help you thrive
First of all, I’m a fellow traveler. I have had my share of relationship struggles, unhelpful patterns, and feelings of confusion. In fact, you may find that most therapists are drawn to working with the same type of problems that they themselves have/still struggle with. And I embrace this idea. It also means I get it. I understand it’s not just as simple as saying “you just have to communicate better.”
I also am an optimist. And I have seen couples grow in amazing ways in our time working together. I believe that couples therapy is one of the most powerful modalities of healing out there, including if you want to “work on yourself,” or be a better parent. We humans are relational beings, and I’m a relational therapist. I believe healing generally happens through relationships.
Beyond flowerly and optimistic prose, I have had the opportunity to train with some amazing people in the field of couples therapy. I’m Level 1 and Level 2 trained in the Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy (PACT) with Stan Tatkin, and I’ve also trained with Terry Real and his Relational Life Institute. I’m very grateful to these leaders in the field, and the inspiration of their approaches.
Get a free 15-minute consultation to get more information and find out if it’s a good fit for you
What my clients are saying
Current Couples Client
“Mike helps us discover patterns in our relationship that we wouldn’t have seen on our own. To be honest we were really struggling a year ago, which made us seek out couples therapy. Over the past year we’ve greatly improved our communication and reduced the amount and intensity of any fights. Things aren’t perfect, of course, but when there is conflict we now know how to navigate it quickly. That has been a big focus, squashing conflict immediately and efficiently so that resentment doesn’t build up. In this way, we feel more empowered and hopeful about our future together. Conflict will come, but we now have the tools to navigate it and come out the other side knowing we’re on the same time and we always have each other’s back.”
