Couples Counseling
in Moscow, IdahoCouples Counseling: Welcome
A Good Relationship is Worth Its Weight in Gold
Research tells us that healthy long term relationships foster increased life satisfaction, overall health and longevity, and provide that extra measure of joy that comes from being known, loved, and accepted.
But, we don’t need a research study to know we feel better when our relationships feel good!
We all want a healthy, relatively easy relationship with our partner, our fiancé, or our spouse. But, we all know it’s not always simple to achieve harmonious relationship bliss.
The Secret to Great Relationships Isn’t Guesswork!
The world is swimming with relationship advice, isn’t it? Magazine headlines, row upon row of relationship self-help books, and what your friends and buddies tell you after work or on the golf course.
So, how will you know what really works? There are a lot of broken relationships out there.
Why not start with research-based methods of relationship counseling developed over decades with thousands of couples?
When I decided to build on the couples counseling coursework I did in grad school to pursue a specialty of working with couples to develop healthy, happy relationships, it made sense to get trained in the most successful models of couples therapy out there. As a result, when you choose to work with me to create the relationship you both want, you’ll have an opportunity to develop the skills and understanding that have already helped thousands of other couples.
Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFT)
There has been an explosion of research in recent years related to something called Adult Attachment. Related to what researchers have studied for years about patterns of bonding and attachment in babies and their moms, it is the study of how adults—couples—bond and form deep emotional attachments. Supported by the field of interpersonal neurobiology, EFT provides an understanding of the patterns of how couples grow deeply close—and how they also wind up in repetitive cycles of pain, conflict, and withdrawal. It’s an experiential, empirically-validated approach that helps you heal and deepen your relationship.
Integrating EFT will answer many of your most painful questions about why you and your spouse struggle—and provide the insights and experiences in counseling that will repair and deepen the safety of your bond.
The Gottman Method of Couples Counseling
The Gottman Method of Couples Counseling is a research-based, well respected, in-depth process of assessing and repairing relationships. It is an approach that’s comprehensive, strategic, and skills-based. It’s rooted in 40 years of clinical practice and research on what happily married, long-term couples have in common—and how to use their secrets and habits in your own marriage. It helps couples rebuild friendship, manage conflict, reignite intimacy, and revisit their big-picture dreams.
You’ll learn and practice everything from rebuilding friendship, fighting fair, and negotiating compromise, to kindling fondness and admiration, deepening physical and emotional intimacy, and pursuing life dreams and goals together.
The Gottman Method includes an effective, thorough, research-based assessment so that we know we’re recognizing your strengths and understanding your unique situation before we make a plan that’s tailored specifically for your relationship.
The Bader Developmental Model of Couples Counseling
In addition to my training in the Gottman Method and Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy, I am also currently training in the Bader Developmental Model of couples work, which brings insights to the ways relationships develop over time in conjunction with how each person is maturing and growing.
Prepare/Enrich Premarital Counseling and Marriage Enrichment Assessment
Prepare/Enrich is the #1 premarital assessment, and I’m a certified facilitator. This in-depth assessment explores all the major areas of relationship that you’ll need to consider as an engaged couple. The questions take into account each couple’s unique background. They take into account any previous marriages, whether or not you have children, your ages, living situation, and more. You’ll feel that the assessment process is suited to you, for your specific circumstances.
It’s a great tool for deepening your understanding of each other to build a solid foundation to prepare for or enrich your marriage.
I love seeing couples begin to realize that they are capable of reconnecting, talking, laughing, and rediscovering why they want to be together.