Pre-Marital, Couples, and Family Therapy
COUPLES THERAPY
Premarital therapy is a type of therapy that helps couples prepare for marriage. Premarital therapy helps partners improve their ability to communicate, set realistic expectations for marriage and develop conflict-resolution skills, as well as identify weaknesses that could become problems during marriage. Partners may be encouraged to discuss topics related to marriage, such as finances, communication, values, attitudes and beliefs, roles in marriage, affection and sex, desire to have children, family relationships, dealing with strong emotions, and decision-making.
In contrast, marital therapy sessions teaches strategies to overcome gridlock in your relationship with your partner. When a couple is in conflict, each partner’s words and behaviors are often driven either by fear, shame, and anger. We protest because we are afraid we won’t be heard, defend ourself in order to protect our partner’s view of us (or our view of ourself), show anger at the expense of vulnerability because we are afraid to get hurt, criticize our partner to get them to change, and shut down because we are afraid that bad things will happen if we stay engaged. Couples who are able to shift out of anger and fear during triggered moments and instead communicate from empathy, understanding, and vulnerability are more successful at reaching each other and working through problems. The interventions I like to use help couples develop the necessary skills needed to maintain and sustain the desired connection you are looking for in one another.
FAMILY THERAPY
Families can be a great source of joy as well as a source of pain. Our very first relationships are made with our family of origin. It is through our family experience that values and beliefs are formed, and we begin to create stories about others and ourselves, and where that all fits in the larger context of a worldview. There are times, however, when it may be important to examine patterns of interaction within the family in order to create a happier, more preferred dynamic.
The family is a system made up of interrelated, interdependent parts. As a Marriage and Family therapist, I am specifically trained in the notion that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, whereby interaction between family members is not linear, but rather circular. Change in one part of the system may affect other parts, or the entire system as a whole. If one person is experiencing depression, for example, then the whole system is affected and will change and adapt accordingly.
Family therapy sessions examine various relationship dynamics, such as the parent-child relationship, the couple dyad, the relationship among siblings, and/or the relationships with extended family members. I also examine the various roles and rules within the family, as well as power and alliances within the family structure.