Couples Therapy
Trouble comes to every relationship. We bring in our old, imperfect attachment patterns from early childhood and play them out with our loves. So we wound each other. But deep down, we really want to connect, know each other, and be known.
I treat couples with an approach based on Susan Johnson’s Emotion Focused Couples Therapy. This model focuses on the attachment relationship between partners. We work to repair that attachment by helping partners tune in to the attachment dance happening between them in real time, and giving each other the safe space in which to notice and heal that dance.
But since I’m also a trauma psychologist, I infuse EMDR (eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing) therapy into most of my work with couples. I do this because most couples (maybe all couples) bring past trauma with them into their current relationship . . . then experience more trauma in and through that adult attachment. It’s just what we do.
If we can reprocess old trauma that preceded the relationship, that goes a long way in allowing partners to reconnect. If we can heal the actual relationship by soothing the core of it, that’s a game changer.
COUPLES THERAPY BLOGS
Build a Culture of Creative Inspiration: Your Office Space Matters
Creating a beautiful, comfortable therapy office inspires and energizes therapists and clients.
The Solution for Therapist Burnout=Beauty
Beauty: The Solution to Therapist Burnout Beauty is everywhere you look. But most therapists have been trained away from it. We got trained to look at problems. Problems=the un-beauty. This formula leads straight to burnout. Looking at problems served us pretty well ....
Religious Trauma into Soul Healing, Part VI: Reading Good Fiction
Lift Up & Away from Religious Trauma Fiction (and memoir) reorganizes our internal narratives, and allows us to try on the emotional resources of others. It does this, not by selling us products or threatening us with what we MUST-do-or-be-damned, but by...
Religious Trauma into Soul Healing, Part V: Energetic Healing
Energetic Healing = Body + Energy + Trauma Therapy As a psychology student in the 90s, I heard the message: Don't mess with spirituality. We can't measure it. It's private. But now, a tsunami of change is sweeping the therapy world . . . and this change is...
Moving from Religious Trauma into Soul Healing, Part IV: Diverse Friendships
Friends Who are Different and a Little Bit Scary Make Us Grow Unexpected friendship teaches us, like nothing else. When I arrived at Texas Woman's University in 1990, I found myself immersed in growth and diversity. I suddenly had gay and lesbian friends, after...
Every Therapist Needs a Tribe
How do you do it? . . . . . . People often say. How can a therapist sit with people who are in pain, hour after hour, day after day, and concentrate on how to help them feel better, while keeping themselves balanced? I usually say, "Tons of self care." And that's...
Parenting Lesson #5093: Less is More and Letting Go
Mindful Parenting of Teens = Letting Go If you have a child over the age of ten, you may already know this. So good for you. My friends with much older kids told me this years ago and I didn't want to hear it. Parenting of adolescents...
Our Flaws Make Us Interesting: EMDR Makes Them Funny
Maybe our flaws even make us lovable. My Flaws I have a few characteristics of which I’m not proud. Most of them fall into the category of "uptightness" . . . fear and shame and rigidity. Before EMDR, I would not have written this post for fear of public ridicule....
Still Recovering from Toxic Religion: Pass That Buick in Love
Here's a story about being inspired and suppressing it. This morning I got behind a slow-moving Buick on a major thoroughfare. I encountered the same dark green Buick, ten minutes before, when I was crossing a downtown street. On foot, I got up close and looked inside...
Listen to ReConceive: a Healing Podcast
ReConceive: a Podcast about All Kinds of Healing My dear friend, Melissa Sundwall, a great therapist who also happens to be a lot younger than me, says: “Let’s do a podcast.” And I say, “What’s a podcast?” That literally happened. About a year ago. So we teamed...
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