Couples Therapy
Texas • Oregon• Washington • Online
Relationships are where we experience some of our greatest joys, and often, some of our deepest struggles. When connection feels out of reach, couples can find themselves stuck in cycles of conflict, distance, or silence that leave both partners feeling alone.
We can help with:
The greatest gift a couple can give each other is the safe haven of connection and the secure base that makes exploration of the world possible.”- Dr. Sue Johnson EdD
Restoring safety, trust, and connection
Relationships are one of our greatest sources of meaning—and also one of the places where we feel most vulnerable. When communication breaks down, trust is shaken, or intimacy feels out of reach, it can leave both partners feeling alone, misunderstood, or stuck in painful cycles. Even strong and committed relationships can struggle under the weight of stress, unresolved conflict, or past wounds. Couples therapy offers a space to slow down these patterns, understand what’s happening underneath, and begin creating new ways of connecting.
How I Work with Couples
My approach is grounded in specialized training in Gottman Method one of the most well-researched, effective ways to help couples heal and grow.
The Gottman Method offers practical, research-backed tools for communication, conflict de-escalation, repair, and rebuilding trust.
I also bring a deep background in trauma- and attachment-focused care, which helps us make sense of how past experiences, stress, or survival responses may be shaping your current patterns together. This includes integrating nervous-system regulation (breathwork, grounding, body awareness) so difficult conversations become more manageable in real time.
Advanced Gottman Training-Woven Into the Work
I’m trained in Gottman Levels 1 & 2 and Gottman Treating Affairs & Trauma. In practice, that means we will:
Identify and interrupt negative cycles (criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling) before they spiral.
Use structured repair tools that actually stick—so ruptures become pathways back to each other.
Rebuild friendship and intimacy with daily practices that nurture warmth, curiosity, and closeness.
Address affairs and attachment injuries with a clear, compassionate roadmap that prioritizes accountability, safety, and trust.
What You Can Expect
In therapy, you won’t just learn skills you’ll gain insight into the deeper dynamics at play in your relationship. Together we will:
Explore attachment needs, emotional injuries, and intimacy challenges with care and clarity.
Map the cycle that keeps you stuck, then practice new ways to share, soothe, and respond.
Work gently and directly on repair when there’s been betrayal, compulsions, secrecy, or broken trust.
Build nervous-system steadiness (grounding, breath, pacing) so hard moments become more workable.
This isn’t about deciding who’s right or wrong it’s about finding your way back to each other. My role is to guide you with structure, compassion, and honesty, helping you uncover new ways to communicate, repair, and connect.
Healing After Betrayal, Affairs, and Attachment Injuries
If you’re navigating the aftermath of infidelity or a deep rupture, there is a path forward. Drawing on Gottman Treating Affairs & Trauma , we move through three overlapping phases at a pace that protects both partners:
Stabilize & Understand
Establish immediate safety, boundaries, and transparency.
Name the injuries and regulate overwhelm so conversations stay grounded.
Accountability, Meaning, & Repair
Clarify what happened and why (without blame-shifting).
Practice evidence-based repair tools; rebuild reliability and honesty.
Reconnection & Renewal
Rebuild emotional and physical intimacy with consent, pacing, and care.
Create shared rituals, values, and a future-facing narrative that honors both partners.
Throughout, we attend to trauma responses (freeze, fight/flight, shutdown) with somatic grounding so repair isn’t just talked about it’s felt.
When Trauma Is in the Room
Past trauma often echoes in the present: quick escalations, shutdown, or feeling unsafe in closeness. When needed, I integrate individual trauma care alongside couples work such as Somatic & Attachment-Focused EMDR, Brainspotting, IFS/Ego States, and body-based regulation so each partner can process what’s heavy while the relationship becomes a safer place to land.
Is This for Us?
Couples therapy may be a good fit if you’re:
Feeling distant, lonely, or “like roommates”
Stuck in recurring arguments or power struggles
Repairing betrayal or rebuilding broken trust
Struggling with intimacy or mismatched desire
Carrying stress, trauma, or burnout into the relationship
Wanting tools and a deeper bond not just quick fixes
A Path Back to Each Other
Step by step, we’ll build steadiness in your bodies, clarity in your conversations, and a stronger emotional bond. Over time, you’ll move from cycles of blame and disconnection toward patterns of openness, empathy, and responsiveness creating not only relief in the present, but also resilience and joy for the future.
Ready to begin? Let’s create a plan that fits your relationship, your history, and your pace so repair, trust, and closeness can grow again.
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Healing, Repairing, and Growing Together
Every relationship carries both love and struggle. Sometimes it’s the small, everyday arguments that leave you feeling stuck. Other times, it’s deeper ruptures like betrayal, unresolved trauma, or repeated cycles of disconnection that leave you wondering if repair is even possible.
Gottman Method Couples Therapy offers a clear, research-based roadmap for breaking those painful cycles and building a relationship rooted in trust, friendship, and resilience. With my training in Gottman Levels 1 and 2, along with advanced certification in Treating Affairs and Trauma, I bring both the structure and the depth needed to help couples heal, even from the hardest places.
What This Approach Looks Like in Practice
Strengthening Foundations – We’ll rebuild the pillars of intimacy and connection friendship, shared meaning, and emotional attunement so your relationship feels grounded and alive.
Healing After Betrayal & Trauma – With advanced Gottman protocols for affairs and trauma, I guide couples through the aftermath of betrayal with compassion and clarity. Together, we’ll create a safe path toward repair, rebuilding trust, and restoring closeness.
Interrupting Negative Cycles – Instead of falling into familiar patterns of criticism, defensiveness, or withdrawal, you’ll learn how to slow down, recognize triggers, and respond differently.
Managing Conflict Without Damage – Conflict is inevitable—but how you handle it determines whether it deepens intimacy or builds distance. You’ll gain tools to navigate disagreements with respect, calm, and perspective.
Integrating Nervous System & Trauma Work – Sometimes arguments aren’t just about the dishes or money. They’re about old wounds and survival responses. By blending Somatic & Attachment-Focused EMDR, Brainspotting, Ego States/IFS, and yoga-based nervous system regulation, we’ll address the underlying triggers that keep showing up in your relationship.
Why Couples Value This Approach
Evidence-Based & Practical – Gottman tools are backed by 40+ years of research and give you real strategies you can practice right away.
Specialized in Affairs & Trauma – My advanced training helps couples navigate the deepest wounds, including betrayal and relational trauma.
Holistic & Integrative – Because trauma lives in both mind and body, I weave in EMDR, Brainspotting, yoga, and parts work to help couples not only talk differently but feel differently.
Safe & Compassionate – I understand how raw relationship pain can feel. You won’t need to prove your struggles are “serious enough” for help I already know they are.The Bigger Picture
Relationships don’t heal through communication skills alone. They heal when both partners feel emotionally safe, when old wounds are tended to, and when trust is slowly rebuilt through consistency, compassion, and presence.
With Gottman Method Couples Therapy—integrated with my trauma-informed, body-based, and attachment-focused approach—we work on all levels: the patterns between you, the nervous system responses inside you, and the deeper wounds beneath it all.
Whether you’re navigating ongoing conflict, recovering from betrayal, or simply longing to feel close again, we’ll move step by step toward a relationship that feels steadier, safer, and more connected.
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Healing Trauma, Deepening Connection
Every couple has moments where old wounds show up in the present. A conflict starts small but escalates quickly, one partner shuts down while the other protests louder, or intimacy feels unsafe even when there is love. When past trauma or attachment injuries are triggered in the relationship, both partners can feel stuck in painful cycles that seem impossible to change.
Brainspotting with couples offers a different way through. Rather than only talking about what happens between you, Brainspotting helps you access and process the deeper roots of reactivity often held beneath words, in the body and nervous system. By attuning to the “spots” in the visual field where unprocessed material is stored, partners can release unresolved trauma and begin to respond to each other from a calmer, more open place.
This creates more safety, trust, and closeness not only within yourself, but also between you.
How Brainspotting Supports Couples
Release Old Triggers – Process trauma responses (fight, flight, freeze, shut down) that often fuel conflict.
Create Nervous System Safety – Find steadiness in the body so you can stay present during hard conversations.
Repair Attachment Injuries – Heal wounds of betrayal, abandonment, or disconnection with both depth and gentleness.
Deepen Emotional Attunement – Learn to track your own and your partner’s inner world with compassion.
Rebuild Intimacy & Trust – Free yourselves from past weight so closeness feels safer and more possible again.Why Brainspotting Works for Couples
Body-Based & Experiential – Goes beyond talking to reach the brain and body systems where trauma and triggers live.
Attachment-Focused – Helps partners understand and respond to each other’s deepest needs for safety and connection.
Trauma-Informed – Gently integrates individual trauma work into relational repair, honoring both partners’ histories.
Integrative – Works seamlessly alongside EFCT, EMDR, IFS, and somatic practices to support both personal healing and relational growth.My Integrative Approach
Because trauma and attachment live in both the nervous system and the relationship, I weave Brainspotting with:
EFCT (Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy) – to strengthen the bond and create new patterns of safe, responsive connection.
Somatic & Attachment-Focused EMDR – to reprocess trauma memories that spill over into your relationship.
IFS & Ego States Work – to reduce shame, self-blame, or inner conflict that block closeness.
Body-Based Practices (Yoga, Breathwork, Regulation) – to anchor safety and presence during sessions.
Relational Repair Tools (including Gottman Method) – to translate healing into everyday communication and trust-building.
A Path Forward
Trauma doesn’t have to define your relationship. With Brainspotting, couples can release the weight of past wounds while building new pathways of safety, intimacy, and attunement. Together, we’ll work toward a relationship where both partners feel secure enough to risk vulnerability, repair more quickly, and grow stronger side by side.
Whether you’re navigating conflict, healing after betrayal, or carrying trauma that keeps getting triggered between you, Brainspotting can help you and your partner heal individually and together.
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Healing Trauma, Repairing Connection
When couples are caught in cycles of conflict, withdrawal, or mistrust, it often isn’t just about the present moment. Old attachment wounds, trauma memories, or survival responses can get triggered in ways that make small arguments feel overwhelming, intimacy unsafe, or closeness out of reach. Both partners may want connection, yet find themselves stuck in patterns of hurt and disconnection.
Somatic & Attachment-Focused EMDR offers a way forward.
By targeting not just thoughts but the body’s stored trauma responses, EMDR helps partners release the pain and reactivity that keeps them from feeling safe with each other. Working together, couples can process past experiences that are spilling into the relationship and create new emotional patterns built on trust, openness, and secure connection.How EMDR Helps Couples
Reduce Reactivity – Calm fight, flight, or freeze responses that fuel arguments or withdrawal.
Heal Attachment Injuries – Reprocess experiences of betrayal, abandonment, or disconnection that block intimacy.
Bring Safety to the Relationship – Create a nervous-system foundation where vulnerability feels possible.
Release Trauma in the Body – Address unprocessed memories and sensations that talking alone can’t resolve.Foster Secure Bonding – Make space for closeness, empathy, and emotional responsiveness.
Why Somatic & Attachment-Focused EMDR Works
Body-Centered – Goes beyond talk therapy by working with the nervous system, where trauma often lives.
Attachment-Informed – Focuses on repairing the emotional bond at the heart of the relationship.
Trauma-Sensitive – Honors both partners’ histories while creating safety for shared healing. Integrative – Blends seamlessly with EFCT, Brainspotting, IFS, and somatic practices to support both personal healing and relational repair.My Integrative Approach
Because trauma touches both the individual nervous system and the couple’s bond, I weave EMDR with:
EFCT (Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy) – to strengthen emotional responsiveness and safety.
Brainspotting & Ego States/IFS – to resolve shame, dissociation, or inner conflict that blocks intimacy.
Body-Based Practices (Yoga, Breathwork, Nervous System Regulation) – to ground and calm during reprocessing.
Gottman Method Tools – to strengthen daily communication, trust repair, and conflict resolution.
A Path Forward
Healing in a relationship isn’t just about insight it’s about creating a felt sense of safety with yourself and your partner. With Somatic & Attachment-Focused EMDR, couples can release the weight of past trauma while building new patterns of trust, connection, and closeness.
Whether you’re navigating conflict, rebuilding after betrayal, or noticing how trauma keeps showing up between you, EMDR can help you and your partner find your way back to each other with safety, compassion, and hope.
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Breath, Body, and Presence in Relationship Healing
Relationships don’t just live in words they live in our bodies. The tension in your shoulders during an argument, the shallow breath when you feel unseen, or the numbness when conflict feels too overwhelming these are all signs of your nervous system shaping how you show up with your partner.
As a Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT 200), I bring yoga into couples therapy not as exercise, but as a practice of grounding, awareness, and shared presence. Yoga helps partners slow down, regulate their nervous systems, and reconnect to themselves and to each other in ways that talk alone can’t always reach.
How Yoga Supports Couples Therapy
Calms Conflict Reactivity – Breathwork and gentle movement help partners stay present, even in difficult conversations.
Creates Shared Safety – Simple grounding practices regulate both nervous systems, making space for vulnerability and openness.
Releases Held Stress & Trauma – Movement and awareness help clear tension carried from past experiences that spill into the relationship.
Builds Embodied Connection – Partners learn to tune in not just with words, but through mindful presence and attunement.
Strengthens Take-Home Practices – Couples leave with tools they can use together outside of therapy for regulation, calm, and intimacy.Why Couples Value Yoga in Therapy
Accessible & Adaptable – Practices can be seated, standing, or lying down always tailored to comfort and needs.
Embodied Healing – Supports emotional repair through body awareness, not just cognitive insight.
Grounding & Regulating – Helps partners return to safety more quickly after conflict or rupture.
Empowering – Provides tangible practices couples can return to between sessions.An Integrative Approach
Yoga seamlessly enhances the couples work I already offer:
With EFCT & Gottman Method, yoga helps couples stay grounded while addressing attachment needs, conflict patterns, and trust repair.
With Somatic & Attachment-Focused EMDR and Brainspotting, yoga anchors the nervous system, supporting reprocessing without overwhelm.
With IFS, Ego States, and Trauma Work, yoga helps partners notice body cues of “parts” or survival responses, and respond with compassion.
A Path Toward Connection
Yoga is more than movement it’s a bridge. By weaving yoga into couples therapy, partners can access a deeper sense of calm, safety, and attunement with one another.
Whether you’re navigating conflict, rebuilding trust, or simply seeking more presence and intimacy, yoga practices can be woven into your sessions helping you not just understand each other but truly feel connected again.