COUPLE THERAPY
You want to feel close again.
You want to feel understood, cared for, and connected to your partner. Yet despite your best efforts, you may find yourselves having the same arguments, feeling increasingly distant, or getting stuck in patterns that neither of you wants. One of you may reach for connection while the other pulls away. One may become frustrated or reactive while the other shuts down. Over time, many couples begin feeling hurt, alone, blamed, unseen, or exhausted by interactions that seem to go nowhere.
Why This Happens
Most couples do not struggle because they do not love each other or because they are fundamentally incompatible. More often, they become caught in patterns that gradually take on a life of their own. When we feel hurt, criticized, misunderstood, rejected, or disconnected, protective reactions naturally emerge. We may become defensive, angry, withdrawn, critical, accommodating, or emotionally distant. While these reactions often make sense in the context of our life experiences and relationships, they can unintentionally trigger similar reactions in our partner.
Over time, both partners can become unknowingly trapped in a cycle. For example:
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The more one partner pursues, the more the other withdraws.
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The more one partner criticizes, the more the other becomes defensive.
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The more one partner shuts down, the more alone the other feels.
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The more alone one partner feels, the harder they push for connection.
Eventually, the cycle itself becomes the problem.
Slowing Down the Cycle
A central focus of our work is helping both partners understand what is happening beneath the conflict. Rather than focusing only on the content of arguments, we slow interactions down and become curious about the emotional experiences driving them.
What appears on the surface is often not the whole story. Beneath frustration there may be hurt. Beneath withdrawal there may be overwhelm, fear, or a sense of not knowing how to respond. Beneath criticism there may be a longing to feel important, valued, or connected.
As these deeper experiences become more visible, couples begin to see one another differently. Instead of only seeing the reaction, they begin to understand the experience underneath it.
Often, partners are not only reacting to what is happening in the present moment. They are also reacting to what their nervous system has learned to expect from relationships. One partner may experience distance where the other experiences pressure. One may feel controlled where the other feels abandoned. These reactions are rarely random. They usually make sense within each person's emotional history. As these patterns become clearer, couples often begin seeing not only each other's behaviour differently, but the emotional realities underneath it.
Understanding Ourselves and Each Other
Part of this process involves recognizing that different aspects of ourselves emerge in relationships. There may be a part of you that becomes angry when it feels ignored, a part that shuts down when conflict appears, a part that works hard to keep the peace, or a part that longs deeply for connection but struggles to reach for it directly.
Rather than viewing these reactions as problems to eliminate, we work to understand the role they have played and what they may be trying to protect. As partners develop a greater understanding of their own internal experiences, they often become more able to understand the experiences of each other as well.
Together, we become curious about:
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The emotional experiences underneath conflict.
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The protective reactions that take over during difficult moments.
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The fears, longings, and needs that are often hidden beneath anger or withdrawal.
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The patterns that repeatedly pull the relationship away from connection.
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The ways each partner's history may shape how they experience closeness, conflict, and vulnerability.
Working in the Present Moment
I am trained Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), Internal Family Systems (IFS), Brainspotting, and other experiential therapies. In practice, however, therapy is less about applying techniques and more about creating the conditions for meaningful change to occur.
Rather than simply talking about your relationship, we often pay attention to what is happening in the room as it unfolds. This may include emotions, body sensations, protective reactions, and interactional patterns that emerge between partners in real time.
By slowing down and exploring these experiences together, couples are often able to access parts of themselves and each other that have become hidden beneath conflict, reactivity, or distance.
The Goal
The goal of our work is not to determine who is right, eliminate all conflict, or force closeness.
The goal is to help both partners:
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Understand themselves more deeply.
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Understand one another more fully.
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Recognize and interrupt old patterns.
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Respond with greater openness and flexibility.
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Create a stronger sense of emotional safety and connection.
Over time, many couples find that they become less reactive, more emotionally accessible, and better able to reach for one another in moments that previously led to conflict or withdrawal. The relationship begins to feel less like a struggle against each other and more like two people learning how to face the challenges between them together.
"What can we expect from therapy?"
You will go through three stages of growth:
Stage 1 – Understanding What Takes Over
We start by mapping the pattern you get caught in. But instead of focusing only on behaviour, we look at the parts of you that take over in those moments. The part that gets sharp, frustrated, or urgent. The part that shuts down, withdraws, or goes quiet. These parts aren’t the problem—they’re trying to protect something more vulnerable underneath. As we get to know them, the conversation begins to shift:
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from blame → to curiosity
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from reacting → to understanding
You start to see: “This isn’t all of me—and it’s not all of you. These are parts of us trying to cope.” In these moments, we slow things down and stay with what is happening between you, rather than moving past it or trying to resolve it too quickly.
Stage 2 – Creating Safety for What’s Underneath
As your protective parts feel understood, they don’t have to work as hard. This creates space for the more vulnerable parts of you to come forward—the ones that carry fear, hurt, or a sense of not being enough. Instead of reacting from protection, you begin to share from a more honest place:
“A part of me is scared you’ll pull away.”
“A part of me doesn’t know how to get this right.”
Your partner learns how to respond to you, not just to your protectors. This is where the relationship starts to shift—through new experiences of being seen, accepted, and responded to differently.
Stage 3 – Relating in a New Way
Over time, you begin to recognize your parts as they show up—and you’re no longer taken over by them in the same way. You can pause, notice what’s happening inside, and choose how to respond. The cycle loosens. There’s more room for:
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steadiness instead of reactivity
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clarity instead of confusion
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connection instead of distance
You’re still yourselves—but with more awareness, more choice, and a stronger sense that you can face things together.
"THE MORE - THE MORE" CYCLE
Go through the videos and paragraphs below in order:
We are always looking for the cloth—to be seen and soothed: validated, accepted, understood, and loved. We want to feel safe and secure. When we don’t get that from our partner, it’s hard to tolerate. In the “nail” video, she becomes angry because she is looking for the cloth—she wants to be seen and soothed.
Note: gender pronouns can be reversed.
In the video, when he tries to help by offering advice, explanations, or a new perspective, she experiences it as the wire. She doesn’t feel understood or comforted. Her anger is not the problem—it’s how she reaches for the cloth.
As one partner asks for the cloth, the other experiences the wire.
He hears blame, judgment, or criticism—like he’s getting it wrong or is not enough. He becomes confused and frustrated, and over time this can turn into resentment. He doesn’t see the nail, so he tries to fix, minimize, or reframe the problem. But this makes her feel even less seen. She becomes more angry. He pulls back to avoid making things worse. The more she reaches, the more it lands as pressure. The more he tries, the more it feels like failure. This becomes a “the more / the more” cycle:
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The more she feels unseen, the more she pushes
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The more he feels it as criticism, the more he withdraws
Over time, both partners feel:
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alone
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frustrated
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and stuck
When caught in this cycle, there is constant rupture and little repair. Both partners are living in a state of threat and defence. There is little space for rest or safety. Even small, non-verbal moments can become danger cues, making it harder to trust. In the Still Face experiment, notice how the absence of connection quickly becomes distressing..
This same pattern shows up in adult relationships, as described by Dr. Tronick and Dr. Johnson.
FURTHER RESOURCES
Here are some short digestible podcasts that may be of interest:
In these two links, Emily Nagoski talks about Responsive and Spontaneous Desires and the ways in which our minds and bodies react to stressful situations -- the "accelerators" and "brakes."
If you’ve been anxious about sex, are struggling to connect to a long-term partner, or just want to understand yourself better, this episode offers lots of calm, informed, empathetic advice on how you can find your way.
A lot of what we ‘know’ about sex as a society is based on outdated research and cultural assumptions. Listen to Dr. Lori Brotto talk about her new book, Better Sex Through Mindfulness and explain some of our many misconceptions about sex, and introduce ways we can use mindfulness practices to feel more connected to ourselves — and to our partners — during sexual encounters.
By the end of this episode, you’ll learn concrete practices you can use to really tune into sex and make it better – regardless of your age or gender – and discover that pleasure is always there for you, if you can be there for it.
Still face – a look on our partner's face that spells d i s c o n n e c t i o n. Based on the seminal work by Ed Tronick, This podcast looks at what this might mean when we see still face when we're making love to our partner. We have to get curious about what is going on for the partner giving the still face. Could be their face actually is showing their performance anxiety, or going inward with their focus to try and get aroused. Maybe they don't realized that they've given their partner a message that they've disappeared. For the partner observing, we understand it can be unnerving. Maybe it feels rejecting or maybe this partner worries that it's a reflection on their bedroom skills. Listen as Laurie and George suggest ways to get curious and open up a conversation about still face.
Having your desire synced with your partner's may sound ideal, but rare in practice. Find out how to get back in the game when you are not in the mood.
Are you tired of having the same fight over and over? Would you like to discuss things without triggering your partner. Can you imagine that underneath your partner’s defense lies a hurt and even below that a need? George tries to help make it simple, in a nutshell there are three parts to how we react in a conflict – our protection, our hurt, and our need. Together, Laurie and George make sense of defensiveness and role play a different way to reach each other.
Sex and emotions—there’s a delicate balance between the two, an overlap that can’t be ignored. Emotions can enhance sex or inhibit sex, and sex can enhance emotions or inhibit emotions.
Borrowing concepts from the attachment theory, we dive into how sex and emotions intertwine by exploring the role of the Pursuer and Withdrawer…
While we don’t always fall neatly into a cycle, there is always a cycle, some level of interdependence. This interdependence can shift as patterns and is not concrete. A Pursuer can become a Withdrawer, or you might find that you were a Pursuer in an old relationship and a Withdrawer in your current relationship. The patterns are not your personality; they are a response to the complexity of sexual and emotional connections.
Understanding yourself and your partner requires intention but a balanced connection is worth the effort.