Couples Therapy in Roseville CA

How does Couples Therapy Work?

Couples therapy works by helping you change your thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Intimate relationships are the primary driver of human growth, and couples therapy helps accelerate that growth. Your own personal growth is what drives relationship improvement. As you get stronger, your relationship gets better.

If you’ve never been to couples therapy, this guide will tell you what to expect. If you have been to couples therapy, this guide will help you understand how my approach is different from mainstream couples therapy. 

Intake & Assessment

During our first session, I will ask you how long you have been together and whether you have any children together or from previous relationships. I will also tell you about the limitations of confidentiality in therapy, including my responsibility to report child abuse. This process takes about two minutes, and then we get to work.

Initial Treatment

I usually start by asking what you want to change in your relationship. Most couples ask for help with communication, and some also ask for help with anger, arguing, infidelity, sexuality, or parenting. It’s important to not waste time talking about things that won’t help you improve your relationship, so my job is to focus our work on the most important topics.

Developing Personal Power and Responsibility

During our first session together, I will give each of you a chance to tell me what you want your partner to change. Once I know your primary concerns, I will start encouraging both of you to shift your attention from changing your partner to changing yourself. When you change, it makes it much easier for your partner to change as well.

Your relationship will start to change when you accept responsibility for what you think, what you say, and what you do. There is a temptation to see yourself as innocent and powerless, but thinking that way will not lead to creating a better relationship.

In the early stages of therapy, you might feel like you don’t have a lot of power to change your own behavior in the relationship. You might feel like you are being triggered, or you are just responding to what your partner is doing. In reality, you are more poweful than you know, and that is the key to creating a better relationship. 

Improving Communication

As your relationship improves, you’ll get better at talking to each other. Here are seven ways that might happen:

1. Reveal, don’t convince:  effective relationship communication is about revealing what who you are, what you see, and what you want. When you try to convince your partner that you’re right, you’re actually giving away some of your own personhood.

2. Don’t talk about your feelings:  feelings aren’t usually the most important thing. You’re better off telling your partner how you see them, and what you want from them. Relationships improve when behavior improves.

3. Own your preference:  one of the most powerful things you can say to your partner is “I prefer you. . .” and then tell them what you want. Your preference is always yours, as long as you don’t try to convince your partner that you’re right and they’re wrong. Don’t try to justify what you want:  just the fact that you want it is all the justification you need. Your preference matters because you matter.

4. Own your perception:  Tell your partner how you see things, and then stop. You don’t need to convince them that your way of seeing things is right. Your perception is always yours, and you don’t need to justify it or fight for it. Your perception matters because you matter.

5. When you disagree, silence is golden. Take a breath and wait ten seconds before you respond. Slow everything down. The first response that comes to mind will probably make things worse, not better.

6. Don’t let things get out of hand. When anxiety goes above a five on a ten-point scale, say “I’m going to go calm down, I’ll be back in ten minutes.” Nothing good happens past the halfway mark on the anxiety scale.

7. Make room for your partner to disagree with you. There will always be differences of opinion between two people in a long-term relationship. Make room for your partner to disagree, and also allow yourself the same room. So much effort is wasted trying to get unnecessary agreement.

Getting Clear on your Parents

As a child, your brain was programmed to not see the very worst parts of your parents. That blindness lasts into adulthood, and makes it hard for you to see certain character flaws in yourself and in others. When you see your parents more clearly, you’ll also see yourself and your partner more clearly. 

Balancing your Brain

Your brain is divided into two halves, with a one-inch connector between them. The right side of your brain is good at at observation, appreciation, understanding, caring, learning, and growing. The left side is good at using tools and language, and at controlling your environment. 

Left brains aren’t good at understanding people, so things fall apart when your left brain starts to run your relationship. You’ll find yourself feeling constantly frustrated, and you might end up trying the same “solution” over and over again, even though it doesn’t work. 

When you fell in love, you saw your partner with your right brain, focusing on who they are as a person. As your relationship matured, your left brain started to take over, focusing your attention on the more problematic parts of your partner, and ignoring the larger context of how amazing they are.

I usually start each session by reading a poem because it helps me keep my own brain balanced.

Self-Confrontation

Relationships get better when people get stronger. As your brain gets better and you start functioning better, you’ll appreciate your partner more, and take more interest in showing up well in your relationship. 

Self-confrontation is the ability to look at the difference between who you are, and who you want to become. “What kind of a person do I want to be” is that one question that will be your guide as you grow into a lifetime of love. 

How Long does Couples Therapy Take?

During our first session I will talk to you about how long it might take you to achieve your relationship goals. If you have recently experienced infidelity in your relationship, I might suggest coming to therapy once a week for six weeks, and then coming less often as things get better. Most of my clients see their relationships improve after each session, and feel comfortable stopping therapy after five to ten sessions.

How Much does Couples Therapy Cost?

Your first session is free, and additional 50-minute sessions cost $250. Some of my clients pay via HSA, and some receive reimbursement through their medical insurance.