Relationships are where our deepest wounds and our greatest healing tend to show up. Relationships are also a never ending cycle of harmony, disharmony, and repair.
You’re here because something in your relationship needs to change. Love is getting buried under resentment, miscommunication, emotional disconnection or just the constant hum of stress and unmet needs.
You're not alone. And you're not beyond repair.
I work with couples to slow things down, understand the emotional patterns underneath the surface, and rebuild connection from the inside out.
Repair is the part of the story
I specialize in helping couples untangle what’s not working in their relationship by understanding how past experiences, old wounds, survival strategies, attachment fears, and unmet needs are playing out in the present. Together, we’ll shift out of blame and into connection. We’ll shift from “I” to “WE” to move away from who’s right or wrong toward mutual care and accountability.
We’ll get honest about what hurts and why. We’ll name the things that haven’t been said. And we’ll work toward real healing, not just better conflict management.
Untangling Old Wounds, Rebuilding New Connections
- Infidelity
- Building and rebuilding trust
- Communication
- Conflict Resolution
- Healing through relationship
- Cross-Cultural Couples
- Relational traumas
- New Parenthood
- Intimacy Issues
- Difficulty Connecting
- Avoidant vs Anxious
- Jealousy
- Establishing or Improving Emotional Connection
- Parenting
- Neurodiversity
- premarital
In couples therapy we can work on...
Couples therapy in Hermosa Beach and online in California
How Couples Therapy With Me Works
Couples therapy in Hermosa Beach and online in California
Imago
Gottman
relational life therapy
esther perel
click on each modality to learn more
where to start
I use evidence-based, skills-driven couples therapy to help you both feel more connected, grounded, and equipped when things get messy and uncertain. It isn’t about forcing it. It’s about building real tools to navigate conflict, repair trust, and stay close through the hard stuff.
Imago Relationship Therapy
Imago helps partners understand how childhood experiences shape adult relationships. You’ll learn how past wounds influence current conflict and how to use your relationship as a space for healing, not re-wounding.
The Gottman Method
Based on decades of research, the Gottman Method offers tools for managing conflict, strengthening friendship and intimacy, and rebuilding trust after betrayal. It’s especially helpful when trust has been damaged by affairs or long-standing disconnection.
Relational Life Therapy (RLT)
RLT gets straight to the point. It’s a no-nonsense, honest approach that helps uncover imbalances in your relationship like power struggles, resentment, or emotional disconnection and teaches both partners how to show up with more integrity, empathy, and truth.
Esther Perel’s Transformative Couples Therapy
The method explores the tension between autonomy and connection in long-term love. You'll look at how routine, resentment, and unmet needs can erode desire and how to bring vitality and honesty back into your relationship.
When we don’t feel safe or understood in our relationship, we start to protect ourselves instead of turning toward each other. That protection might look like shutting down, snapping, keeping score, or checking out.
After working together, couples report:
- Repaired relationship ruptures
- Understanding of their partner’s inner world (and your own)
- Cycles of blame / defensiveness reduced
- Connected as teammates not opponents
- More physical and emotional intimacy
- Better communication skills
After Couples Therapy With Me
learn more
Couples therapy in Hermosa Beach and online in California
After spending years in mediation with couples at the end of their relationships, I decided to head down a more positive path becoming a therapist who specializes in work with couples. The goal in therapy is for clients to gain clarity and direction in their relationships, and to learn tools for happier and healthier bonds with their partners.
My main theoretical approach to couples therapy is Imago Relationship Therapy that believes that our childhood experiences and attachment wound create expectations and defenses that cause problems in our relationship. The goal of therapy is to help couples heal old childhood wounds by recognizing and interrupting old patterns and developing healthier ones.
While I take most from Imago, I consider myself an integrative therapists by borrowing from different modalities I am trained in.
Who I am.
· Imago Couples Therapy with Harville Hendrix, certificate
· The Relational Life Therapy Approach to Couples Therapy with Terry Real, master class
· Encounter-Centered Couples Therapy: “Teaching Couples the Art of Connection” training
· The Gottman Method to Treating Affairs and Trauma: An Advanced Training Course
· Healing from Affairs Training with Tammy Nelson: Moving Past the Trauma of Betrayal and Infidelity
· Integrative Sex and Couples Certification Training: Certified Sex Therapy Informed Professional (CSTIP) Course
· Integrative relationship therapy certification with Tammy Nelson
· Transformative approach to couples therapy with Esther Perel, master class
Couples therapy in Hermosa Beach and online in California
How to get started
learn more
contact me
Reach out using the contact form. Share a bit about what’s bringing you to couples therapy- no need to overthink it. I’ll get back to you with next steps.
01.
initial
consultation
Reach out using the contact form. Share a bit about what’s bringing you to couples therapy- no need to overthink it. I’ll get back to you with next steps.
02.
first
appointment
If we decide to work together, in our first full session, we’ll dive into what’s been feeling stuck or painful in your relationship. I’ll help you both slow things down, name what’s not working, and begin mapping a path forward.
03.
ongoing
sessions
We’ll work together weekly (or biweekly, depending on your needs) to build stronger communication, heal past wounds, and create more connections. Every step is tailored to your relationship, not a one-size-fits-all plan.
04.
I’m a novice when it comes to receiving.
Giving has become my second expertise,
But giving alone without getting
Becomes soon a fatal disease.
If the intake valve is not opened
There’s no way to maintain a supply
There comes a point in a cycle of life
Where the out-going stream runs dry.
Straining out love from a vacuum
Is like drinking from the heart of a stone.
Try as we may, at the end of the day,
We’re exhausted, frustrated, alone.
‘Better to give than to receive’ we are taught
Yet another truth I’ve learnt just by living:
Only the soul with the grace to receive,
Excels in the fine art of giving.
- Dr James A. Forbes Jr.
