High-conflict relationships don’t always look explosive, but they do feel exhausting. You keep having the same argument in different forms, small moments escalate fast, and even simple conversations turn into shutdown, defensiveness, or blame. You want connection, but you keep getting pulled into the same painful cycle.
Therapy for High Conflict Couples in Los Angeles
Reconnect, repair, and move past the patterns keeping you stuck with Couples therapy in the South Bay
I offer high-conflict couples therapy from my office in Hermosa Beach, working with partners across the South Bay, Los Angeles, and through online therapy throughout California, helping couples step out of reactivity and back into real connection.
Part of our work often includes understanding each partner’s attachment wiring and emotional triggers , the same roots we explore in individual therapy for relational trauma and attachment wounds. When you understand what gets activated inside you, and why , you gain choice instead of just reaction. That shift alone can start changing the emotional climate between you.
This isn’t about picking a “right” partner. It’s about building a safer way of relating with the partner you have.
Longing for Connection, Caught in the Clash
therapy for relational traumas
Los Angeles couples therapy for navigating conflict, communication, and emotional distance
therapy can help if you are looking to...
Understand what’s really underneath the conflict and not just what’s being said in the heat of the moment. By slowing down and focusing on emotions and attachment needs, you can finally get to the heart of what’s driving the arguments.
therapy can help if you are looking to...
Work with your nervous systems, not against them. Instead of staying stuck in reactivity, you’ll learn to notice your wiring, regulate in real time, and build tools that support security and connection.
therapy can help if you are looking to...
Rebuild trust and accountability, especially if criticism, defensiveness, contempt, or betrayal have taken root. Therapy offers a space to repair ruptures and create a new pattern of reliability and safety.
therapy can help if you are looking to...
Unpack power dynamics and unhealthy roles that may have come from childhood, culture, or past relationships. By naming these patterns, you can begin to create a relationship that feels more balanced and respectful.
therapy can help if you are looking to...
Improve communication and listening skills so you can actually hear each other. In therapy, you’ll practice slowing down, staying present, and speaking in ways that build empathy rather than fuel disconnection.
therapy can help if you are looking to...
Develop effective strategies for conflict resolution. Instead of escalating, you’ll learn practical tools for approaching disagreements with curiosity and compassion, so you can navigate hard moments without tearing each other down.
therapy can help if you are looking to...
Address both individual and relationship needs. Therapy makes space for each partner’s history, emotions, and struggles while strengthening your shared bond, so growth happens on both personal and relational levels.
therapy can help if you are looking to...
Strengthen your ability to repair quickly after conflict. All couples argue, but high-conflict couples often stay stuck. Therapy helps you learn how to come back to each other with honesty, care, and renewed commitment.
High conflict doesn’t usually come from indifference- it comes from passion colliding with old wounds. Every slammed door or sharp word often masks something vulnerable: fear of being abandoned, fear of being controlled, fear of not being enough.
It usually follows a pattern- one that makes sense once we slow it down. Many couples are repeating familiar but unhealthy relationship patterns, feeling confused by subtle forms of gaslighting or emotional distortion or struggling with how anger gets expressed and misunderstood especially when it shows up differently in men and women.
In therapy, we don’t referee arguments. We get underneath them. We translate what each of you is really trying to say when the delivery goes off the rails. We build the skills and emotional safety needed so anger becomes information instead of a weapon, conflict becomes workable instead of destructive, and repair becomes possible again. That’s where high-conflict couples start to feel like a team instead of opponents.
High Conflict Couples Therapy online throughout California
• Learning to recognize when you or your partner are dysregulated and what helps
• Building skills to soothe one another in moments of intensity rather than escalate or withdraw
• Creating rituals of connection and safety, especially during or after conflict
• Shifting the emotional climate of your relationship from “fight or flight” to grounded and responsive
• Shifting from blame to shared responsibility without getting stuck in shame or defensiveness
• Slowing down enough to actually feel each other again
• Reclaiming the tenderness, humor, and emotional safety that may have been lost
• Strengthening your capacity for vulnerability and reflection
• Repairing in a way that actually lands, so it’s felt and received
