I specialize in helping premarital couples design the relationship that is right for them, longtime couples find their way back to each other after drifting apart, blended family couples navigating stepfamily challenges, adult chidren and their parents adapt their relationship to meet new needs, and adults navigating estrangement discernment (contemplation or reconciliation) with important loved ones.

I do.

While I am systemically trained to work from a relational lens, we are all in relationship with ourselves and others. Most of my individual client work touches upon the same themes I help my couples and families navigate in our work together.

During active work together, I typically see clients weekly or biweekly. While the standard session length is 50 minutes, clients can choose longer sessions with many relational clients choosing longer 75-90 minute sessions.

I also offer 2-4 hour intensives for couples wanting to do a deep dive and make substantial progress quickly.

Estrangement Discernment is my own process (rooted in Bowenian Theory) of exploring the impact of complicated relationships, identifying unmet needs and boundaries, assessing another’s ability or likelihood of meeting them, and finding peace and acceptance regardless of outcome. Sometimes the right answer is to let go, sometimes the right answer feels like making sense of painful disappointment and accepting a less fulfilling form of connection in order to stay in relationship. The goal is not to remain uncomfortably close or cut-off from a place of reactivity.

I work with clients to slow down, makes sense of their needs and feelings and find a pathway that supports their relational needs in a way that honors their highest self. The goal is to find peace regardless of the outcome.

What works in blended (step) families is not the same as what works in first families. They require different expectations, different conversations, and different rules. One of the greatest challenges in being a remarried or blended family couple comes when we try to apply best practices for first families onto our new blended family—which has an entirely different playbook. When we do this, it usually backfires and leads to frustration, resentment and disconnection.

In my work with blended family couples, I teach couples how to find connection amidst the challenges of split loyalties. This involves education, as well, about what research tells us does and does not work in creating strong blended families.

We all grew up with roadmaps for who we thought we were supposed to be, and what we thought relationships were supposed to be like.

But no two relationships are alike, nor should they be.

Sometimes, the biggest frustrations come after we worked hard to put in place what we believed would make us happy, only to find that it doesn’t.

I work with couples to dispel old ideas that are working against them, and tap into the genuine emotional needs, aspirations and desires that makes them feel respectively alive, seen, understood, accepted and connected. It is radical, ground-up transformative work that results in a roadmap for feeling loved and loving your partner deeply.

Families, just like individuals, have their own developmental milestones. As we get older and parents age or we become partnered and start families of our own, we can find that the old patterns no longer work. I work with adult children and parents to help them transition into a new way of relating that honors all family stakeholders, and adapt to the current phase of their parent-child relationship.