From conflict to connection.
Relationship and family therapy: In-person and virtual
Based in Boston
Couple and Relationship Therapy
Crises in intimate relationships can be powerful opportunities for transformation.
In intimate relationships, we can feel the most alive and also feel the most pain. We have some of the most exquisite opportunities of our lives to grow the most, and it is not without hard work. We can view crises in an intimate relationship as tremendous opportunities for individual growth of each partner, as well as a situation that needs our urgent attention and care.
My approach to working with couples draws mostly from Intimacy From the Inside Out®, developed by Toni Herbine-Blank, MS, RN, CS-P. I am a Co-Lead Trainer in this model of therapy. This model offers tools to help each partner develop a stronger internal relationship with their own parts, which creates more possibilities to navigate external relationships in a way that leads to more satisfaction, and to negotiate differences from a more secure inner base.
I work with the couple (or other intimate partner constellation) to:
Identify strategies that each partner uses that might be keeping them disconnected from their partner(s)
Unpack the hopes and intentions of these strategies (which are generally positive), with often unintended negative impacts on the partner(s)
Develop new skills for speaking and listening in ways that are more likely to get their needs met in the relationship and foster more loving connection
Repair past betrayals, creating possibilities to reconnect and rebuild trust
Navigate the high seas of conflict and help their nervous systems to find the calm in the storm
I specialize in working with people in intercultural and interracial relationships. I work with people in intimate relationships of all genders and sexual identities. I work with throuples, polycules, and couples.
Couple therapy, or relationship therapy, can be helpful:
At the beginning of a relationship, to establish healthy communication
When considering moving in together, getting married, or starting a family
When navigating differences (including cultural and racial ones)
When you feel stuck, like you are having the same argument over and over again
When your sex life is not what you wish it were
When one or more partners feel betrayed by the actions of the other and repair is necessary for the relationship to continue
When old trauma from previous relationships gets triggered
When negotiating whether or how to open a relationship (ethical non-monogamy, polyamory)
When one or more partners experience health or other life stressors that impact the relationship
When ending the relationship—to part ways in a conscious way, with clear communication
Family Therapy for Adults
I work with different family constellations of adults: one or more parents or other caregivers and their adult child(ren), siblings, grandparents, cousins, people who are part of chosen family (e.g., two close friends).
Families come to me when there has been a breakdown in communication, there is a desire to reconnect after some member(s) of the family have stopped speaking to one another, there has been a betrayal of trust, a family member has something important to disclose, or the family faces a seemingly insurmountable challenge they don’t know how to navigate.
My approach to working with families is highly influenced by Internal Family Systems therapy and Intimacy From the Inside Out®. It is also informed by narrative therapy, systemic family therapy, structural family therapy, and the liberation health model. Whenever there is a problem in a family dynamic, it is never the result of one person simply being “the problem,” and yet when one member of the family is struggling, it can have a great impact on those close to them; in these situations, family therapy can be a transformational process for the whole family.
I have a passion for addressing issues of intergenerational trauma and legacy burdens in families, as well as how migration and immigration have impacted families.