Couples Counseling

Partnerships under strain often arrive in our office not because the relationship is broken, but because something in the relationship is asking to be heard. Including, often, depression.

FormatBoth partners + clinician

Length75–90 min initial · 50–80 min ongoing

CadenceWeekly or biweekly

ModalitiesEFT · Gottman · Discernment Counseling

What it is

How Couples Counseling works here.

Couples therapy is its own discipline. The same clinical mind that is helpful one-on-one needs different training to work with a system of two. Our couples clinicians draw primarily on Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and Gottman-method approaches — both well-evidenced and complementary.

We see couples in every stage: the early stage where you’re trying to decide if this is something to invest in, the long-marriage stage where something has gone quiet that used to be loud, and everything between. We also work with couples where one or both partners are living with depression — the depression often reorganizes the relationship in ways the partners can’t fully see while inside it.

Couples work might fit if…

Communication patterns have hardened into roles.
One or both partners are living with depression and the relationship is bending around it.
You’re recovering from a rupture, including infidelity.
You’re weighing whether to stay or part, and you want help thinking it through honestly.

Two people sitting close together, soft natural light

What a session looks like

The practical shape of the work.

An initial session is usually 75–90 minutes and includes both partners. We then often see each partner for a single individual session before resuming joint work. Ongoing sessions are 50–80 minutes depending on what fits.

Sessions don’t look like a referee match. They look more like watching the two of you have a real conversation in the room — interrupted, sometimes, when something asks to be slowed down.

Initial joint session

75–90 minutes with both partners — what brought you in, what each partner is hoping for, fit assessment.

Individual sessions

One short individual session with each partner before resuming joint work, to hear context that needs space.

Ongoing work

Joint sessions at a cadence that fits the relationship’s pace. Adjusted as the work moves.

Most couples find that some of what they were calling relationship problems were depression doing what depression does — and some were real relationship problems wearing the costume of depression. Both deserve to be seen for what they are.

— From the practice

What it can help with

Common reasons people choose this.

Communication patterns that have hardened into roles.
Recovery from rupture, including infidelity.
Co-parenting alignment.
The strain of one or both partners’ depression, anxiety with depression, or other mental health conditions.
Premarital and pre-cohabitation work.
Decisions about whether to stay or part.

Wondering whether this is the right fit?

The intake conversation is exactly for that. No commitment to schedule.

Talk to someone

You don’t have to figure this out alone

Reach out — even if you’re still not sure.

Most people sit with the question for a long time before making the call. Whatever you’re carrying, we’ve almost certainly sat with someone holding something similar. The first step is just a conversation.

Book Your First Session Call (626) 354-6440