Source Healing Psychotherapy
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Couples Therapy in Orange County

Build a relationship that feels safer, more connected, and more alive.

You may love each other deeply and still find yourselves caught in the same arguments, feeling increasingly disconnected, or unsure how to repair what has happened between you.

Maybe trust has been broken. Maybe intimacy has faded. Maybe you communicate constantly but rarely feel truly heard or understood. Or perhaps you’re at a crossroads and aren’t even sure whether you want to stay together.

Couples therapy gives you a space to slow things down, understand what is actually happening beneath the conflict, and begin changing the patterns that keep you stuck.

My approach is warm, direct, and highly intentional. I don’t simply sit back and listen while you have the same argument you have at home. I actively help you identify the patterns playing out between you, understand what is driving them, and practice new ways of communicating and connecting.

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What I Help Couples With

Relationships can become strained for many different reasons. Sometimes there is a specific rupture that brings you to therapy. Other times, couples simply know that the relationship doesn’t feel the way it used to—and they want help understanding why.

I work with couples navigating:

Betrayal & Infidelity

Processing the impact of an affair or betrayal, understanding what happened, rebuilding emotional safety, and determining whether and how you can move forward together.

Communication & Recurring Conflict

Breaking out of arguments that go nowhere and learning how to communicate without escalating, withdrawing, criticizing, or becoming defensive.

Trust & Relationship Repair

Working through ruptures in trust and developing the emotional safety needed to reconnect.

Intimacy & Vulnerability

Addressing emotional and physical disconnection, differences in desire, difficulty being vulnerable, and challenges creating a satisfying intimate relationship.

Co-Parenting

Improving communication and collaboration around parenting, especially when differences in values, expectations, or parenting styles create conflict.

Blended Families

Navigating stepfamily dynamics, parenting roles, boundaries, loyalty conflicts, and the complexity of bringing families together.

Premarital Counseling

Creating a stronger foundation before marriage by exploring communication, conflict, intimacy, finances, family, expectations, values, and your shared vision for the future.

Discernment Counseling

Creating space for clarity when one or both partners are uncertain about whether to remain in the relationship.

An Inclusive Space for Your Relationship

I offer couples therapy that is LGBTQ+ affirming, kink-friendly, sex-positive, and inclusive of diverse relationship structures and identities.

I work with couples and partners across a range of relationship experiences, including LGBTQ+ relationships, consensual non-monogamy and ethical non-monogamy (ENM), open relationships, and kink/BDSM dynamics.

You don’t need to fit a particular model of what a relationship is “supposed” to look like to work with me.

My role isn’t to impose assumptions about what your relationship should look like. Instead, I want to understand your agreements, values, needs, boundaries, and vision for your relationship and help you build a relationship that works for the people actually in it.

Whether you’re navigating communication, intimacy, jealousy, trust, boundaries, sexual differences, relationship transitions, or a rupture in trust, we’ll approach the work with curiosity, respect, and without judgment.

LGBTQ+ affirming · Kink-friendly · Sex-positive · ENM-inclusive

My Approach to Couples Therapy

I have intensive training and clinical experience working specifically with couples.

I previously worked in a private practice focused on couples therapy, where I received ongoing training and consultation in relationship dynamics and couples treatment.

My couples training includes Gottman Method Couples Therapy Level 1, Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT), and co-parenting approaches.

I draw from attachment-based and evidence-informed approaches to understand not only what you’re fighting about, but what is happening underneath the conflict.

Because the argument about dishes, sex, money, parenting, or your phone is often not just about the thing you’re arguing about.

Underneath it may be:

  • Can I depend on you?
  • Do I matter to you?
  • Are you listening to me?
  • Am I safe being vulnerable with you?
  • Can I trust you again?

Understanding those deeper patterns allows us to work on more than conflict management. It helps us build a relationship in which both partners can feel safer, more understood, and more connected.

How Does Couples Therapy Work?

  1. Understand
  2. Create a Plan
  3. Change the Pattern

Sessions 1 & 2: Understanding Your Relationship

We begin with a thorough assessment of your relationship.

During our first two sessions, I spend time getting to know each partner as well as understanding the dynamics that have developed between you.

We explore:

  • The concerns bringing you to couples therapy
  • Common sources of conflict
  • Patterns of communication and interaction
  • Attachment styles and relationship histories
  • Relevant trauma and family-of-origin experiences
  • Trust, intimacy, and emotional connection
  • Strengths within your relationship
  • What each of you wants your relationship to look and feel like

I may also recommend completing the Gottman Relationship Checkup, a comprehensive relationship assessment that can give us additional information about your relationship’s strengths and areas of concern.

The goal is to understand your relationship as accurately as possible before deciding where to intervene.

Session 3: Your Treatment Plan

Once I understand the relationship and what each of you wants from therapy, I develop a treatment plan built around your specific goals.

We’ll talk openly about what I am seeing, the patterns I believe are keeping you stuck, and where I recommend we focus our work.

I want you to understand not only what we’re working on, but why.

Ongoing Couples Therapy: Changing the Pattern

Then we begin doing the work.

Couples therapy with me is active.

I will coach you through difficult conversations, teach you more effective ways of communicating, slow interactions down when old patterns begin taking over, and help you recognize what is happening underneath your reactions to one another.

At times, I will interrupt you.

I will point out patterns.

I will challenge both of you when I believe something is getting in the way of the relationship you say you want.

And I will also help you recognize what is already working so we can strengthen it.

My presence is warm, direct, and nonjudgmental. I’m not interested in deciding who is the “bad guy” in your relationship. My role is to understand the dynamic between you and help both of you create something healthier.

Depending on your goals, our work may focus on:

  • Communicating without escalating or shutting down
  • Understanding each other’s emotional needs
  • Increasing vulnerability and emotional intimacy
  • Repairing after conflict
  • Rebuilding trust after betrayal
  • Changing destructive relationship patterns
  • Strengthening friendship and affection
  • Navigating differences without losing connection
  • Creating greater emotional and physical intimacy

Couples sessions are 90 minutes.

The longer format gives us enough time to move beyond simply talking about the problem and actually work with what is happening between you.

Couples Therapy Intensives & Retreats

Sometimes an hour a week isn’t enough.

For couples dealing with a significant rupture—or couples who want dedicated time to work deeply on their relationship—I also offer two-day couples therapy intensives.

An intensive creates protected time away from everyday responsibilities so we can focus closely on your relationship without having to stop just as we’re getting somewhere important.

Intensives can be especially helpful for couples who are:

  • Recovering from infidelity or betrayal
  • Trying to rebuild trust
  • Stuck in recurring conflict
  • Feeling deeply disconnected
  • Struggling with communication
  • Wanting to reconnect emotionally and intimately
  • Facing an important transition in their relationship

Over two focused days, we’ll identify the patterns contributing to your disconnection, have conversations that may be difficult to have on your own, and practice new ways of communicating and responding to one another.

The goal isn’t simply to feel closer during the intensive.

It’s to leave understanding your relationship differently—and with concrete tools you can continue using when you go home.

Explore Couples Therapy Intensives

What Couples Therapy With Me Is Like

Warm. Direct. Nonjudgmental.

My role isn’t simply to validate both partners and hope the relationship improves.

  • I coach.
  • I challenge.
  • I slow down the patterns that aren’t working.

I help you understand what is happening beneath the conflict and practice doing something different.

The goal is not to determine who is right.

The goal is to help you create a relationship that actually works for both of you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Your Relationship Doesn’t Have to Stay Stuck

You don’t have to wait until your relationship is falling apart to ask for help.

Whether you’re trying to repair after betrayal, break out of the same recurring conflict, rebuild intimacy, or simply create a stronger relationship, couples therapy can help you understand what is happening and begin doing something different.

Schedule Your Free Consultation

Learn About Couples Therapy Intensives