Support for your journey to a more fulfilling relationship
Photo by Jacqui Lown
Relationship Coaching Sessions
Intimate relationships take a lot of care, work, and healing to support each person to thrive. Sometimes it takes an outside perspective to help us see our relational blind spots and what’s in the way of deeper intimacy. It is important to grow each partner’s capacity to self-regulate as well as find a healthy balance of togetherness and separateness.
Using the Intimacy From the Inside Out framework, within the Internal Family Systems model, and Relational Life Therapy model, I support people in intimate relationships to create healthier and more connected cycles of relating. This includes learning to speak courageously and kindly, to listen from the heart, and to slow conflicts down so partners cause each other less harm and feel more connected. I also use what presents itself in the body as important information to know what’s happening for each person. If sexual compatibility is showing up as an issue, we can look at the underlying causes and address them.
Being an IFS practitioner and Integral Coach, it is my job to create a safe, calm and compassionate space. To do this, I bring anti-oppression, neurodiverse-affirming, sex positive, and trauma-informed lenses to my work. I endeavor to create a safe space to explore gender, sexual orientation, relationship style (monogamy/non-monogamy), kink, and more. If co-parenting or step-family dynamics are present in the relationship, we can delve into these topics.
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In truth, not a lot! In my IFS (Internal Family Systems), IFIO (Intimacy From the Inside Out) and RLT (Relational Life Therapy) training, I’ve been one of a small minority of coaches in a sea of therapists. All these models acknowledge the deep work that coaches can do to support relational healing and growth. Not only can I help you see your relationship patterns and offer you new relational skills, I can help you heal patterns at their roots, through parts work.
I help people connect to their wise Self energy; the one of them that can recognize their contributions to the relationship problems, and to the compassionate one of them that can appreciate their less than perfect partners. In RLT, it is often said, “Other therapies teach you skills. We deal with the parts of you that don’t want to use them”.
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Based on what you bring to each session and your overall relationship goals, I will guide you through processes such as courageous communication, which includes speaking and listening in new ways, conflict resolution and repair, individual parts work, uncovering appreciation for each other, and more. I track the patterns that are coming up, typically over and over again, between the two of you and help you learn to do things differently.
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I work with any two people who are genuinely interested in showing up to their relationship with a desire for connection and an openness to change. I mainly worked with romantic couples but I’ve also worked with adult children and their parents, adult siblings, and more. I work with queer couples as well as heterosexual. I work with people who are doing well and want to do better, as well as people on the edge of separation. I’ve supported folks navigating complex family dynamics including blended families, mixed neurotype couples, adoption, polycules, and more. If there is a history of betrayal or affairs, we can work with that.
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If there is physical violence in a relationship or threat of such, relationship coaching with me is not a good fit. If there is untreated substance abuse or moderate to severe mental health conditions (these don’t need to be fully resolved but need to be being addressed/treated), coaching isn’t the right fit. Finally, I do not work with folks if there is an active affair going on.