You don’t have to be in crisis.
Most couples believe therapy is for emergencies, and that they aren’t bad enough yet. That belief is what keeps couples waiting for years.
The couples I see rarely arrive at the first sign of trouble. They arrive after years of managing it, after the same argument has run so many times that both people can recite the other’s lines. By then the problem isn’t the argument. It’s everything that has been built on top of it.
Waiting isn’t a failure of will. It’s what happens when you’re good at handling things. But the work is slower and harder the longer the pattern has had to set, and nothing about starting requires a crisis to justify it.
What the first sessions are for.
I want to understand the problem from each of your perspectives. Four things:
What the problem is.
How long it has been a problem.
What each of you has done to try to resolve it.
What each of you needs in order for it to change.
This takes time, and I don’t rush it.
You are the expert on your relationship. I bring a great deal of expertise on couples and on relationships. We work on it together.
When couples go fast, they go wrong. I don’t work at a snail’s pace, but I don’t leave a stone unturned.
If your partner isn’t sure.
That’s common, and it isn’t a reason to wait. Come to the consultation on your own and we’ll talk about how to raise it. Plenty of the couples I see started with one person calling.
Twenty minutes, no charge.
We talk about what’s bringing you in and whether I’m the right person for it. No pressure either way.