Why do we keep having the same fight?
Underneath most recurring conflict is an attachment question: do I matter to you, will you leave, am I safe here. When that question goes unanswered, each partner reaches for a protective strategy. One pursues and pushes for a response. The other withdraws and waits it out. Both responses are understandable, and each tends to confirm the other person's fear.
Couples usually arrive knowing the argument word for word but unable to see the cycle underneath it. Seeing the cycle is where we start.
What does “trauma-informed” actually mean here?
It means I hold both stories at once: what is happening between you, and what each of you brings to it. Trauma shapes how the nervous system responds to conflict, closeness, and need, often in ways that began long before this relationship existed.
In session, we look at how those responses surface in your cycle: a flat expression your partner reads as contempt, a raised voice that lands like a threat. We work with the reaction itself instead of arguing about whose fault it is. My approach draws on emotionally focused therapy (EFT) and psychoanalytic work.
What happens in session?
A typical trauma-informed individual and couples therapy session looks like identifying and assessing the problems and patterns that brought you to therapy, identifying negative cycles, exploring each person's participation in the cycle and its impacts, rephrasing problems, accepting your own (and your partner's) experience, coming up with new solutions, and practicing a more adaptive and positive cycle of relating.
Do you take insurance for couples therapy?
Couples sessions are $200 and individual sessions are $180, private pay. I no longer accept insurance, but for weekly therapy I can provide a superbill for out-of-network mental health benefits, and many plans reimburse 60 to 100% of the fee once the deductible is met. Whether your specific plan covers couples work is worth one phone call to your insurer before we start; ask them about out-of-network coverage for CPT code 90847. Sliding scale options may be available.
What if I want couples therapy but my partner isn't ready?
Couples therapy only works if both partners are active and enthusiastic participants. However, individual therapy may be right for you, so that you can explore and better understand your relationship. Much of my work with survivors of difficult relationships happens individually. Sometimes a hesitant partner joins later, once they see that therapy is not about deciding who is at fault. And if they never do, you will still leave with a clearer sense of what you need.
Where do you see couples?
In person at 1330 N Logan St in Denver's Capitol Hill neighborhood, near Uptown and North Capitol Hill, and online across Colorado. Some couples alternate: in person when two schedules line up, video when they don't.
Do we need to be in crisis to come in?
No. Some couples arrive in an acute crisis, and we work there. Others come in because distance has been building slowly for years, and those couples often wait far longer than they need to. Both are good reasons to reach out.