Relationship Counseling in Washington DC

You have finally decided to stop ignoring the slow-cooked resentment that has been building for a while in your relationship. Always putting others’ needs and feelings first makes you feel good about yourself, but now you feel depleted. However, setting boundaries is not something you’re good at, and it makes you feel extremely guilty.

You’ve been feeling extremely unhappy in your relationship for quite a while, but only until your partner threatened to leave you, you decided that it was time to go to therapy. Deep inside you know that you’ve been putting walls of detachment and avoidance for the last five years, and now you don’t know if you want to be in the relationship.

Relationship Issues & Psychotherapy

Relationships are at the heart of psychotherapy. Symptoms of depression and anxiety usually the way in which emotional pain manifests, but at the root of most symptoms, there is a story about a relationship. In therapy, you will work on the most important relationship: the one you have with yourself. You will have the opportunity to get to know you really well, and to learn to fully accept all aspects that make you who you are. As a result, your relationships with others, will also have the chance to be meaningful, authentic, and fulfilling.

Couple Therapy

Attachment-Based Psychotherapy for Marriage Problems and Relationship Issues

In psychotherapy, relationships play a significant role, if not the most important one. Did you know that research about what makes therapy work has alway shown that the most important factor that predicts success is the relationship bewteen the therapist and the client? That is right. It’s not the model (whether it’s CBT, psychoanlysis, existential therapy), or a particular set of fancy techniques, but the goodness of fit between therapist and client. Of course, there are certain levels of competence and expertise on the side of the therapist that are required to do good therapy. And on the side of the client, motivation and will to face ourselves and experiment with new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving, is also of great importance.

Our Relationship Therapy in Washington DC

Working closely with a therapist, allows you to see first hand the different ways in which emotions, thoughts, and fears come into play in intimate relationships. By witnessing in the here-and-now the display of all these dynamic factors as they facilitate or interfere with the work of therapy, you will have the opportunity to learn how to become more authentic at communicating your thoughts, desires, and needs in relationships with others and with yourself.

Our therapists are trained in models of therapy that recognize the importance of relationships in mental health. Our early relationships play a significant role in the development of all aspects of our personality. They form the internal map of the world and its inhabitants. It shapes the brain neuropathways that give life to our rich internal experiences.

Common Concerns About Relationships:

We all long for deep connections (whether we admit it or not), but frequently experience significant pain in our most intimate relationships. Since early on, we learn important lessons about what needs to be done in order to keep a relationship going. Unfortunately, sometimes the cost if that we learn ways to be in connection with others, while abandoning ourselves.

For some, the pain we experienced in our family of origin, leaves us in so much need for armor, that making relationships work becomes very difficult and frustrating.

One of the most challenging relationships that we sometimes have, is the relationship with ourselves. This is also an important focus of the work we do in therapy.