TRAUMA THERAPY
Are Your Relational Struggles Negatively Impacting Your Quality Of Life?
-
Do you have a hard time feeling confident and secure in the connection between you and your partner or someone else in your family?
-
Have certain barriers gotten in the way of your ability to maintain physical and emotional intimacy?
-
Are communication challenges or other stressors leading to increased resentment, anxiety, agitation, and/or distance in the relationship?
Oftentimes, couples and families want to “keep the peace” even when issues haven’t been fully resolved. Maybe you and your partner have suffered a crisis or injury to the relationship that continues to bubble up and spill over, even though you’ve discussed the problem extensively or explored it in therapy in the past. Maybe one or both of you feel unseen and undervalued by the other. Or maybe there’s just something off between you two that has created distance over time. Whatever the case may be, there’s a cycle of avoidance and agitation present in the relationship dynamic, leading to tension, frustration, and detachment.
Each partner can become easily triggered when this is the norm. Disagreements about taking out the trash and doing the dishes are actually arguments about something else, but you may not have the vocabulary or awareness to pinpoint the core issue. You just know that something has been building that’s causing stress and eroding the foundation of closeness, intimacy, and love that once defined your relationship.
At SoCal Individual, Family, & Trauma Therapy, we are trained relationship clinicians with higher level specialization in working with couples and families. As we work with each of you in counseling to understand core challenges and new ways to facilitate healthy attachment, our therapists create a compassionate, comprehensive treatment experience for couples and families alike.
Needing Therapy To Heal A Relationship Does Not Indicate Weakness Or Failure
Because there is such a strong tendency for couples to minimize their challenges, there may be a lot of silence and shame surrounding issues that are actually quite common. These days, it’s often made worse by unrealistic portrayals of relationships through social media and television, perpetuating this false idea that “perfect” relationships exist.
The truth is that relationships are just as complex as the people in them. How you’re raised has a tremendous impact on how you will grow up to view emotions and relationships, creating beliefs that, in many cases, lead to avoidance, aggression, and/or people-pleasing behaviors. As you develop, other elements may be helpful to consider—elements such as cultural norms, undercurrent messages from parents or caretakers, or individual traumas and PTSD responses—that further complicate and influence how you relate to others.
Couples therapy offers you and your partner a chance to unpack and make sense of your stories together. As you learn more about your own and each other’s attachment styles and emotional blueprints, you can develop awareness and a more empathetic understanding that will ultimately lead to increased intimacy, fulfillment, and repair in the relationship.
Therapy Offers Couples And Families A New Avenue Towards Healing And Mutual Understanding
Some people hear the phrase “couples therapy” and automatically assume that counseling is reserved for marriages or relationships that are on the brink of separation or divorce. Yet, therapy is beneficial for any connection experiencing barriers to communication and can be extremely effective when introduced before issues spiral out of control.
Our therapists are empathetic, culturally aware, and specialize in trauma-informed, relationship-specific counseling approaches to help a diverse range of couples, including those who identify as LGBTQ+. We’ve worked with clients struggling with everything from acute trauma to betrayal to dating obstacles to parenting differences. Furthermore, as attachment and relational repair experts, we also welcome families to our therapy space.
While we work with a variety of clients in counseling, some of the common issues we treat in couples and families are:
● Relationship injuries and betrayals
● Stress or transition that is negatively impacting the relationship
● Mental health issues—including substance abuse—that are impacting the relational dynamic
● Parenting disagreements
● Sexual issues
● Trauma and attachment issues
This process is tailored to the needs of each client. However, in general, early sessions will be used to build rapport, assess presenting issues, and incorporate any necessary grounding tools to promote feelings of calm and safety in the room, as well as in the relational dynamic.
Our Approach
Once you’ve been matched with your therapist, they will then learn more about triggers and defenses that may be present in the relationship dynamic so the deeper work of identifying core challenges can begin. As we start to make sense out of the pain points and patterns in your dynamic, possibly identifying any underlying trauma triggers that may be present, we can start to foster new communication skills to help slow down and interrupt the cycle of conflict.
The hope for therapy is that you will start to experience enhanced feelings of safety and intimacy in the relationship as empathy and curiosity with one another deepens. We accomplish this through an individualized combination of relationship-specific therapeutic approaches, including:
-
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) - Considered the gold standard of couples counseling, this approach helps partners identify and restructure negative patterns of interaction, fostering emotional connection and a more secure attachment.
-
The Gottman Method - Provides a structured approach that strengthens relationships by enhancing emotional connection, improving communication, and deepening partners' understanding of each other through trust-building and conflict management exercises.
-
Sex Therapy - Addresses emotional, psychological, and physical aspects of intimacy, helping individuals and couples explore issues around desire, communication, boundaries, sexual function, and connection through guided discussions and tailored exercises.
Using these methods, our therapists will work with you to understand, repair, and strengthen the foundation of your relationship.
We know that if you’re reading this, you’re probably feeling overwhelmed or even hopeless that your relationship will improve with therapy. Yet, you are not alone in this process—all relationships experience their own unique challenges. Our job as your therapist is to help you navigate through your challenges in healthier, more effective ways with deeper understandings of yourselves and each other.
Common Concerns About Couples And Family Therapy…
We’ve been avoiding our conflicts for a reason—I don’t want them to be made worse because of therapy.
While it’s true therapy involves addressing underlying issues, it’s designed to do so in a structured, supportive, and compassionate way. If it becomes clear it’s difficult or too distressing to jump right into sensitive topics, your therapist will use early sessions to help facilitate a sense of safety, security, and transparency in the sharing process. Not only will this process equip you with a sense of therapist-client trust; you’ll also be given tools for managing stress, overwhelm, and discomfort as it arises so that you can more easily de-escalate conflict outside of the therapeutic space. There’s likely a reason you are avoiding conflicts—therapy is a great opportunity to gently and openly process those conflicts in more constructive ways that actually lead to repair in your marriage or relationship.
A therapist will just take my partner’s side, leaving me to feel isolated or at fault.
Our job and goal as couples therapists are not to pick sides but rather to listen without judgment so that we can help both of you make sense of your relational patterns. We’re trained to remain as objective and balanced as possible, and we know that this process only works when all participants feel supported, seen, and heard. If you are ever feeling misunderstood or unheard in this process, we warmly invite you to share your concerns with us so that we can find our way to healthy resolution and repair.
My partner and I have busy schedules that don’t often line up—I’m not sure we will be able to attend couples counseling on a consistent basis.
We understand that life is hectic and that it can be difficult for couples to coordinate schedules when trying to make time for therapy. If this is the case for you, it may be a good idea to schedule a consultation with a therapist to discuss your scheduling concerns and if there are underlying barriers making it hard to commit. From there, our therapists will work to accommodate your needs as much as possible, including offering telehealth options and flexible scheduling (during evenings and weekends) if needed.
A New Awareness Of Yourselves—And Each Other—Is Possible
Strong relationships are the foundation of emotional well-being and personal fulfillment. If you and your partner, or a family member, are facing challenges or need help healing from past hurts, we are here to help you. Contact us now to schedule couples or family counseling at SoCal Individual, Family, & Trauma Therapy.
Related Posts
