Who This Service Is For
Conflict resolution and communication therapy is for couples, families, and individuals who are tired of feeling misunderstood, unheard, or stuck in the same relational patterns.
Maybe you love each other, but you don't know how to talk anymore.
Maybe one of you keeps bringing up the problem while the other shuts down. Maybe conversations escalate quickly, so you've learned that sometimes it's easier not to talk at all. You may find yourselves having the same argument over and over, only to end the conversation exhausted and no closer to resolving anything.
Sometimes the conflict is loud. Sometimes it looks like silence, avoidance, sarcasm, walking away, sleeping in separate rooms, or simply becoming emotionally disconnected.
You may be thinking:
- "Why can't we ever talk about anything without fighting?"
- "I feel like they don't hear me."
- "No matter what I say, it gets turned against me."
- "I've tried explaining it a hundred times."
- "I don't even know how to bring things up anymore."
- "We're not fighting as much because we've just stopped talking."
- "I love them, but I don't know how to reach them."
At your worst, you may feel angry, lonely, discouraged, misunderstood, or even hopeless. You may wonder whether the problem is communication—or whether something is fundamentally wrong with the relationship.
Often, the problem isn't that you don't know how to communicate. It's that you're caught in a pattern that makes healthy communication difficult.
The Specific Root Causes
For many people, chronic conflict isn't simply a matter of poor communication skills. The conflict is often being driven by something underneath the words.
Negative Communication Cycles
One person pushes for answers, reassurance, or change while the other becomes defensive, shuts down, or pulls away. The more one pursues, the more the other withdraws—and both end up feeling even more alone.
Unresolved Hurt and Resentment
Past injuries don't simply disappear because the argument ends. When hurts haven't been adequately understood or repaired, they can remain just beneath the surface and influence the next disagreement.
Emotional Disconnection
Sometimes anger is easier to express than hurt, fear, loneliness, or disappointment. When people no longer feel emotionally safe with one another, they often protect themselves through criticism, defensiveness, withdrawal, or avoidance.
Stress and Life Transitions
Parenting, financial pressure, career changes, health problems, grief, aging parents, blended families, and other major transitions can put enormous strain on relationships. Even healthy relationships can struggle when the demands of life change faster than the relationship can adapt.
How We Help
Our Approach
I primarily use Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and a relational, systems-based approach to help you understand the cycle you're caught in.
That means we don't simply decide who is right and who is wrong. We slow the conflict down enough to understand what is actually happening between you.
Often, what looks like criticism is connected to fear or hurt. What looks like withdrawal may be an attempt to protect oneself from feeling overwhelmed or rejected. What looks like anger may be covering a deeper desire to matter, be respected, feel safe, or know that the relationship is secure.
The goal isn't simply to teach you to "communicate better." It's to help you understand the pattern so you can begin creating a different one.
What a Session Looks Like
Sessions are conversational, collaborative, and practical. We'll explore what's happening, slow down difficult interactions, identify the patterns that keep repeating, and practice different ways of expressing yourself and responding to one another.
Depending on your situation, we may work on:
- identifying your recurring conflict cycle
- expressing concerns without immediately triggering defensiveness
- listening for the meaning underneath someone's words
- recognizing emotional triggers
- communicating needs more directly
- repairing after conflict
- rebuilding emotional safety and trust
Our Experience
My training in marriage and family therapy gives me a systems perspective: rather than automatically asking, "Who's the problem?" we look at the interaction between people and the patterns that have developed over time.
EFT is particularly useful because it helps move conversations beneath the surface-level argument toward the emotions and attachment needs underneath it. I also draw from Gottman, CBT, family systems, and Solution-Focused approaches when those methods fit the situation.
Why Choose Us
People often come to therapy wanting something very simple: "I just want us to be able to talk again."
Therapy can help you:
- Stop having the same argument over and over.
- Feel heard without having to yell, criticize, or shut down.
- Understand what keeps triggering the same conflict.
- Express hurt, fear, needs, and expectations more clearly.
- Learn how to repair after disagreements instead of carrying them forward.
- Feel more like partners than opponents.
The goal isn't to eliminate disagreement. Healthy relationships still have conflict. The goal is to help you experience conflict without allowing it to continually damage the relationship.
What to Expect
The First Session
The first session is primarily about understanding your story: what brought you in, what has been happening recently, what you've already tried, and what each of you hopes will be different.
We'll begin identifying the patterns that seem to keep repeating and consider what may be underneath them.
It's also an opportunity for you to decide whether I feel like the right person to help.
Will We Ever Meet Individually?
Sometimes. Depending on the circumstances, individual sessions can provide additional context or allow space to discuss something that is difficult to address in front of a partner or family member.
If individual sessions would be useful, we'll discuss that openly rather than making assumptions about anyone's role in the problem.
How Long Until We See Improvement?
Every situation is different. Some people experience relief simply from understanding their cycle for the first time. Others have years of resentment, hurt, or entrenched patterns that require more time.
The goal isn't to promise a particular timeline. It's to help you recognize meaningful changes in how you respond to one another and how effectively you repair when things go wrong.
Logistics
In-Person or Virtual?
For relational conflict, many people prefer in-person therapy because it provides a dedicated space away from the distractions of home. Virtual sessions are also available when they offer greater convenience or accessibility.
Session Length
Sessions are 50 minutes.
Investment
Standard therapy sessions are $155 per 50-minute session.
Renew Relational Therapy is a private-pay, out-of-network practice. I do not bill insurance directly, but I can provide a superbill that you may submit to your insurance company for possible out-of-network reimbursement.
