I spend a lot of my time working with couples.  Full disclosure, I prefer to help them stay together.  Long-term relationships are not easy and they require continual care and attention.  There are times however when a couple decides to divorce.  When this decision is reached, some of the clinical work must turn toward telling…

Couples with children take note.  It is easy to lose your marital relationship in pursuit of your child’s needs.  It is common for me to receive an initial phone call from a parent asking for assistance with their child.  The common presenting concerns are mood-related issues such as depression and anxiety, or behavioral concerns such…

Colleagues and clients have sometimes asked me if I do mediation.  Or if I consider myself a mediator.  Early in my post-graduate training in Family Systems and Couples Therapy, I observed the now deceased mediation pioneer, John Haynes, conduct a live interview.  I, along with other trainees, watched his mediation meeting behind what is called…

“How did I get here?” is a phrase I often hear at the beginning of my couples work.  It is usually said out loud by one of the partners in front of me.  If it is not explicitly stated, it is conveyed.  This phrase references a marriage that is buried under the pressures of job,…

Usually in Discernment counseling a couple presents where one of them is “leaning in” and the other is “leaning out.”  The former wants the marriage to work and is invested in anything that will help.  The latter is ambivalent and somewhere along a continuum of being done with the marriage to considering reconciliation if some…