Focused Couples Therapy Services
I offer focused couples therapy in three specific areas:
Therapy Focus and Fit
I offer strengths-based, topic-focused therapy for couples with a generally stable relationship foundation who are seeking structured support around a particular transition, decision, or area of their shared lives. Within that area, therapy can help couples understand one another’s perspectives more deeply, communicate about it more clearly, prepare thoughtfully for challenges that may arise, and approach related decisions with greater intentionality.
Although I work holistically and remain attentive to the broader context of your relationship, the specific area bringing you to therapy will remain the primary focus of our work. If you are seeking therapy in which the relationship as a whole or concerns spanning multiple areas of the relationship are the primary focus, a more traditional, comprehensive couples therapy with another provider may be a better fit.
Pre-Marital Therapy (or Pre-Commitment Therapy)
Pre-marital therapy (or pre-commitment therapy) offers a guided, semi-structured process for examining the expectations, commitments, and practical realities involved in building a shared life. It gives couples an opportunity to discuss topics that might otherwise remain implicit, recognize existing strengths, identify potential differences, and develop ways of approaching those differences together.
The goal is not to anticipate or prevent every challenge, but to enter the next stage of your relationship with clearer expectations, stronger communication, and a shared framework for making decisions and responding to change. Topics include:
Communication and navigating conflict
Trust and commitment
Emotional, physical, and sexual intimacy
Values, expectations, and roles
Individual and shared identities, cultural backgrounds, and traditions
Families of origin, community, and other sources of support
Finances, money histories, and shared financial values and goals
Careers and work-life balance
Decisions about children and family-building
Life goals and a shared vision for the relationship
Financial Therapy for Couples
Money can carry different meanings for each partner, shaped by family experiences, culture, social class, identity, values, and previous relationships. Differences involving spending, saving, earning, risk, debt, family support, or financial security can make conversations and decisions about money feel deeply personal and emotionally charged.
Financial therapy can help you understand each partner’s money history and beliefs, communicate more openly, approach differences with greater curiosity, address anxiety or avoidance, clarify individual and shared priorities, and make financial decisions more collaboratively.
This focused service is best suited to couples with a generally stable relationship for whom finances are a primary area of stress, disagreement, avoidance, or uncertainty. Although I remain attentive to the broader context of your relationship, our work will remain centered on each partner’s relationship with money and the couple’s shared financial life.
This service is psychotherapy rather than financial planning or investment advising. I do not prepare financial plans, recommend investments, or determine which financial decisions you should make.
LGBTQ+ Family Building Therapy for Couples
Building a family through assisted reproduction, surrogacy, adoption, or other paths to parenthood can involve complex emotional, medical, administrative, logistical, legal, and financial considerations. If you are an LGBTQ+ couple, you may also encounter questions and pressures related to identity, genetic or gestational connections, family roles, discrimination, legal recognition, and how others understand or respond to your choices in building a family.
This specific area of couples therapy is intended for couples who share a commitment to pursuing parenthood and want support choosing among or navigating possible paths to building their family. It is not discernment therapy focused on whether to become parents. Instead, our work can help you clarify what matters most in determining which family-building path may fit your relationship, communicate openly about differences and concerns, and navigate the demands and uncertainties of the process together.
I provide psychological and relational support rather than medical, legal, adoption, or financial advice. Although we will likely touch on other aspects of your relationship and lives when relevant, the emotional and relational dimensions of family-building will remain our central focus.
Areas we might address include:
Clarifying values and priorities when considering family-building options
Hopes, fears, expectations, and differences between partners
Decisions involving biological, genetic, or gestational connections
Donor selection, relationships with donors, and future communication with children
The emotional effects of medical procedures, waiting, uncertainty, setbacks, grief, and loss
Financial limits, trade-offs, and stress
Administrative, logistical, and legal demands
Dividing responsibilities and managing the workload of the process
Communicating with medical, legal, adoption, and other professionals
Boundaries and communication with families and communities
Navigating questions about parental roles, recognition, and connection
Navigating LGBTQ+ specific stressors while drawing on sources of resilience, affirmation, community, and belonging
Developing a shared understanding of (and language for) your family’s story
A Collaborative and Inclusive Approach
Across all three services, my goal is to help you engage the topic as a team while making room for each partner’s experiences, needs, identities, values, cultures, and perspectives. I do not assume that healthy couples must agree about everything. Instead, we work toward greater understanding, clearer communication, and ways of making decisions that respect both the partnership and the people within it.
Scheduling and Meeting Options
I generally recommend meeting weekly at the beginning of therapy so that we can establish continuity and momentum. Depending on your needs and the course of our work, sessions may later move to every other week or a less frequent schedule.
I offer in-person therapy at my Dupont Circle office in Washington, D.C., as well as virtual therapy for clients in D.C., the broader DMV area, and participating PSYPACT states.
Interested in Working Together?
If you are interested in working on one of these topics in couples therapy, you are welcome to contact me. A free 20-minute consultation gives us an opportunity to briefly discuss what you hope to address, answer initial questions, and consider whether the scope of my couples work is a good fit for what you are seeking.