Couples
Couples & Relationship Skills
Do you and your partner fight without resolution?
Does your partner’s messiness, difficulty planning, or fear of commitment drive you nuts?
You don’t have to resign yourself to frustration or being on different teams.
Contact me to discuss how couples therapy builds communication skills, understanding, and guideposts to move forward. (Print flyer)
My approach emphasizes active listening, communication, and negotiation skills. This will help you understand:
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Your developmental stage – is your relationship in Symbiosis? Differentiation? Building Interdependence?
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How you and your partner communicate - repairing rifts, understanding while disagreeing, negotiating based on mutual consideration, forgiving without bypassing emotional wounds, creating a shared vision and commitment
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Steps to address an restore a boundary around your relationship when jealousy or infidelity have ruptured trust. (News interview)
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The delicate and complex negotiation of blended family and cultural dynamics
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How your emotional brain works – only Spock can forego his emotions – what if there is meaning behind ‘irrational’ desires? Mine your impulses for deeper self-awareness without acting rashly.
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Your financial symbols – does money mean power, safety, emotional investment and/or risk?..
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How your sexual fantasies and experience reflect personal and relationship dynamics. Relationship stress can impact even your health and extend into the bedroom. (NYT article)
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Your family & family history – can you be there for your partner until you have separated from your past? Understand unexamined links to childhood that create tension in your relationship.
Love is multifaceted and dynamic. Couples and marriage counseling helps you ride and navigate the currents, true to yourself and your aims. Contact me for tools and support to craft and nurture your closest relationship.
Wonder where your honeymoon days went? Want to create a better marriage? Call Melinda Douglass at (415) 215-4796. I am a postdoctoral psych assistant (PSB 34300) to Dr. Gary Stolzoff,
UCSF Clinical Professor (PSY 6841).
“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.”
—Erich Fromm
San Francisco Therapy - San Francisco Therapist - San Francisco Psychotherapy - San Francisco Psychotherapist