My personal belief?
Relationships are what make life meaningful. They are the reasons for some of our most powerful emotions - fun, sorrow, fear. Because of their bigness, when trouble appears and persists in relationships, we hurt - a lot. This hurt can can look different for each person. Maybe you scream because that’s the only way you feel you can get through to your partner; maybe you withdraw because the world, including your partner, feels unsafe; or maybe you do both. Because you’re in pain and are unable to communicate this pain effectively, you get into patterns that hurt each other even more.
When we show up in our relationships, we bring with us other significant relationships - those with our parents, siblings, past romantic partnerships, not to mention our relationship with ourselves. So you can imagine how troubled the trouble is. It will require accepting - and not judging - the things you learned in these other relationships and learning new ways of connecting with your partner. It will require, most of all, a curiosity to explore one another’s internal worlds so that you may be their safe, external containers.
Couples Counseling
at every stage
Intercultural Relationships
Let’s consider what a partnership entails: two distinct individuals come together, often in the same space, to share lives. They eat together, engage in intimacy, and make big and small decisions together. They socialize, work, and dream together. Some raise little human beings and together make meaning of their collective lives.
This, as you can imagine, is not easy. We have spent a significant portion of our lives learning how to do all of this on our own, and now we have to share them with someone else who has their own entirely different system.
For intercultural relationships, these differences may feel even more marked. From not sharing a native language to varying expectations of what commitment looks like, these partnerships can feel inundated with battles. An intercultural couple once shared an ongoing argument concerning the window. In winter time, one partner preferred the window open for a period of the day because in her culture, it was integral to “clear” the stultifying indoor air. Her partner was baffled and frustrated. “Why waste energy and money by letting the heat escape?”
Cultural differences such as these can contribute to larger feelings of being unheard and misunderstood. As your therapist, I hope to guide each partner to explore both your and your partner’s cultural contexts with generosity and openness so that these differences can also become sources of strength.
Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples
All relationships fall into negative patterns. The goal of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is to explore them by way of emotions: both those that are apparent and those that are more hidden. Through this process, couples are better able to empathize and have compassion for one another’s emotional responses. The vulnerability created within this space yields more connections, which in turn lead to feelings of being cared for, held, and loved. In other words, it leads to the ultimate goal of secure attachment, in which each partner feels securely bonded in the relationship.
EFT is an effective approach for couples seeking lasting positive changes.