Couples

Couples

In every long-term relationship, conflict is inevitable. We disagree on both mundane and fundamental issues; about intimacy and partnership, household plans, values, how to spend time and money—conflict is gonna happen! Over time, as emotions remain unexpressed (“What’s the use, I’ll just get shot down again,” or “I don’t want to rock the boat when things are going well” or “My partner just doesn’t understand me!”) arguments can become much hotter, erupting over ever-smaller stakes, more frequently and with more intensity. Alternatively, partners might give up attempts at connection, and retreat into what can feel more like a roommate relationship than an erotic, creative, connected partnership.

In Couple Therapy, this dynamic can, and often does, change. I have completed training, and continue to receive Supervision, in Emotion-Focused Couple therapy (EFT-C), an evidence-based approach that recognizes the primacy of improving emotional communication between partners. From a base of restored emotional communication, couples can enjoy more ease in daily problem-solving, a more satisfying erotic life, more enjoyment of each other and time spent together, and increased spontaneity and feelings of being emotionally safe with their partner.

In EFT-C, most of the focus is on helping each partner to recognize how emotional vulnerabilities contribute to escalating conflict and deepening divide between partners. In our sessions, we explore how each partner’s  emotional responses to the other, can become revealing, healing, and supportive rather than divisive, protective, and hurtful. Couples learn to “speak the truth” about their underlying emotions, rather than defending a position in each separate argument, and this leads to more closeness, understanding, collaboration, and trust in daily couple life.

In my practice of EFT-C, I can help couples who:

  • Are caught in a stew of daily resentment
  • Feel distant and disconnected
  • Find themselves struggling with more and more intense conflict
  • Live “like roommates not a couple”
  • Are living with mental illness, such as depression or PTSD
  • Want more easy communication
  • Need help in navigating a big transition
  • Are coping in the aftermath of an affair

I look forward to hearing from you, and helping in your quest for a healthy, supportive, and loving relationship.

 

 



107 W Jewett Blvd, Box 839
White Salmon, WA 98672

sarah@sarahoakscounseling.com
(541) 490-5702

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