Couples & Family Therapy
- Home
- Couples & Family Therapy
Depth-Oriented Relationship Counseling in Culver City & Online Throughout California
The Relationship You Want Is Worth Fighting For
Something is off between you and the person you love and you both feel it, even if you can’t name it. Maybe it’s the same argument that keeps cycling back, wearing different masks each time. Maybe it’s a silence that’s grown too comfortable, too wide, too cold. Maybe something was broken, trust, a boundary, a promise, and you’re not sure if it can be repaired.
Or maybe your family is caught in a pattern that nobody chose but everyone feels. The tension at dinner. The conversations that never quite land. The sense that you’re all in the same house but living in separate worlds.
Whatever brought you here, I want you to know: the fact that you’re looking for help is not a sign that your relationship has failed. It’s a sign that something in you, in both of you, still believes it’s worth understanding.
As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist practicing couples therapy in Los Angeles for over a decade, I’ve sat with couples and families in every stage of connection and disconnection. And what I’ve learned is this: the relationship itself is a living thing. It has its own unconscious, its own wounds, its own desires. When we pay attention to it, really pay attention, things begin to shift.
Couples Therapy
I Honor All Forms of Love
The way we define coupledom is ever transforming. I honor all forms of relationships, within, pressing against, and outside of the monogamous and heteronormative narrative. I don’t care who you love or how you love. My role is not to judge or change your way of relating to the person beside you. My role is to honor the unique alchemy of your relationship, and provide a space where you may become clearer in what you desire from it.
I am an upfront therapist, nurturing, but I will also intervene and challenge in a session if that’s what I feel is needed. Couples therapy isn’t about being polite. It’s about being honest in a space that’s finally safe enough for honesty.
The Triadic Lens: Three Relationships in One
I approach couples work from a triadic lens, because there are really three relationships taking place in any partnership. First is the relationship each of you has with yourself. Then there are the two of you together, a sacred connection that lives as its own entity. Ideally, all three relationships would be honored for harmony to exist.
This framework expands naturally for polyamorous couples with more than two partners. The principle remains: sacrificing your relationship to yourself, or sacrificing your connection to your partner, is where things start to feel stuck or disconnected. My job is to help you see all three, and tend to each.
Issues I Work With in Couples Therapy
Couples come to therapy for many reasons. Some of the most common relationship struggles I help Los Angeles couples navigate include:
Communication breakdown · Emotional disconnection · Infidelity and trust repair · Recurring conflict patterns · Intimacy and vulnerability fears · Sexual dissatisfaction · Premarital concerns · Different life goals or values · Financial stress and disagreements · Parenting disagreements · LGBTQ+ relationship dynamics · Polyamorous and open relationship navigation · Codependency · Jealousy and insecurity · Divorce or separation decisions · Blended family challenges · Cultural or religious differences · Attachment style conflicts · Power imbalances · Rebuilding after betrayal
Family Therapy
The Family System Has a Life of Its Own
Ram Dass said, “If you think you’re enlightened, try spending a week with your family.” This isn’t to say that families are inherently toxic. It says that we become more triggered, more reactive, we tend to revert to the more unconscious and childlike version of ourselves in their presence.
Family therapy in Los Angeles gives you a space where your family’s relational dynamic can be explored without anyone feeling swallowed by it. Families are systems, and every system has patterns, spoken rules and unspoken ones, roles that were assigned decades ago and never questioned, wounds that travel through generations.
My approach to family therapy is informed by family systems theory and depth psychology. We look at the whole, not just the person who seems to be struggling, but the dynamics that everyone is participating in, often without realizing it.
What We Explore in Family Therapy
- What is truly desired, and in the best interest of the family as a whole
- What’s being left unexpressed, creating tension and distance
- How different family members’ goals conflict with the family’s symbolic and cultural understanding of itself
- How the family communicates, and what’s really being said beneath the words
- How each member assumes or avoids responsibility
- Unmet and repressed feelings that need a safe space to surface
- Whether the family has an “identified patient”, someone the family unconsciously focuses on “fixing” instead of looking at the system
- How intergenerational trauma shapes current family dynamics
- How bids for attention and connection are made, and missed
- Parenting conflicts and co-parenting challenges
- Blended family dynamics and stepfamily adjustment
- Sibling relationships and rivalry
- Boundaries between generations
Who Family Therapy Serves
Family therapy at my Culver City practice is for:
- Parents and children working through conflict or disconnection
- Families navigating a major transition, divorce, remarriage, relocation, loss
- Blended families building new dynamics
- Adult children and their parents healing old wounds
- Families impacted by a member’s mental health struggles, addiction, or crisis
- Multigenerational families exploring inherited patterns
How I Work With Couples & Families
My Therapeutic Approach
I work from a psychodynamic and Jungian foundation, helping couples and families understand not only what is happening on the surface, but also the deeper emotional patterns shaping their relationships. Together, we’ll explore attachment wounds, communication challenges, recurring conflicts, and unconscious dynamics that influence connection, intimacy, and family life.
My approach integrates Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), Family Systems Theory, Psychodynamic Therapy, Gestalt techniques, and Somatic Awareness to help create deeper understanding, healthier communication, and lasting change.
I also draw from:
step 01
Initial Consultation
We begin with a consultation to discuss your concerns, relationship dynamics, family challenges, and goals for therapy. This is an opportunity to determine whether we're a good fit and identify what support may be most helpful.
step 02
Deep Assessment
Together, we'll explore the emotional patterns, attachment styles, communication habits, and family dynamics contributing to current struggles. Understanding these patterns creates the foundation for meaningful change.
step 03
Therapeutic Exploration
Using psychodynamic, Jungian, family systems, and emotionally focused approaches, we'll work through conflicts, deepen understanding, strengthen communication, and create healthier ways of relating.
step 04
Growth & Lasting Change
As new insights emerge, you'll develop greater self-awareness, stronger relationships, and more effective ways of navigating challenges. The goal is lasting growth, not just temporary symptom relief.
What to Expect in Your First Session
Your first session is for all of us to get oriented. I’ll ask about what brought you in, the history of your relationship, and what each person is hoping for. But I’m also watching the dynamic, how you sit, how you speak to each other, what happens when one person gets emotional.
There’s no pressure to “perform” your problems. Often the most revealing things happen in the small moments, a glance, a sigh, a sentence that trails off. I notice these things, and over time, we explore them together.
Couples and family sessions are typically 50 minutes, held weekly, at $225 per session. I offer both in-person sessions at my Culver City office and virtual sessions for anyone in California.
About Your Therapist
I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (License #MFC 104017), trained at Antioch University Los Angeles, with over a decade of clinical experience working with couples and families in the Los Angeles area. My work is grounded in psychodynamic and Jungian thought, with a deep respect for the complexity of human relationships.
I approach couples therapy the same way I approach individual work — with honesty, warmth, and a genuine interest in what’s happening beneath the surface. I don’t take sides. I don’t assign homework. I create a space where the truth of your relationship can finally be spoken — and heard.
If you’re also navigating parenting challenges, I offer dedicated parent coaching. And for families with children or teenagers who may benefit from their own therapeutic space, I provide age-appropriate therapy as well.
Get a Free Quote Now
Other services;
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions About Couples & Family Therapy
Couples therapy is a form of psychotherapy where both partners attend sessions together with a licensed therapist. The goal isn't to decide who's "right" — it's to understand the patterns, wounds, and dynamics that are creating distress. In my practice, we explore the unconscious material each partner brings into the relationship, and we work toward genuine understanding rather than surface-level fixes.
Most couples therapists focus on communication skills and behavioral techniques. While those have value, my approach goes deeper. I work from a psychodynamic and Jungian foundation — meaning we explore the unconscious patterns, attachment wounds, and symbolic meaning that live beneath the conflict. I'm interested in why you get stuck, not just how to get unstuck.
Ideally, yes. Couples therapy works best when both people are in the room. However, if your partner isn't ready, individual therapy can still help you understand your own relational patterns and make meaningful changes from your side.
This is common and understandable. Sometimes starting with individual work helps one partner gain clarity, which then opens the door for couples work later. You don't both need to be ready at the same time.
It depends on the complexity of the issues and how deep you're willing to go. Some couples come for 8–12 sessions to work through a specific issue. Others engage in longer-term work to fundamentally reshape their relational patterns. We'll check in regularly about what feels right.
Yes. Infidelity is one of the most painful experiences a couple can face, but it doesn't have to end the relationship. Therapy creates a structured space to process the betrayal, understand what led to it, and decide — together — what comes next. Recovery is possible, but it requires honesty from both sides.
Absolutely. I honor all forms of relationships and identities. LGBTQ+ couples face unique relational dynamics, and I bring both clinical expertise and genuine respect to that work.
Family therapy treats the family as a system rather than focusing on any one individual. We explore communication patterns, roles, boundaries, and the unconscious dynamics that shape how family members relate to each other. Often, what looks like one person's "problem" is actually a symptom of a larger family pattern.
If communication has broken down, conflicts keep recurring, someone is being scapegoated, there's been a major transition or loss, or family members feel disconnected — family therapy can help. You don't need to be in crisis. Many families come simply because they want to relate to each other better.
Sessions are $225. I offer a free 15-minute phone consultation. I'm out-of-network, but I provide superbills for insurance reimbursement. Many PPO plans in California reimburse 50–80%.