Couples Therapy in NYC

Why couples come to therapy

Couples come to therapy for a lot of different reasons. Sometimes it is the same argument on repeat but often it is quieter than that. A distance that crept in without either of you noticing, one of you withdrawing and the other not sure how to reach them, a feeling of stuckness that neither of you can really describe. Perhaps something ahead of you is bringing things up, whether that is taking the next step in the relationship, deciding about children, or navigating early parenthood. Sometimes one of you has recently been diagnosed with ADHD or autism, and you are both working out what that means for how you have been relating all along.

You know you care deeply about each other, but somehow that does not seem to translate when you actually talk. It is frustrating.

Working with the relationship as the patient

I work with the relationship itself as the patient. My role is to help each of you understand the other more clearly: what your partner’s experience of the world actually is, and why it is not the same as yours.

In sessions, we pay attention to what is happening between you in real time, how you communicate, how conflict escalates, and what each of you feels when tension rises. We also explore how each partner’s family-of-origin experiences, cultural context, and early relationship templates continue to shape these present-day dynamics. Often, the ways you learned to manage conflict, express needs, or respond to emotional vulnerability in your earliest relationships became the blueprint for how you relate as adults. Understanding those patterns without blame makes room for both of you to be seen.

Cross-cultural and neurodiverse couples

Sometimes the difference between you is cultural, and you are working with two sets of unspoken rules about family, obligation, and what gets said out loud. Sometimes it is a difference in neurotype, and what looks like indifference is often a different way of processing, communicating, or recovering. I work with interracial and cross-cultural couples, with mixed neurotype couples, and with partners who are children of immigrants building a relationship that looks nothing like the ones they grew up watching.

The goal is not to decide who is right or wrong. It is to understand the cycle you are caught in together, and to know each other deeply enough that being close is possible again.

Sessions are 45 minutes, weekly.