325 Carlsbad Village Dr STE A2, Carlsbad, CA 92008 | (760) 453-0373

Couples Therapy

for couples who recognize your individual family and dating histories are causing issues in your relationship and want to dig into Attachment Theory to restore a secure connection together

Different Reasons for Couples Therapy

Pre-marital

In premarital counseling, I get to know each couple as I do any couple, starting with your love story, hearing what your goals are for therapy, and from there, we'll investigate further to get clearer on the different topics that you would both benefit from exploring more deeply together. We can use our time problem-solving wedding planning and the transition of finances and living environments, and whatever other transitions of responsibilities accompany marriage for the two of you. We'll look at leadership roles in and out the house, agreements about continued dating, sexual and all intimacy, finances, in-law family dynamics, differences in conflict, and whatever the two of you decide are stress topics you'd like to get sorted out. Premarital allows you to practice healthier strategies while you're still working on the foundation. You'll move into marriage with interdependence, a sense of connection and belonging as a united team.

Betrayal Recovery

When a betrayal occurs, it's like taking a whole handful of marbles out of the trust jar of the relationship, and sometimes, something happens so big or so familiar to the past, that the whole jar of trust is thrown out, and it feels impossible to even trust in the worthwhileness to start building trust all over again. Depending on the intensity, the timing of recovery varies greatly. I really like Mira Kirshenbaum's I Love You But I Don't Trust You: The Complete Guide to Restoring Trust in Your Relationship.

Repetative communication issues

Often, we don't realize it, but we're using the same language or have the same expectations on our relationship as the relationships that were modeled to us. And, our partner did not grow up in the same house so they have a different way of communicating and emoting. Sometimes two people can be saying practically the same thing and feel so distant at the same moment, or, be saying the same words and mean entirely different things. Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy focuses on your relationship dictionary and guardrails for ensuring that both of you feel safe, secure, known, and cared for within your relationship. And Gottman and Attachment Core Pattern Therapy offer fantastic printable templates for specific communication pitfalls.

Attachment Style or Love Language Mismatch

Gary Chapman's love languages is a tool we can use to save each of us energy and feelings of resentment. We can have different preferences for receiving and giving love, and it's so helpful when we can identify the individual impact of gifts, words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, and physical touch. Can you identify yours and your partners? When we know that our person interprets a certain expression of love much louder than they do another love language, we learn to spend less time and money on the ways of loving them that don't matter as much and can be more intentional and effective with our loving efforts.

The most common relationship dynamic between two Insecure Individuals is Anxious-Avoidant, and it is true that the things that draw the couple together from the beginning become the most challenging. This dynamic is not doomed on its own. Both of you can experience independent and relational peace and connection, with practice and intention.

Relationship Ruptures Can Feel Like Betrayal

John Gottman's research shows that our bids for connection, like sending a text and looking and seeing it left read without a response, or reaching out for a hug and your partner walking past, or a contemptuous look, such as rolling your eyes, affect our relational security. Contrastingly, we can also repair our relationships in small moments of noticing one another and doing our darnest to show we care and know our person. We're constantly adding to or taking away from our Relationship Bank.

A Resilience-Oriented Trauma Therapist Can Support You Through the Scary Relationship Moments to Extend Hope of a Secure Functioning Future Filled with Mutual Care and Adoration

At Upward Roots: Relational Therapy, I can be with you when you're flat and low, when your tears are flowing, when you can't stop yawning or burping, when you have a roar or something to yell, and when there is an invitation to dance and sing. Whatever your nervous system and/or attachment system needs, we'll find a way to honor you in the moment, together. And, if you are both feeling something wildly different in the same moment, we'll take turns, ensuring that both of you have time to experience being listened to and soothed.

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What to expect in Couple Therapy Sessions

In our work together, I combine the Gottman Method communication skills based in decades of research with powerful tools from attachment-based approaches—including How We Love (Yerkovich), PACT (Tatkin), and EFT (Sue Johnson). This means our focus isn’t just on communication skills, but on helping you feel deeply known, safe, and connected in your relationship.

We'll work collaboratively to truly see what is happening

1. Slow down the cycle.
  Notice and interrupt painful patterns in real time, creating space for something new.
2. Listen beneath the surface.
  Tune into the subtle signals — body language, emotions, nervous system cues — that shape your connection or disconnection.
3. Build new relational habits.
  Through presence, repair, and practice, you will develop new ways of functioning within your relationship that leave both of you feeling safe, heard, known, and loved.

Call Together To Get Started

What to Expect in the first three sessions:

Session One: You’ll share your love story—what brought you together and what’s getting in the way now.
Session Two: I’ll explore each of your individual histories and attachment styles.
Session Three: We’ll bring it all together with a clear plan grounded in insight, care, and connection.

Whether you're looking to strengthen your bond or preparing for marriage, our work will help define the relationship you’re building and create the guardrails for lasting closeness.

I follow Stan Tatkin’s guidance: all sessions include both partners, and any communication happens with both of you present.

Each session will begin and end with something that helps bridge what is working well in sessions, increasing confidence and restfulness in and out of therapy.

Treatment Approaches for Couples Therapy

PACT (psychobiological approach to couples therapy)

Stan Tatkin's couple's approach provides spaciousness in communication and time to identify what relationship means to the two individuals within the couple and how to honor the safeguards for both to feel secure within the relationship.

I am trained through Level 2.

Attachment core pattern therapy

Developed by Kay and Milan Yerkovich in Orange County, CA is a couples method that includes a few complicated concepts in easy to apply ways. Their website and books by the same name, How We Love, provide attachment quizzes that match your individual attachment styles into a relationship core pattern. I use their Core Pattern Conflict Cycles, Communication Template, and Repair Strategies in relational coaching with individuals, and, in couples sessions.

Gottman Method Couples Counseling

Based on decades of research Dr. John Gottman conducted in an 'apartment' lab, Dr. Julie Gottman created a counseling model for teaching couples what makes love last, warning against the predictors of divorce/breakups, and facilitating specific conversations to build skills in areas where the assessments show as areas for growth.

I am trained through Level 3.

Session Options:

Standard Couples Sessions are 110 minutes long—long enough for both partners to feel heard, supported, and understood. $420

Shorter 80-minute sessions are available for couples who are to-the-point in their communication styles and prefer a more focused pace (we can adjust after the first session). $312
50-minute sessions are available for couples who cannot afford therapy without using their PPO benefits and need to seek reimbursement with a Superbill. We will be as efficient and effective with our time. Please understand that it will happen more often where we cannot attend to both partner's triggered wound in each session, which is why longer sessions are recommended for couples. We will likely take more weeks to reach your relational goals. $195
Extended Sessions (multi-hour sessions) are available for deeper work—offered in-person or via telehealth on select days. 3 hours: $700, 4 hours: $930, full day: $1700

Let Us Help You

By identifying some of your relational core patterns: conflict cycles, missed bids for connection, ongoing relational grievances, attachment misalignment, and getting clear on what triggers trigger what responses in each of you, we can provide a new path forward where you both get to be a part of healing the past for one another instead of continuing the same old wounding story.

My job is not to erase what has happened to you. Instead, we will honor how your parts have kept you alive all these years, and we will provide them with the ability to finally take a nap, and experience trusting that you will be okay, that other parts are watching and nurturing and ensuring you are good, you are safe, you are loved. We will be updating how your brain remembers your past, because as you move forward in life, your brain will choose the most adaptive information. Our brain wants to know that we're safe. It actually checks and verifies about 4 times per second. In our work, we'll get very clear about what touch, what tone, what words, and actions are encoded to each of you as safe and connecting vs. smothering or abandoning. We can help your brain move in the direction of primed for safety and connection, as Daniel Siegel calls "earned secure attachment."

You May Still Have Questions About Couples Therapy...

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How long will it take for Us to feel better?

It depends. Approximately one hour a week on its own cannot create long-lasting change. I'll teach guidelines for communication and deepen your understanding of each other in the session. Feeling closer together and having a more positive image of your relationship requires practicing all the skills we cover in our sessions and putting in the effort to follow through with the caring efforts you hear matter to your partner, and them towards you.

What if i have a secret i'm not ready to share?

That is 100% okay. I follow a no secrets policy, in that I don't have one-on-one conversations with either partner and therefore, I am never privy to any information that the other partner does not have access to. When you're ready, feel free to let me know that this is new information and how you'd like me to help support the conversation to feel safe and productive as you sort through this new information together and what it means for your relationship.

Can Therapy provide relief for my physical pain too?

Yes, mostly. When you have a diagnosed physical ailment with a structural explanation for the pain, we cannot make a broken bone or a clogged artery heal themselves through therapy, and we cannot cure an Autoimmune Disease. However, we can work to reduce the physical pain that is caused by the anxiety and frustration towards the primary pain.

And, if there is no known reason for your physiological pain, then perhaps it is stuck fight-flight-freeze energy, in which there may be a major reduction in symptoms such as less bloating, milder to no headaches, reduced insomnia, return of appetite, weight loss if the gain was a protective strategy.

We'll be open and curious, and when something becomes clear, we'll gently work with whatever shows up as it is willing and able. And, with your partner present, hopefully whatever relief begins with me in the room, can continue throughout moments of relational relief each day.

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