Couples therapy & marriage counseling in Santa Rosa

When couples reach out

Most couples reach out when the same argument keeps circling back, when distance has quietly crept in, or after trust has been shaken. Others come to strengthen a relationship that's basically good, or to face a hard season together: a new baby, an illness, a loss, a big move. Wherever you are, you don't have to have it figured out before you begin.

How we'll work together

Couples work with me is collaborative and active. We look at the patterns between you: how conflict starts, where it gets stuck, and how repair happens (or doesn't). Together we practice new ways of talking and listening. I draw on the Gottman Method, a research-based approach to communication, conflict, and connection, alongside other approaches shaped around your relationship. You set the direction; we go at it together.

Read more about Gottman Method couples therapy.

Every stage of a relationship

I work with partners at every stage, from dating couples deciding whether to commit and engaged couples preparing for marriage to newlyweds finding their footing and long marriages navigating a hard stretch. Marriage counseling isn't only for relationships in crisis; many couples come to build skills and reconnect well before things reach a breaking point.

I work with couples of every kind, and my practice is an affirming one, including gay and LGBTQ+ partners.

In person in Santa Rosa, online across California

My office is at 5755 Mountain Hawk Drive, Suite 206, in Santa Rosa, east of downtown on the Highway 12 corridor and a short drive from Rincon Valley, Oakmont, Bennett Valley and Kenwood. If you'd be traveling in from further out in the county, that's a longer trip to make every week and worth weighing. For partners elsewhere in California, or when getting to one place together is hard, I also offer secure telehealth sessions throughout the state.

I'm a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (CA LMFT #139263). You can verify my license with the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, or read more about how I work.

If you'd like to read more first

Plenty of couples read for a while before they call, which seems entirely sensible to me. If you're still weighing whether this is the moment, I've written about when to consider couples therapy and the signs I'd take seriously: the fight that loops, the subjects that have quietly become off-limits, the distance that crept in without anyone naming it. Because so much of the work itself is talking and listening, my piece on the role of communication in healthy relationships gives you a fair sense of the skills we'd practice together.

If trust is what's been shaken, my article on recovering from infidelity is an honest look at what affair recovery asks of both partners and how long it tends to take. And if your partner isn't ready to come in, that needn't be the end of it: how individual therapy strengthens your relationship explains why working on your own half of a pattern often shifts the whole thing.