Gottman Referral Network

About

Maybe it’s the same fight, again, nearly word for word. Or you’ve become polite roommates who run a household well and barely touch. Perhaps there’s been a betrayal, and you don’t know yet whether you’re repairing or leaving. Maybe one of you is quietly deciding whether to stay.

You’re capable people, and this is the one problem that hasn’t moved.

We start by mapping what actually happens between you. Most couples arrive with a theory about their problem, and the theory is usually part of it. Then we work on the pattern directly.

After betrayal, time alone doesn’t repair it. I follow the Gottmans’ three phases. First comes atonement, where the truth gets told and remorse is real. Then attunement, where you learn to turn toward each other again. Last is attachment, where trust and intimacy are rebuilt on new ground.

Warm doesn’t mean soft. I’ll tell you what I see, including what neither of you has said out loud yet. Everything stays discreet.

My work is grounded in the Gottman Method. I’ve completed Level 3 training, I’m a Certified Seven Principles Leader, and I’ve trained in the Gottmans’ approach to treating affairs. That gives us a tested structure for changing what happens between you. Underneath it is a psychodynamic foundation, built over more than twenty years of clinical work, which helps explain why you keep running the pattern in the first place.

Some couples need more than a weekly hour. When a disclosure has just happened, a decision can’t wait, or schedules make weekly sessions unrealistic, I offer half-day and full-day intensives. An intensive gives the work room to go somewhere in a single sitting, instead of stopping at the fifty-minute mark.

If one of you is more reluctant than the other, that’s common, and it’s workable. Start with a 15-minute consult, and I’ll tell you honestly whether I’m the right fit. My offices are in Lakewood Ranch and downtown Sarasota, with virtual sessions across Florida and Ontario.