Healing Long-Term Relationship Injuries

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Our culture has never taught us how to understand, attend to, or repair emotional injuries — in ourselves or in the people we love.  As a result, most couples plod forward, carrying resentments and grudges that rarely get resolved.  Each partner yearns to be understood, and feels the quiet injustice of not being seen.  Yet both the injured and the injurer typically lack the essential skills that could create a healing path back to each other.

What I have learned — and what continues to move me — is that these skills can be taught quickly and put to work immediately. There are concrete, accessible ways to help a partner honor what has been felt, seek genuine understanding, and deliver real emotional repair.  And equally powerful skills for the listening partner: to receive, to validate, and to heal — even ruptures of trust and fidelity.

I have spent much of my career half-time as a psychologist in the busiest divorce court in Massachusetts, watching couples and their children go through some of the most painful experiences a family can endure.  I have sat with parents who arrived at that point carrying years of unresolved injuries that might have healed with the right help at the right time.  That has given me both a deep passion for couples work and a clear-eyed understanding of what is at stake when it goes unaddressed.

Nothing in my clinical work gives me more satisfaction than watching a couple that came in defensive and distant begin to actually hear each other — sometimes for the first time in years.  The de-escalation, the moment someone finally feels understood, the slow rebuilding of trust after a serious betrayal — this is genuinely transformative work, and it is often far more achievable than couples expect when they first walk through the door.

My approach to couple's therapy draws on the research of John and Julie Gottman and the powerful relational techniques of Terrence Real — both proven, rapidly effective frameworks for understanding and repairing the emotional injuries that accumulate in long-term relationships.

I can help you and your partner:

• Understand what is actually driving your conflict — beneath the surface arguments
• Quickly learn communication skills that create genuine understanding rather than escalation
• Honor painful feelings and deliver real emotional repair
• Rebuild trust and intimacy after betrayal or long periods of disconnection
• Find a path back to each other that feels honest and sustainable

I am a PSYPACT authorized provider, offering secure telehealth sessions across 43 states. Wherever you are located, you can work with me from the convenience of your home or office. And if you and your children are in different states, my licensure in Massachusetts and Michigan, as well as 43 state PSYPACT authorization, means I can work with all of you — regardless which of these states you live in.

You can see the PSYPACT covered states here:  https://psypact.gov/page/psypactmap