"Love is at once an affirmation and a transcendence of who we are." - Esther Perel
Couples / Relationship Therapy
Through the use of the most current and effective evidence-based treatment approaches I help partners to understand and cultivate deeper emotional connection and/or sexual intimacy.
I am compassionate, affirming and non-judgmental in my work with couples and/or other partner arrangements. I am a somatic relational therapist so in working with couples/partners I aim to assist you in bringing the implicit into explicit awareness. In doing this I help you to more directly address the underlying negative relational patterns you have been stuck in together. You and your partner(s) can learn to be more emotionally accessible, responsive vs reactive, and more present with each other! I see myself as your ally and coach in helping you to co-create your healthiest and most vibrant intimate relationship.
As a Certified Gottman Couples Therapist (CGT) I utilize The Gottman Method as the foundation that supports our work together. The Gottman Method is an approach to couples therapy based on over 40 years of research and practice by Drs John and Julie Gottman. It includes a thorough assessment of your relationship and integrates research-based interventions based on the nine components of healthy relationships known as The Sound Relationship House Theory. The goals of Gottman Method Couples Therapy are to build (or rebuild) a loving, trusting, safe haven. This is done through helping you and your partner(s) learn and utilize skills to disarm conflicting verbal communication; to increase respect and affection; to remove barriers that create a feeling of stagnancy or isolation; and create a heightened sense of empathy and understanding within the context of the relationship.
As a Certified Sex Therapist (CST) I offer sex therapy to couples. Sex Therapy is intended to help couples address sexual health concerns that impact the relationship. It is important to note that Sex Therapy does not include any sexual acts in session. Additionally there is never any sexual contact between therapist and client(s).
My Areas of expertise:
- Deepening emotional connection and intimacy
- Relational Sexual Health dynamics and function; including desire discrepancies, performance and pleasure issues
- Improving communication skills
- Navigating conflict
- When one or more of the partners struggle with PTSD, addiction, sexual trauma, chronic or acute illness, etc
- Addressing and healing past hurts and betrayals, including infidelity
- Negotiating relational agreements around individual needs
- improving playfulness and increasing your ability to have fun together
- Open and/or Poly Relationships
- Diversity of sexual expression/Kink, BDSM, fetishes
- issues unique to relationship dynamics unique to the LGBTQAI community
- sexual expression and communication
Goals/Benefits of Couples Therapy with me:
- develop mutual goals for your relationship
- deepen intimacy, affection and emotional connection
- address, repair and resolve past hurts and betrayals
- learn how to co-regulate and repair attachment wounds from earlier life relationships
- develop communication skills to manage conflict
- develop communication skills to deepen important conversations about values and dreams, etc
- have more fun together and enjoy each others company more
- understand and appreciate personal similarities and differences
- explore and communicate about your sexual relationship
- improve your sexual intimacy
- identify negative patterns of relating and replace them with healthy patterns
- learn to be better “partners” in times of high stress or during life transitions
- grow together into secure attachment (have the ‘felt sense’ of a safe haven and secure base)
"There is little one can say about love. It has to be lived, and it is always in motion. - Rumi
Gina Searle
Embodiment . Presence . Connection
801-209-6243 - 2225 E. Murray-Holladay Road #108, Holladay, UT 84117