Couple & Family Therapy
For couples and families who want to understand recurring interaction patterns, reduce blame, and build more workable ways of relating across culture, generations, trust, and intimacy.
My Experience
My understanding of family dynamics and intimacy began long before I became a clinical therapist. Growing up in a transient migrant / immigrant environment and navigating a non-traditional family structure, I have experienced the ruptures and restructurings of attachment, and these complex family dynamics have gifted me with emotional intuition and insights into understanding complex human emotions.
15min free consultation
We will use the brief consultation to get to know each other and see if we might be a good fit for each other.
You Are Welcome Here
❁
You Are Welcome Here ❁
“You are altogether beautiful, my love;
there is no flaw in you.”
Song of Solomon 4:7
Couple & Family Therapy
Couples therapy focuses on the interactional pattern between partners rather than assigning one person the role of “the problem.” We may work with communication breakdowns, pursue-withdraw cycles, cultural or family-of-origin differences, sexual dissatisfaction, boundary conflicts, and recovery after breaches of trust such as infidelity.
Family therapy can be useful when distress is organized around generational conflict, parent-child communication, migration and acculturation, caregiving roles, blended or non-traditional family structures, or major transitions. I pay particular attention to hierarchy, boundaries, role expectations, and the cultural meanings attached to family responsibility.
Process & Boundaries
I draw from systemic and relational approaches, Gottman-informed interventions, trauma-informed care, and my training as an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist. The goal is not to decide who is right, but to understand what keeps the conflict going and to create new ways of responding.
Treatment commonly begins with a joint 53-minute intake. Individual assessment meetings may be recommended when clinically useful, with clear expectations about confidentiality and information-sharing established in advance. Ongoing sessions are typically 53 minutes.
Couples and family therapy can temporarily intensify emotion as previously avoided concerns are discussed. It may strengthen a relationship, clarify needed changes, or sometimes help people make difficult decisions about the future of the relationship. No specific outcome can be guaranteed.
Fee: $220 per 53-minute joint session. Insurance coverage for couples/family therapy depends on medical necessity and the specific plan; benefits should be verified before treatment.
My Theorectic Approach
Integrative Systemic Family Therapy
In couples and family therapy, I draw upon my rigorous clinical training under Dr. Afzal and Dr. Radwan from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Chicago. I firmly believe that in any relationship, there is no single "problem maker" or "scapegoat." Taking an integrative approach that weaves together Systemic, Structural, and Strategic modalities, I treat the "relationship itself" as my primary client.
Through a Systemic lens, we view the family or couple as an intricately interconnected emotional unit. One person's anxiety, anger, or withdrawal is rarely an individual failure; it is often a symptom of a dysregulated relational system. In our sessions, I will help you shift the focus from assigning blame ("who is right and who is wrong") to understanding how your interactional patterns co-create the current distress.
Integrating a Structural perspective, I will help you observe the hierarchies, roles, and invisible boundaries within your family system. For many families influenced by East Asian authoritarian cultures or those navigating the survival modes of immigration, generational boundaries can easily blur—such as children carrying the emotional weight of their parents (parentification) or partners losing their individuality through enmeshment. I do not pathologize these structures using rigid Western individualistic standards; instead, we acknowledge how these patterns historically protected the family's survival. Building on this empathy, we gently restructure healthier boundaries so that love no longer feels like a suffocating weight.
Concurrently, I incorporate action-oriented interventions from Strategic family therapy. When couples or families are trapped in exhausting cycles of defensiveness (such as the classic pursue-withdraw dynamic), simply excavating past trauma is not enough. Serving as a "choreographer" of your relationship, I use direct interventions and reframing to interrupt these destructive communication loops. Together, we will identify practical, highly effective strategies to break the relational gridlock, helping you rebuild secure and profound emotional connections in the here and now.
Micro-Communication & Narrative Mediation
Tragedies within couples and families often stem from the reality that "we speak the same language, yet we completely fail to understand each other." Grounded in my Master’s background in Health Communication from Indiana University and my experience as a Certified Healthcare Interpreter (CoreCHI) facilitating communication in highly vulnerable medical settings, I am acutely sensitive to the micro-dynamics of language and narratives. In the therapy room, I often serve as an "emotional translator." I am trained to catch the hidden irrational beliefs, distorted messages, and unspoken fears beneath your arguments. I will slow down the pace of your communication, interrupt destructive knee-jerk reactions, and help you "translate" aggressive accusations into their true underlying form: a desperate plea for love and connection.
The Gottman Method
In addressing couples' conflicts, I am actively integrating the Gottman Method, a highly effective, evidence-based approach backed by over four decades of relationship research. I don't just teach you "how to stop fighting"; instead, through structured assessments, we work to build your "Sound Relationship House." In our sessions, we will accurately identify and dismantle the "Four Horsemen" (Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling) that predict relationship deterioration. Through practical, actionable communication exercises, I will assist you in rebuilding a profound friendship system amidst daily routines, learning to express needs gently, and executing effective repairs after conflicts. This ensures you not only resolve the immediate crisis but also cultivate long-lasting relationship resilience.
Somatic Trauma & Attachment Lens
In our most intimate relationships, we often manifest our deepest trauma responses. Sometimes, a partner's explosive anger or emotional withdrawal is not a sign of lacking love, but rather an indication that early attachment wounds have been triggered, sending the nervous system into a "fight or flight" survival mode. Integrating my profound background in trauma-informed care, I will never pathologize your dysregulation. Instead, I will help you map out each other's trauma triggers, shifting your perspective so you no longer view your partner as a "dangerous enemy," but rather as a "wounded companion in need of soothing," thereby rebuilding relational safety at a physiological level.
“You are like a beanbag filled with water—soft, comfortable, safe, and adapts to my shape. ”
from one of my former clients