Feel Close Again in the Relationship You Built
Offering Online Couples Therapy throughout California.
I work with high-achieving, motivated individuals and couples in the Bay Area and across the state who are ready to understand what’s driving the patterns between them and build something more connected. My approach draws on Emotionally Focused Therapy, attachment theory, and body-oriented awareness.
Even the strongest minds need love and support.
High-functioning couples often reach therapy not only in crisis, but also in confusion. You’ve built careers, lives, and maybe a family together. But somewhere along the way, the connection started to thin. The same argument cycles back around. One of you reaches, and the other withdraws. Both of you are exhausted. And the insight you have about what’s happening hasn’t been enough to change it.
That’s not a willpower problem. It’s a nervous system and attachment problem. When partners don’t feel emotionally safe with each other, even calm conversations can tip into defense and distance. Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples works beneath the content of the arguments, with what each person is actually reaching for when things get hard. When both partners can feel and name that, the dynamic shifts.
The first step is a free 30-minute conversation to figure out if this is the right fit.
Couples Therapy May Be a Good Fit If You
Couples therapy works best with partners who are motivated, self-aware, and willing to look honestly at their own contribution to the dynamic. Here are some signs it might be the right next step:
Connection Before Communication Scripts
Most couples come in wanting better communication. What they often discover is that communication isn’t the core problem. It’s the emotional safety underneath it. When partners don’t feel secure with each other, even calm conversations turn into protection and withdrawal. Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples works at that deeper level first, understanding what each person is really reaching for when things get hard, and building the conditions where it feels safe enough to say it.
I also bring body-oriented awareness into sessions. Conflict doesn’t only happen in words. It lives in the body, in what tightens, shuts down, or floods when things escalate. Noticing those cues in real time helps both partners slow down the patterns that move too fast and build new ways of reaching each other that actually land.
Your first session is a conversation, not an intervention. We use the time to understand what has been happening between you, what each of you is hoping changes, and whether working together feels like the right fit.
In the first session, we will:
You don’t need to have the same read on the problem. You don’t need to agree on what went wrong. What matters is that both of you are willing to show up honestly and see what’s possible. The first session is where that begins.
Hi, I'm Lucy
I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist in California (LMFT #102958) offering online couples therapy throughout the state. My graduate training is from the California Institute of Integral Studies, and my clinical training includes Emotionally Focused Therapy and EMDR. My approach draws on attachment theory, body-awareness, mindfulness, and a genuine belief that motivated people can shift long-standing patterns when they feel genuinely supported in doing so.
I work best with high-functioning couples who are self-aware and serious about their relationship. Not in constant crisis, but honest enough to say something isn’t working. I’m direct. I’ll name the patterns I see, and I’ll bring genuine warmth to the process. My goal is always to help both of you feel more like partners again.
What I Offer:
No two couples are the same. The way we work together depends on what you’re bringing, how you each process, and what the relationship needs most right now. These are the core approaches I draw from, each chosen because it reaches something different.
EFT is the foundation of how I work with couples. Rather than focusing on communication scripts or conflict management techniques, EFT addresses the attachment dynamics underneath the arguments. The surface fight is rarely what the conflict is actually about. Underneath it, one or both partners is reaching for connection and not feeling met. EFT makes that reaching visible so both people can respond to what’s actually happening, not just what’s being said.
How we learned to attach in our earliest relationships shapes how we show up in every relationship after. Attachment-based work looks at those early patterns, not with blame, but with curiosity. When you understand that your partner’s withdrawal isn’t rejection but fear, or that your own intensity isn’t control but longing, the whole dynamic shifts. This work asks both people to become gently curious about themselves and each other.
Conflict doesn’t only happen in words. It happens in the tightening of the chest, the pulling away, the shutdown that happens before either person says anything. When the nervous system is activated, insight can’t fully land. Body-oriented questions and grounding tools help both partners slow their physiological responses so that real conversation becomes possible. I weave this in naturally, as a way of accessing what’s happening beneath the surface, not as a separate exercise.
Once the emotional safety underneath communication improves, practical skills become genuinely useful, and they stick. I work with couples on how to structure difficult conversations, how to signal repair during an argument, and how to build shared agreements around the things that keep creating friction. Communication techniques without emotional safety rarely hold. Once there’s enough safety, practical tools can anchor the new patterns in daily life.
Mindfulness isn’t just a self-care tool. In relationship work, it’s a way of slowing down the automatic responses that keep couples stuck. When both partners develop some capacity to pause and notice what’s happening inside them before reacting, the window for real connection opens. I bring mindfulness in through grounding meditations, awareness practices, and body-oriented check-ins that are simple, accessible, and directly relevant to what’s happening between you.
Stuck in Patterns and Cycles
Couples come to therapy for many different reasons. What they share is a sense that something between them has become harder to navigate than they can do alone. These are the concerns I most often work with.
For many couples, the issue isn’t a lack of love. It’s that the same conversations keep ending the same way. One person shuts down. The other escalates. Or both say reasonable things on the surface, while something underneath stays unresolved. Communication problems that don’t respond to good intentions almost always have emotional roots. We slow the pattern down, look at what’s actually driving it, and build something different from the inside out.
A breach of trust, whether infidelity or another kind of betrayal, doesn’t end a relationship on its own. What determines what comes next is how both partners approach what happened. The hurt partner needs their experience fully witnessed, not explained away. The partner who caused harm needs to take genuine accountability without defensiveness. This kind of work is slow, careful, and requires a safety that doesn’t exist at the start. I provide structure for that process.
Parenting is one of the most common sources of relational strain for couples. Differences in values, styles, and expectations around children can surface conflict. Major life transitions, including a new child, a move, a loss, or a career change, also test relationships in specific ways. High-achieving couples often handle external demands well but find the relationship itself gets deprioritized in the process. Therapy during transitions helps you stay connected while navigating the pressure.
Some of the hardest relational patterns to shift are rooted in attachment injuries, moments in the relationship where one partner needed something and the other wasn’t there. These aren’t always dramatic events. A period of emotional unavailability, a dismissal during a vulnerable moment, a pattern of being unseen. Over time, these shape how safe each partner feels to reach for the other. Attachment-based work brings these injuries into focus so they can be understood, addressed, and repaired.
Premarital counseling isn’t a sign that something is wrong. It’s a way of building a stronger foundation before you need it. Couples who invest in their relationship before the stressors of life compound often navigate hard seasons more effectively. We’ll look at communication patterns, attachment styles, how you each handle conflict and stress, and what expectations you’re each bringing that may not have been made explicit yet. Starting well matters.
All sessions are conducted online, which means couples therapy is available wherever you are in California. Whether you’re in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, Sacramento, or anywhere across the Bay Area, Northern California, Southern California, or the Central Coast, you can access this work without a commute. Many couples find that doing this work in their own space, from their own home, actually supports the process.
Online therapy allows for consistency, especially important for relational work, and removes the barrier of coordinating schedules around a shared physical location. Sessions are conducted via a secure, HIPAA-compliant telehealth platform.
What Couples Counseling Actually Is
Couples counseling is a form of therapy where both partners work with a trained therapist to address relational patterns, improve communication, and rebuild connection. It’s not about assigning blame or deciding who’s right. It’s about understanding the dynamic between you and creating conditions where both people can feel genuinely heard and more secure.
Who Couples Counseling Is For
Couples therapy is not only for relationships in crisis. It’s for any partnership where something feels stuck, distant, or harder than it should be. Many couples come in not because they’re falling apart, but because they want to build something stronger before the patterns they’re in become harder to shift.
The Terms Mean the Same Thing
Couples therapy and marriage counseling refer to the same type of work. The terminology varies by therapist and region, but the goals and structure are essentially identical. Both involve working with a trained clinician to address relational patterns, communication, trust, and emotional connection. You don’t need to be married to attend. I work with committed partners at any stage.
Before the Situation Becomes an Emergency
The best time to come to couples therapy is before you’re in crisis. Recurring conflict, growing distance, or a sense that the relationship has plateaued are all reasons to seek support. Many people wait until things feel unsalvageable. Couples who come in earlier often find the work less overwhelming and more effective.
When Is It Too Late for Couples Therapy?
Rarely. If both partners are willing to engage honestly, couples therapy can be meaningful even when things feel very broken. The exception is when one partner has already made a firm decision to end the relationship and is not genuinely open to working on it. In that case, therapy may be more useful as a space for a thoughtful, respectful transition.
The Most Common Concerns Couples Bring
Couples therapy addresses a wide range of relational concerns:
It Depends on Fit, Readiness, and Follow-Through
The honest answer is: it depends. Couples therapy has strong research support, particularly for Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples, which consistently shows high success rates across multiple studies. But research averages don’t tell you what’s true for your specific relationship. What makes the most difference is genuine motivation on both sides, a therapist whose approach fits how you each process, and a willingness to practice new patterns outside the session. I’ll be straightforward about this in our consultation.
What the Process Looks Like
We begin with an assessment of your relationship, your individual histories, and the patterns that keep showing up. From there, sessions focus on slowing down and examining those patterns in real time. Often, I’ll notice something happening in the room and bring it into focus so we can understand it together. The work builds gradually as both partners develop new emotional habits.
The Role of Practice Between Sessions
What happens between sessions matters as much as what happens in them. I sometimes offer simple practices or conversations to try at home. Not prescriptive exercises but ways of bringing the awareness from sessions into daily life, where the patterns actually live.
A Typical Session Structure
Sessions are 50 minutes. We typically begin by checking in on what’s been happening since we last met, then move into the focus for the session, whether that’s a recurring pattern, a specific conflict, or something that surfaced during the week. I pay attention to both content and process, what’s being said and how it’s being said. I’ll name what I notice when it’s useful.
Do Couples Therapists Take Sides?
No. My job is not to decide who’s right. It’s to help both of you understand what’s happening and create conditions where each person feels genuinely heard. That said, I am direct. If I see a pattern that’s damaging or a dynamic that needs to be named, I’ll name it. Neutrality doesn’t mean being passive.
There Is No Single Answer
Duration depends on what you’re working on and how deeply the patterns are established. Some couples come for a focused period of 12-20 sessions around a specific concern. Others benefit from longer-term relational work. I’ll give you a realistic picture of what I’m observing and what might be reasonable to expect once I understand what’s going on.
How Many Sessions Do Couples Need?
Couples with more recent or circumscribed concerns often see meaningful change within 12-20 sessions. Couples navigating deeper attachment injuries, significant trust ruptures, or long-standing patterns tend to benefit from a longer timeframe. What matters most isn’t the number of sessions but whether both partners are genuinely engaging with what comes up.
Rebuilding Trust After Betrayal
Yes. Couples therapy can be a meaningful part of recovering from infidelity, but it requires genuine commitment from both partners. The hurt partner needs to feel their pain is fully witnessed, not explained away. The partner who caused harm needs to take real accountability. This work moves slowly, and there are no shortcuts. Many couples who do it describe coming out the other side with a more honest and connected relationship than they had before.
What the Research Shows
Yes. Many couples find online therapy just as effective as in-person work. All my sessions are online, making couples therapy accessible anywhere in California without the logistics of a commute or coordinating a shared physical location. Many couples find that doing this work from their own home actually supports the process.
Does Couples Therapy Work Over Zoom?
Sessions are conducted via a secure, HIPAA-compliant telehealth platform. Most couples adapt quickly. What matters far more than the medium is the quality of the work and the genuine willingness of both partners to engage with it.
Communication Isn’t the Root Problem
Couples who argue constantly are almost always caught in a negative interaction cycle driven by unmet emotional needs, not poor communication skills. You can learn all the right phrases and still end up in the same fight because what’s underneath hasn’t shifted. EFT works at that deeper level first. When both partners feel emotionally safe, communication naturally becomes less reactive, more honest, and more effective.
What Changes When the Emotional Foundation Shifts
Arguments become shorter, less frequent, and easier to repair. Couples who’ve done this work often describe not fighting less, but fighting differently, moving through conflict and back to connection more fluidly than before.
What Happens When One Partner Is Reluctant
Couples therapy works best when both partners are willing to engage. One partner being hesitant is common and not disqualifying, as long as they’re willing to show up and be honest about the hesitation. Reluctance usually has a reason. Understanding that reason is often part of the early work.
What If My Partner Doesn’t Want to Go to Couples Therapy?
If your partner is truly unwilling to attend, individual therapy can still be valuable. Working on your own patterns, understanding your attachment style, and shifting how you respond in the relationship can move the dynamic even without your partner in the room. I offer individual therapy for exactly this situation.
What EFT Is
Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples is a structured approach to couples therapy developed by Dr. Sue Johnson, grounded in attachment theory. It focuses on identifying and shifting the negative interaction cycles that keep couples stuck, and creating new patterns of emotional responsiveness between partners. EFT has one of the strongest research bases of any couples therapy model, with studies showing high rates of meaningful, lasting improvement.
What Type of Therapy Is Best for Couples?
EFT is consistently ranked among the most effective approaches for couples, particularly those dealing with emotional disconnection, trust injuries, and chronic conflict. I work primarily from EFT, with additional influences from attachment-based and body-oriented approaches. The best model is always the one that fits how you and your partner actually process, and I’m happy to talk through this in a consultation.
Emotional Safety and Physical Intimacy Are Connected
Yes. Physical intimacy and emotional intimacy are deeply intertwined. When emotional safety decreases, physical closeness often follows. When one or both partners feel unseen, criticized, or emotionally distant, desire and connection naturally contract. Couples therapy addresses the emotional foundation first. As partners feel safer and more connected, many couples find that physical intimacy naturally begins to return. I work with intimacy concerns with care and without shame.
When More Specialized Support May Help
When intimacy concerns involve specific sexual issues, differences in desire, or concerns that would benefit from specialist focus, sex therapy with a trained sex therapist may be a valuable complement to couples work. I’m happy to discuss what might be the most useful combination of support for your situation.
What Couples Therapy Can and Can’t Do
Couples therapy is not designed to keep any relationship together at any cost. Its goal is to help both partners understand what’s happening and make conscious, honest decisions about the relationship. For many couples, that leads to genuine repair and reconnection. For some, it leads to a clearer and more respectful separation than would have happened otherwise. Either outcome can be a meaningful result of good therapy work.
Is Couples Counseling Worth It?
For couples who engage genuinely, yes. Whether you stay together or not, understanding your own patterns, your attachment needs, and what went wrong gives you something that serves every relationship going forward. Most people who do this work describe it as one of the more meaningful things they’ve done, regardless of the outcome.
Session Fees
My fee is $250 per 50-minute session. Some couples find they need more time, and longer sessions are available and prorated at the same rate.
Fees are discussed directly during the initial free consultation. I want that conversation to be straightforward, so there are no surprises.
Insurance
I do not accept insurance directly. Clients with PPO plans may be eligible for partial reimbursement through out-of-network benefits. I provide monthly superbills for insurance submission. HSA and FSA funds can typically be applied to session fees.
What to Look for in a Couples Therapist
Look for formal training in a research-supported couples therapy model, experience with the specific concerns you’re bringing, and a clear explanation of how they work. Credentials matter, but so does whether you feel genuinely safe with the person. EFT therapists with specific training in attachment-based work are well-suited to the kinds of concerns most couples bring.
Questions Worth Asking in a Consultation
The consultation itself is a way of assessing fit, not just gathering information. Take it as a chance to see whether the connection feels right.
The first step is a conversation.
The first step is a free 30-minute call. We’ll talk about what’s going on, I’ll tell you how I work, and we’ll get a feel for whether this is the right fit. No pressure either way; if I’m not the right person, I’ll help you figure out who is. If I am, we’ll get your first session on the calendar.
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