Online Therapy for Relationship Issues in Washington State

The quality of our relationships can greatly impact the quality of our lives. This is especially true of our romantic relationships. In fact, a study that analyzed 93 different studies found that marital quality has substantial impacts on our well-being (generally for good) in many ways, including depression, happiness, life satisfaction, self-esteem, and general psychological well-being (Proulx et al., 2007). However, being paired with the wrong person can lead to deleterious effects on our health and wellness.

A systematic review involving 112 studies on emerging adults found that while relationships generally foster a happy, healthy life (in particular, life satisfaction, self-esteem, positive affect, perceived security, personal growth, and achievement of personal goals), the quality of the relationship mattered most (Gómez-López et al., 2019). Being in a poor-quality relationship (that is, a high-conflict or harmful relationship) actually resulted in poorer outcomes across the metrics listed above. So whether you’re in a relationship currently and are working on yourself to be a better partner, or are currently dating and hoping to become and attract someone safe, secure, and loving, I may be able to help you.

With clients focused on relationship issues, I cover the bases on what strong, supportive relationships generally look like, cover ways to develop intimacy, reflect “blind spots” back to clients to show them ways they may be souring their relationship, and take a psychodynamic (looking back into the past) approach to foster insight and help clients correct negative past experiences that impact how they engage in relationships, dating, or marriage today. If you’d like to focus on relationships, either one you have now or one you'd like to have in the future, please reach out to see if we’d be a good team.

How Therapy Can Help Improve Your Relationship Issues

It’s probably a universal truth that we all want to have secure relationships. We all want to feel loved and supported, and to be loving and supportive of our significant other. We all want to experience the numerous benefits of being in a committed, stable relationship or marriage. While there’s no magic wand we can wave to solve all of our problems, and therapy isn’t a one-and-done, quick-fix solution, with time we can learn to:

• Establish healthier communication patterns

• Become aware of our own relationship dynamics.

• Use evidence-based tools and frameworks.

• Look back into the past and “neutralize” negative experiences or trauma.

• Discuss how distorted thoughts and attitudes are affecting you.

• Engage in behavioral experiments or “missions” between sessions.

• Learn about attachment and evidence-supported factors that promote positive relationships.

• Make mistakes, correct them, and improve over time.

Establish healthier communication patterns

In therapy, we can cover ways to communicate without being excessively critical of our partners, without turning away from them, and without tearing them down. You’ll learn tools to communicate assertively. Not passively (or being a doormat, allowing your partner to walk all over you), and not aggressively (speaking, or yelling, with some venom in your voice, words, and body language). Neutrally, calmly, and effectively, as best we can manage.

Become aware of our own relationship issues dynamics

It’s easy to walk into therapy complaining about our partners and how awful they treat us (although there are certainly cases where this is objectively true, and I don’t mean to sound dismissive of those who are in abusive or genuinely toxic relationships). What’s more challenging is acknowledging and accepting accountability for the role we play in creating unhealthy dynamics. You might slam the door (the way your dad might have) when angry at your partner. You might withdraw affection (the way your mom might have) when your partner disappoints you. You might blurt out an “I hate you” when emotions and stress hormones are high. We’ll look at how your behaviors have created your relationship issues, in addition to your partner’s.

Use evidence-based tools and frameworks

During the course of therapy, you’ll hear me mention a variety of concepts, such as Gottman's Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (four big things that can really kill a relationship and can accurately predict whether a marriage will end in divorce), or Erik Erikson’s stages of development and central ego crises (the general challenges we must overcome at different periods throughout our lives), and more. Some other tools I draw from include DBT tools (for emotional regulation), EMDR (for trauma and experiences that still sting), and CBT (for correcting flawed thoughts, which we all have, that impact our mood and behavior).

Look back into the past and “neutralize” negative experiences or trauma

Sometimes when we experience traumatic or extremely distressing events, our brains don’t encode these memories properly. We may find we struggle to recall certain periods or events of our lives, details of events may be fuzzy, and the emotional response we feel about certain events still might be quite high when we think about these sensitive times in our lives. This is because when we’re going through disturbing events, our bodies are in fight-or-flight mode, and the areas of our brain (e.g. the prefrontal cortex) that lead to healthy memory storage aren’t as active, as we deal with the immediate threat before us. This improper storage of the event can continue to affect us today, consciously and subconsciously. Using EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is an effective tool developed in the ‘80s by Dr. Francine Shapiro that helps us to emotionally process our memories. When these memories clear, we’re able to live our lives with greater peace and potentially be better partners.

Discuss how distorted thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes are affecting you

In addition to using tools like EMDR to process big events from the past that might be involved in our relationship issues today, we’ll also use approaches that look at your thoughts and identify core beliefs you may hold. It’s normal and common to have distorted thoughts or beliefs. This generally happens to us all, including self-aware people and those who are intelligent. This is why working with a therapist is key. A therapist can help you become more aware of your thinking, beliefs, and attitudes and promote more objectivity. We might use tools like Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) to identify and counterbalance “stuck points” or distorted beliefs about ourselves and the world. We’d also use gold-standard Cognitive Behavioral techniques to pick apart thought distortions (such as, “my partner didn’t text me back within 30 minutes, therefore he doesn’t love me”) and replace them with more balanced, healthier thoughts.

Engage in behavioral experiments or “missions” between sessions

Talking about relationship issues may not be enough. Sure, it can help small changes to take root and guide future behavior, but in addition to just speaking about issues, we need to take action. We need to follow through with what we say. Even if it feels awkward, foreign, and even when we feel out of our comfort zone. We’ll progress at a pace that’s manageable for you, creating challenges that are just outside of your comfort zone so that you’re not completely overwhelmed. IF, for example, one of the relationship issues that you face is feeling a lack of love in your relationship, I might encourage you to do something small, such as get your partner flowers or make them a special dish. I might encourage you to follow up with a past date rather than ghosting them, to let them know what you authentically felt. These activities are collaborative, meaning we come up with them together. I want them to be implementable and foster your growth.

Learn about attachment and evidence-supported factors that promote positive relationships

Attachment is a common term that floats around today. In therapy, we’ll discuss what attachment styles look like (from secure, to anxious, to avoidant, to anxious-avoidant), identify yours, and identify particular areas with attachment you may struggle with. The good news is attachment is more malleable than previously thought. This means that as adults or adolescents, we can correct less-than-ideal childhood circumstances that led to the development of an insecure attachment style. Additionally, we’ll cover factors that increase the likelihood (but importantly, do not guarantee) of you establishing a healthy, long-term relationship, such as holding similar values, dating someone who comes from a similar background as you (or who’s open and willing to be flexible), who has “pro social” behaviors and indicators, and personality factors that increase the chance of success (such as higher agreeableness and conscientiousness, and lower neuroticism). The cool thing about digging into attachment and knowing the factors that increase relationship longevity is that there is much we can do to shape these factors as adults with conscious effort, including if some parts of our relationship or upbringing aren’t ideal.

Make mistakes, correct them, and improve over time

In therapy, as you begin to change your thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and beliefs, it’s expected that some mistakes or setbacks might happen. That’s totally fine and part of the process. You might get drunk and text an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend when you truly didn’t want to, or you might have lashed out in anger at your partner during the week. Taking a step or two back is common and normal. We’ll look back at these moments and treat them as learning opportunities. Together, we’ll analyze what was going on, what emotions you were experiencing, what thoughts you had at the time, and other variables to become more aware of the factors that triggered our undesired behavior. Additionally, in therapy with me, I’m always open to hearing client feedback. Sometimes I won’t say the right thing, or sometimes things won’t land properly. The inverse might be true, too. If this is the case, I encourage you to reach out to me and let me know how I can improve. By practicing speaking up in therapy, this can have positive effects that ripple out into your everyday life.

If You Want More Information, Please Get In Touch

Every relationship, context, and person is unique. In a mere post such as this, I can’t begin to get into the nuances of relationship issues, much less your specific relationship concerns. If you’d like to get in touch to see how I can help with your relationship worries or concerns, please reach out to me directly. I’m able to help clients online in Washington state from Seattle, to Kirkland, to Bellingham, to Everett.

References

Gómez-López, M., Viejo, C., & Ortega-Ruiz, R. (2019). Well-being and Romantic Relationships: A Systematic Review in Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(13), 2415.

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16132415Proulx, C. M., Helms, H. M., & Buehler, C. (2007). Marital quality and personal well-being: A meta-analysis. Journal of Marriage and Family, 69(3), 576–593. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2007.00393.x