Approach

The Relationship Restoration approach is collaborative and tailored to client’s individual needs.

Our therapists, diverse in their clinical experience, all ascribe to evidence-based attachment theory.  Attachment theory addresses the ways in which humans respond when scared and hurt.  Humans have various ways of dealing with being separated from loved ones and feeling threatened.  These responses are learned as small children and often carry into adulthood.  Our therapists seek to help clients understand what protective mechanisms are no longer necessary.  They also want to give concrete techniques to use in place of mechanisms that are no longer serving them.

Our therapists’ goal is to help clients see their underlying fears and worries within their interactions. They strive to help clients express these fears in a way that’s palatable to their loved ones. At the same time our therapists are helping to show loved ones how to create an environment comfortable enough for their partner to share vulnerable topics. This therapeutic technique using attachment theory and therapeutic intervention is operationalized in the empirically supported Emotion Focused Therapy.  (https://iceeft.com/what-is-eft/)

Our therapists also use the work of the research-based Gottman Institute in their regular practice with couples. They will explain research data and give step by step instructions to present a better way of interacting.  Our therapists use Gottman worksheets, diagrams and conversation to help clients understand each other’s inner world, manage conflict and build trust. (https://www.gottman.com/about/the-gottman-method/)

Our therapists have worked for years in the field of mental health and couples counseling. A couple in the midst of a relational crisis can easily feel hopeless.  Our therapists, with experience and an objective point of view, can help point out where there is room for change.  Each clinician is trained to see patterns of interaction.  Chances are they have seen countless other couples with the same pattern of interaction.  Our therapists are focused on what is happening between people in relationship and will not get caught in the “nitty gritty” of conversation topics.