Couples therapy in Ballard, Seattle
not just a fix for your last fight — a new framework you’ll use for every fight after
if you want something more sustainable, but you aren’t quite sure what that looks like
you’re in the right place.
My name is Emily and I’m a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who has trained in Emotionally Focused Therapy and done focused work with couples for the last three years.
I work with couples who’ve watched other couples having the same fight again and again — slowly growing further apart and becoming resentful roommates instead of partners in-love — and who are trying to figure out how to do it differently.
They’ve talked about it, read the books, and tried new strategies. And now, they are ready for some real support to make sustainable change in their relationship.
you are used to playing whack-a-mole with conflict. one pops up, so you quickly try to smash it back down…but pretty soon, another one pops up again.
it’s exhausting!
you’re constantly trying to avoid the “hot button” topics or test the waters before bringing it up — but you’re starting to wonder why there are so many damn moles in your relationship.
introducing…
your new framework of conflict
It’s time to start understanding conflict as a necessary and important part of relationship.
we’re not going to play whack-a-mole frantically.
we’re going to slow down to learn the pattern of conflict so that when another pop ups, we actually understand how it works and how to address it
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Most of us try to avoid or eliminate conflict in our relationships. In fact, a top goal from couples arriving to therapy is “to reduce conflict.” Conflict is hard, so it makes sense we don’t want to be having it.
That’s because when we think of conflict, we think of our bad experiences of it - someone yelling at us, the door getting slammed, anxiously waiting for the silence to end. This is not what I’m talking about.
In productive conflict, we are connected to ourselves and our partner - even in difficult emotion. This type of conflict is necessary because it helps us to learn more about each other’s deeper needs and feelings. It both draws us closer to each other and helps us to learn how to meet our own and each other’s needs. -
In this framework, we understand conflict as a skill to develop over time - like learning to play tennis, squatting heavier in the gym, or playing guitar for the first time.
We don’t expect to be good at these skills the first time we try - in fact, if that’s our expectation, we’ll likely quit within the first couple of weeks. To become an expert at anything, we have to practice and put in the work. We regularly engage in training, pay attention to the nuances of our form or sound, and stay connected to the long term vision for where we’re headed.
The same is true for conflict. To get good, we need practice, attention to what is actually going on in the moment, and long term vision for what we want. This strategy means we stop avoiding all conflict and instead pay attention when it shows up so that we can get good at it. -
If you find yourself saying, “gosh, that fight started about nothing, how did it get so big?” - this is your answer.
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) supports my work with couples to understand conflict as a set of negative interaction patterns that are based in attachment related emotions.
Our patterns with our partners cycle around deeper emotions about close relationships and the ways we’ve learned to keep ourselves safe in stress. This is what our therapeutic work will be all about!