Therapy for Healthy Relationships
Social beings by nature, we are all equipped with amazing capacities for empathic understanding, emotional bonding and social intelligence. And at the same time relationships can create a lot of internal and external emotional struggles. Learning how to cultivate positive relationships with loved ones, peers and professional colleagues is a main focus for many of the people I work with in relationship counseling as well as in individual psychotherapy.
Painful and ineffective relationship patterns are rooted in the past, often in childhood experiences.
From early childhood on our ability to connect with others is shaped by our experiences of emotional bonding and belonging. We do well with human connection that nurtures our innate vitality, resilience and creative development. Positive connections with others act as protective buffers from the inevitable stresses and insecurities of life. Difficult experiences relating to others may bring up feelings of depression, anxiety, overwhelming anger or low self-esteem.
Past experiences can act like a lens which colors your perceptions and shapes how you react in your current relationships.
If your lens has taken on a negative bias due to past experiences of rejection, abandonment or distrust, this can limit your choices of how you connect with others, often without you even knowing it. With an unbiased, non-judgmental perspective I can help you liberate yourself from painful relating patterns. And I help you acquire relational skills that seem to be missing or that you find hard to access when needed.
We get hurt in relationships, and we can also heal in relationships.
Healing relationships are are based on authenticity, respect, and empathic understanding. In therapy I offer you the heartfelt attention and skillful responsiveness that allows you to experience yourself in novel ways and the ability to develop a blueprint for relating with others from your authentic self based on your true values.
Common relationship issues that I work with in therapy:
- Difficult family dynamics
- Challenging workplace relationships
- Low self-esteem, not feeling good enough
- Fear of conflict
- Overgiving and fear of saying “no”
- Co-dependency
- Trauma due to bullying and shaming
- Social anxiety
- Loneliness
- Perfectionism
- Dating and partnering difficulties
- Fear of intimacy
- Fear of asserting yourself
- Fear of being alone
Contact me for a free 20-minute consultation to discuss how I may be of assistance to you.
I can be reached at (415) 425-0164 or to email please go to “Contact” page.