Therapy for Couples/Multiple Partners

As humans, we are hardwired to desire connection. At Grounded Wellbeing, our skilled therapists affirm and celebrate the diverse ways love and connection manifest. Whether you’re exploring ethical non-monogamy, seeking out a dyadic partnership, navigating marriage, or building your chosen family, we are here to support you. Our relational therapy practices are designed to embrace the complexities and strengths of diverse relationship structures as they navigate their journeys towards intimacy and connection.

At Grounded Wellbeing, we hold space for the ways oppression, privilege, and dominant discourses impact your relationships.We collaborate with your relational system to assist you in reclaiming your voice, strength, and agency. Our therapeutic approach honors you and your relational partner(s) as whole persons, cultivating opportunities for you to increase self-awareness and access the inner wisdom already within you that is needed for relational growth. By exploring your emotions, behaviors, and relational dynamics, we assist you in making meaningful changes that encourage more authenticity and connection in your relationship. Our attachment-focused practices explore how your attachment style presents in your current relationship and help you and your relational partner(s) reestablish a secure, intimate, and resilient relational dynamic. Through experiential intervention and dynamic dialogue, we facilitate opportunities for your relationship to heal and reorganize by dismantling harmful internalized narratives that suppress your relational liberation.

We commonly support clients in addressing:

  • Attachment wounds and relational trauma

  • Communication and conflict resolution

  • Navigating power dynamics and roles within relationships

  • Rebuilding trust after betrayal

  • Exploring identity and self-expression within partnerships

  • Boundary-setting and emotional regulation

  • Navigating societal expectations and cultural dynamics

Engaging in therapy as a couple or multiple partnership helps you and your loved ones weather the inevitably difficult storms in your relationship and support you in emerging resilient with better understanding, trust, and joy.

Types of Relationship Dynamics Treated

  • Dating couples/partners

  • Married couples/partners

  • Couples/partners seeking pre-marital counseling

  • New parents

  • Infidelity and broken trust

  • Couples/partners navigating divorce, breakups, or relationship de-escalation

  • Multiple partnerships including ENM, polyamory, swingers, and open relationships

  • Platonic partnerships

  • Sexual misalignment and sexual dysfunction

  • Partners seeking support for their kink/BDSM dynamic

  • Same-sex, transgender, and gender-expansive partnerships

Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT)

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFCT) is an evidence-based and structured approach to help couples understand how their emotions are connected to their experiences as individuals and within relationships. [1] EFCT is based on attachment theories that provide a framework for understanding how early experiences and traumatic experiences show up in our bodies and in our patterns of behavior. EFCT therapists view emotions not as irrational obstacles, but as logical responses to our internal sense of connection. The goal of EFCT is to help partners develop insight into their relational patterns and to offer corrective experiences that can heal attachment wounds. Through this approach, partners can gain a sense of security in their relationships and develop the resilience needed to weather life’s storms. 

EFCT has been shown to be effective with a wide range of relationship dynamics including with same-sex couples, transgender/gender-expansive couples, and non-monogamous partnerships. [2, 3, 4] In addition to addressing relational concerns such as conflict and intimacy, EFCT can provide a framework for understanding how the effects of minority stress can impact our relational patterns. Our therapists at Grounded Wellbeing are experts in providing care for diverse populations. We strive to create a place of security within community for you to explore and heal your relationships.

The Gottman Method

The Gottman Method of couples therapy focuses on increasing positive interactions within relationships by helping partners build skills to understand and respond to one another. [5] The Gottman Method focuses on nine core aspects of healthy relationships including turning towards bids for connection, creating shared meaning, and managing conflict. Therapists who use this method will assess the relationship and choose interventions that are meant to be practiced both in session and between sessions to help couples develop new patterns within their relationships. The Gottman Method is shown to be effective for diverse populations including gay and lesbian couples. [6]

References 

  1. https://iceeft.com/what-is-eft-public/

  2. Allan, R., & Johnson, S. M. (2016). Conceptual and Application Issues: Emotionally Focused Therapy With Gay Male Couples. Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy, 16(4), 286–305. https://doi.org/10.1080/15332691.2016.1238800

  3. Westmacott, R., & Edmondstone, C. (2020). Working with Transgender and Gender Diverse Clients in Emotion Focused Therapy: Targeting Minority Stress. Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies, 19(4), 331–349. https://doi.org/10.1080/14779757.2020.1717986

  4. Edwards, C., Allan, R., Marzo, N., Wynfield, T., and Hicks, R. (2023). The use of emotionally focused therapy with polyamorous relationships. Family Process 62(4), 1362-1376. https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12934

  5. https://www.gottman.com/about/the-gottman-method/

  6. Kousteni, I., & Anagnostopoulos, F. (2019). Same-Sex Couples’ Psychological Interventions: A Systematic Review. Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy, 19(2), 136–174. https://doi.org/10.1080/15332691.2019.1667937