Couples Therapy that Gets to the Heart of Your Relationship
I’ve spent the last dozen years of my career identifying the most effective therapies, gaining mastery in them, and offering excellent care with outstanding results to my clients. I’ve spent the past 7 years as the founder of Harper Therapy teaching and consulting with our team to ensure that they offer the same therapies with the same quality of care. This is what we’ve become known for in our community, and it’s something that we’re passionate about.
Early in my career, I followed the path that many therapists take to become trained in the Gottman method of couples therapy. You might have heard of the Gottmans – they’ve been around for 4 decades, have written tons of books, and have been interviewed countless times. I was convinced that being trained in this modality would be the golden ticket to help couples who are struggling in their relationship.
I took Level One of the training. Ok, not bad. But it felt like something was missing that would make it helpful for the couples I was seeing in my office. So I took Level Two. Then Level Three. Those felt like they were getting closer, but still didn’t feel like the skills would truly translate in ways that would be transformational.
So, I abandoned the model. Well, not completely, I guess. I used it for “psychoeducation”, but started to explore other modalities that would go beyond the surface level and address couples’ deeper desires for connection.
And when I found Relational Life Therapy (RLT), the light bulb clicked on. It was the missing piece and I’ve pursued mastering it, and teaching it to our team, since.
Great, but why am I even talking to you about this? Because, from time to time, we get phone calls from people who are looking for Gottman therapists. Because that’s what they’ve been told, or what they’ve heard, mostly because it’s been around for so long and people don’t realize there are other methods that work better (I feel the same little twitch when people call asking about CBT – but that’s another post for another day).
Gottman therapy is great for basic communication tools, but RLT addresses the parts of you and your partner that can’t seem to use the tools at home, in the heat of an argument.
Gottman therapy can give you a script to follow about how to ask open ended questions about your partner’s day, but RLT helps you to understand one another’s origin story about how previous relationships, even from childhood, can show up in your current relationship and keep you from being able to connect with one another.
We help you to get out of your you-me stances of dysfunctional relationship patterns, and reconnect to the “us” of being on the same team and fighting FOR your relationship instead of with each other.
Maybe you’ve tried other types of couples therapy and it worked OK, but you feel that there is something missing that could make things even better. It’s time to give something different a try!
Call Harper Therapy at 813-434-3639
