“The quality of your life ultimately depends on the quality of your relationships.” Esther Perel.

If we can take one thing away from the year 2020, it is the visceral knowledge and experience of the interconnectedness of human beings. As social beings, most of us desire secure and rewarding social connections and relationships. However, we are unaware that our early childhood experiences profoundly inform the relationships we have throughout our lives. The attachment patterns we form with our primary caretakers in our childhood tend to create a blueprint for our future relationships. Without secure and healthy relationships in our early childhood, individuals are more likely to experience emotional instability and relational difficulties.

This is why the therapist-client relationship is so meaningful. At times, it can begin to symbolically emulate these early relationships in clients’ lives. Attachment patterns are fluid—they can evolve. When a client and the therapist create a secure bond in therapy, the client has the opportunity to begin forming a new, healthier model of attachment. A client can feel safe to enter unknown territories of their psyche, to attend and heal from old wounds, and to create a narrative that is growth-inducing rather than limiting.

Relationships, any relationships, require skills to navigate. Unfortunately, these skills are not necessarily taught to us in school or at home. This is where therapy can be incredibly beneficial. We can learn ways to attend to our own needs and those of our relationships. We can learn to communicate authentically and clearly, nonviolently. We can learn to listen, understand, and empathize. We can learn to assert, negotiate, and set boundaries as we see fit. Most of all, we can recover our sense of belonging.

I offer help working through relationships with:

• Friends
• Partners and Spouses
• Parents
• Siblings
• In-laws
• Family
• Children
• And more…