ONLINE IN NEW YORK CITY AND SEATTLE, WA
Therapy for Relationships & Dating
You don’t have to choose between being yourself and having meaningful relationships.
Maybe you…
Had a falling out with a sibling or other family member. You aren’t speaking anymore even though you used to be so close and you miss them, but you’re unsure how to resolve your issues.
Just went through a breakup and don’t know who you are anymore without your partner. You’d planned a whole future together and now it’s just gone. Not only did you lose your partner and your best friend, you also lost your support system.
Want to start dating again, but are apprehensive about it. Maybe because your past relationship ended badly. Or because this is your first foray into dating as an out gay or trans man.
Opened your relationship. Maybe you were both excited about the possibilities. Or maybe it was your partner’s idea and you’re unsure but on board. Now you’re trying to figure out what your primary partnership looks like within this new dynamic.
Have parents who are immigrants and setting boundaries with them feels disrespectful, but their expectations for your life don't match who you are and you don't know how to reconcile that.
Came out to your family and they didn't accept it, or you haven't told them yet because you're afraid of what they’ll say. You’re terrified of disappointing your parents after everything they sacrificed for you.
You never learned how to talk about the hard stuff.
You didn’t grow up seeing the people in your life share their feelings. From what you observed, maintaining relationships meant keeping the peace, making sacrifices, and just sticking it out. When hard feelings came up, you kept them to yourself to avoid making waves.
Those are the rules that worked for you as a kid and they’re the ones you play by now, but they seem to be causing problems. Maybe your partner says you keep them in the dark about how you really feel. Or maybe they’re the only person you can really talk to but they say it’s starting to be too much. They may have said you need to go to therapy to sort yourself out.
The thing is, you want to be closer to the people in your life. You want to communicate better. You just don't know how because no one ever showed you.
MY APPROACH
We can be healed in relationships…
The way you relate to people now didn't come out of nowhere. It likely started in the relationships you grew up in. For example, if you had a father who would get angry easily, you might learn to expect that from other people. You may even change the way you interact with people, or hide parts of yourself, to avoid the potential of this reaction from happening at all.
The thing is, everyone else isn’t your father, and won’t react like he did. Those are the puzzles we can figure out together. Once we identify where your relationship patterns originated, we can begin to rewrite your expectations of others.
That’s how the therapeutic relationship works. By repeatedly experiencing healthy relationship dynamics between us, you can open up, analyze your behaviors and the why behind them, and then change how you relate to the people in your life. This way, you can develop deeper bonds, communicate openly, and live freely without worrying about how someone else will react.
OFFERING EMDR
…We can also be hurt in relationships—and we have ways to address that hurt.
Sometimes, we have life experiences that leave us with scars, and those can be playing out in your relationships today in ways that don’t help you. If something happened in your past that was too much for your mind and body to process, the memory can get stuck so your body still thinks it's happening even if you logically know it’s not.
That’s why things like a smell that reminds you of a specific moment, your partner raising their voice in a particular way, or driving past a certain street can trigger panic or reactions that don’t entirely make sense based on the situation at hand. Your body is reacting as if you’re in immediate danger. It’s like an alarm system that gets tripped accidentally.
In these cases, I can offer a method called EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. During a session, I'll ask you to focus on a specific memory while following a visual or physical cue, like a light moving back and forth or tapping. This kind of bilateral stimulation helps your brain reprocess the memory so it loses the intensity it's been holding onto. When that happens, you can be more present in your current relationships.
Therapy can help you…
Understand why you keep ending up in the same dynamic so you can finally do something different.
Say what you're feeling to the person who needs to hear it, without shutting down, blowing up, or editing yourself.
Set boundaries with the people you love without it feeling like you're betraying them.
Let people get close to you and trust that the relationship will survive it.
Come back from a fight or relationship rupture without it meaning everything is falling apart.
Have relationships in which both of you are showing up, being heard, and getting what you need.
ONLINE THERAPY IN NEW YORK CITY AND SEATTLE, WA
It’s time to stop hiding yourself away and start relating and living more fully.
FAQs
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I've worked with people across a wide range of relationship experiences, including people in long-term partnerships, people processing recent breakups, and people re-entering the dating pool after being out of it for a while. I’ve also worked with people navigating family dynamics and those in committed but non-monogamous partnerships. I take a relationally oriented psychodynamic approach, which means I look at the factors beneath the surface (your experiences, behaviors, and beliefs) that are contributing to what you’re experiencing now. I also use the relationship between us in session to model healthy relationship dynamics and challenge unhealthy ones.
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No. I work with individuals. Even though your relationship might be the reason you're reaching out, the work we do is focused on you. A lot of people come to me because their partner or their couples therapist suggested they do some individual work alongside couples therapy. That's common and it tends to be really effective. Understanding your part in the dynamic is often what makes the biggest difference.
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Yes. I'm sex-positive and I work with people in all kinds of relationship structures. If you're in an open or polyamorous relationship, you don't have to explain or justify that to me. We can work together to navigate the unique challenges of non-monogamous relationships like jealousy, communication, and boundaries.
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A lot of the people I work with are dealing with family dynamics that are affecting their romantic relationships, their friendships, and their sense of self. Maybe your immigrant parents make it hard to set boundaries. Maybe your family doesn't accept your identity. Maybe you and your sibling aren't speaking. Those are all things we can work on. Your relationships with your family are some of the most impactful relationships in your life and I encourage you to bring those conversations into our sessions.
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No. A lot of the people I work with are single, recently out of a relationship, or trying to date. Many people experience their own relationship patterns more strongly when they’re freshly dating because everything can feel so high-stakes. This can be a great time to make sure you have some extra support.
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My sessions are unstructured and put more focus on the process itself. We’ll put emphasis on the relationship between us as client and therapist because that’s where we can identify some of your pervasive patterns or behaviors that are getting in your way. When they show up in sessions, we can talk about them in the moment and focus on building a better understanding of what healthy relationships look like.