Relationship Therapy in Columbus, OH
Individual therapy to help you feel seen, known, and connected… without losing yourself.
You can name the relationship patterns you want to break, but when things get close, conflict arises, or you’re afraid of losing someone, you’re pulled right back into them.
You can’t remember when you stopped having your own back and made everyone else the priority. These days, it’s difficult to even connect to what you want after putting it aside for so long. And while it’s seemed easier to put your “game face” on up until now, you’re realizing you’re burnt out, exhausted, and ready for a better way.
You might be noticing you…
Are resentful of doing so much for your loved ones without that same care being reciprocated, but push it aside to keep the peace.
Are constantly shapeshifting to be who you think people want to see.
Find yourself replaying conversations, analyzing every word you said, wondering if you were too much, too direct, or too needy.
Wonder if you’re asking for too much or settling for too little.
Find it easier to be alone than to try to get your needs met in relationships.
Are afraid that if you start dating again, you’ll repeat the same painful patterns.
Beneath all of this may be a fear that if you stop holding everything together, something important could fall apart. And if you let yourself be seen and known, you risk rejection.
The ways you’ve learned to be in relationships have helped you make it here. Now, it’s time to find new ways of being in relationship—that don’t involve abandoning yourself.
My Approach
The ways you relate to yourself and others can become such well-worn paths that it feels like there aren’t any other options. Together, we’ll slow things down, bring awareness to what’s happening, and support a deeper connection to your authentic self, creating more possibility for meaningful connection with others.
You’ll have time and space to discover what gets in the way of being present, connected, and authentic in your relationships. Using NARM® and Somatic Experiencing®, we’ll slow things down and notice what’s unfolding moment to moment—in your thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, beliefs, and responses.
By exploring a recent challenging experience frame by frame, we can bring awareness to patterns of connection and disconnection that may happen too quickly to notice in daily life, yet often underlie the challenges that bring you to therapy.
This helps build a sturdy internal foundation so when difficult emotions like hurt, distress, fear, shame, grief, or anger arise, you’re less likely to disconnect from yourself in an attempt to manage them. Instead, you develop more capacity to be with yourself with kindness and compassion when life and relationships are challenging.
Therapy for relationship patterns can help you…
Move through emotionally challenging situations without being derailed for days.
Say ‘yes’ only when you mean it, not to avoid disappointing others.
Stay connected to yourself when conflict happens.
Trust yourself to have your own back in relationships.
Experience emotional intimacy without losing your autonomy.
Release the constant pressure to say or do everything “right” to avoid losing the relationship.
You don’t have to perform to be loved.
It’s possible to feel more confident, authentic, and real. Let’s discover who you are, together.
I see clients in person in Columbus and online throughout Ohio, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Florida.
Questions?
FAQs
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Relationship therapy is individual therapy focused on how you relate to yourself and others. Using a NARM® framework, we’ll slow down and unpack the patterns that come up in your closest connections. We’ll bring curiosity to the ways you learned to navigate connection in your early relationships and explore how these patterns may be shaping your relationships today.
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Most relationship patterns began as ways of protecting connection. Early on, you learned what helped you stay connected to the people you depended on, whether that meant being easy to be around, anticipating others’ needs, or learning not to need very much.
Those strategies made sense then. The challenge is that they can become default ways of navigating closeness, conflict, or the risk of rejection, which may get in the way of what you want for yourself.
Understanding a pattern is important, but insight alone often isn’t enough to change it. In therapy, we slow things down enough to notice what’s happening as it unfolds, in your thoughts, emotions, and body, so your experience in relationships can begin to shift.
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No. This is individual therapy focused specifically on you. However, this work may help you express yourself more authentically and be more available for connection. If couples therapy would better suit your needs, I’d be happy to refer you to a couples therapist I trust.
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When couples therapy stalls, it doesn’t necessarily mean the therapy isn’t a good fit. Sometimes one or both people benefit from doing individual work to understand and shift the patterns they bring into the relationship. If you find yourself trying to manage the session, holding back to keep things from escalating, or using communication tools that fall short when you feel frustrated or misunderstood, that may be worth exploring in individual therapy.
This work can help you address your patterns and support what you’re already doing in couples therapy. Some of my clients find it valuable to do both at the same time.
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If therapy has mostly felt like talking through your week, venting about what happened, or leaving with another self-care suggestion, this work will feel different. We’ll slow down and explore not only what happened, but what’s unfolding internally as you talk about it, your emotions, physical sensations, nervous system responses, and the meanings you make of your experience. This helps you stay present during difficult experiences and respond from a more grounded, embodied adult place. Over time, this can create greater clarity and more choice in how you respond to yourself and others.
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If you’ve noticed yourself stuck in patterns like over-extending, shutting down, or shapeshifting in relationships, and understanding those patterns hasn’t been enough to create the change you hope for, relationship therapy may help you experience yourself and your relationships differently.
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Yes. You don’t need to be in a romantic relationship to benefit from relationship therapy. Relationships are part of our lives in one form or another—friendships, work colleagues, family members, dating, and parenting, as well as your relationship with yourself.
This work can help you become more aware of what happens internally when connection is challenging and develop greater capacity to stay present, curious, and connected to yourself. From that place, it can be easier to ask for what you want, have your own back, and respond with more choice instead of returning to all-too-familiar reactions. -
Yes. Relationship therapy can offer a supportive place to process the end of a relationship and explore the dynamics that contributed to its ending. It can be a “postmortem” of sorts that helps you gain clarity about what you brought into the relationship, the protective strategies that emerged, and the role they may have played in what unfolded between you and your partner. This can be an important part of processing the end of the relationship. It can also help you move forward from a place of greater clarity, self-awareness, and confidence if you choose to enter a new relationship.
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I’m a licensed professional clinical counselor (LPCC), a NARM® Master Therapist, and a Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner. I’m also a faculty member at the Complex Trauma Training Center, where I help train other therapists.
Before becoming a psychotherapist, I spent over twenty years as a licensed massage therapist specializing in craniosacral therapy. That experience informs how we explore not only the relational patterns you understand intellectually, but also the emotional and physiological responses that are part of those patterns.