Couples Therapy with Daniel Jonathan
Invest in Your Relationship and Each Other
Helping you navigate the ups and downs as a team.
Intimacy that is dynamic and lasting
frees you to be who you are.
I help couples build mutual recognition into their ongoing lives together. It's the key to a fulfilling synergy of intimacy and individuality under one roof. Mutual recognition is not exclusive to any one form of coupling. I serve people of all backgrounds and identitites, in partnering arrangements of any kind.
On this page:
Mutual Recognition
Pre-Commitment
After an Affair
Mutual Recognition
and the realities we inhabit
We each have our own world of experiences and perspectives, informed by our unique personal histories. These are the realities that we inhabit. For the vitality and endurance of a relationship, it is essential to learn to know and acknowledge each other’s realities, ongoingly.
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there.”
– Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi
The Good Fight
Managing Conflict Well
The “good fight” resolves into coming together in mutual understanding and negotiation. This requires that you get beyond entrenched and repetitive battles over who’s right and who’s wrong, and find a mutually supportive meeting place. You can learn to recognize the ways your partner’s life experiences – especially early relationships – ongoingly inform their experience of the two of you, right now. The task is to imagine – in a nuanced though imperfect way – what it’s like to be the other, in the moment, to feel something of what the other feels, to grasp what makes sense to the other.
A Meeting of Minds
I help couples to develop their own, unique and vital forms of intimacy. This emerges from each partner’s efforts to know the other deeply and use this knowledge to be well together. To these ends, I meet individually with each of you on a regular basis and we bring our resulting insights and awareness to meetings with the three of us. As you progress, individual sessions decrease. You begin to perceive your relationship as a dynamic blend of individuation and oneness. You come to experience the relationship as not only a meeting of minds, but as having a mind of its own. Your relationship is a dynamic whole — to which you can give yourself or stand apart from, in your own separate space and as you choose. When this happens, couples experience more aliveness, spontaneity, and creative energy together.
Pre-Commitment Counseling
If you are preparing for marriage, coupling, partnering, living together – however you conceive of your union – I can help you get a productive and more confident start. Pre-commitment work can deepen your partnership by helping you to clarify your understandings of what it means to be partners, and to align your visions for the future. Together we explore important matters such as family dynamics, personal values, communication styles, finances, children, and intimacy.
I place a strong emphasis on mutual attunement and listening, and on resolving conflicts by prioritizing each person’s subjective experience rather than their “objective” assumptions. We explore each one’s relational past in your family of origin so that you get a sense of your relational style and how it might influence your relationship as a couple.
After an Affair
“Betrayal hurts, but it can be healed. An affair can even be the doorway to a new marriage—with the same person. With the right approach, couples can grow and learn from these tumultuous experiences, together or apart.
– Esther Perel
The purposes of therapy after an affair include processing intense emotions like betrayal and guilt. We seek to understand the root causes of the infidelity and to rebuild trust, slowly, moving toward decisions about the future of the relationship and either recommitting to the relationship in a new key, or making a good ending. Together we construct a narrative of the affair and locate it within the larger story of the couple’s relationship.
Find common ground with couples therapy.
In our therapy sessions, I create an open space where you’re safe to share your feelings and work through your relationship challenges with the help of an impartial perspective.
Frequently asked questions
What can I expect during couples therapy?
In couples therapy, you’ll have an accepting, unbiased space to have honest conversations. I’ll help you communicate more clearly, resolve conflict better, and deepen your connection.
Is couples therapy only for serious problems like infidelity or divorce?
Not at all. Couples therapy is for anyone who wants to improve the quality of their relationship, no matter the issues. It’s not just for when things are falling apart, many couples choose therapy proactively to work on communication skills and enrich their bond.
Do both partners need to attend therapy?
Yes, to get the most out of the therapy sessions both partners need to be involved. It gives each of you the chance to express your thoughts and concerns in a supportive, non-judgmental space. This way, I can better understand your relationship and how to help you both move forward.
How will therapy help us improve our communication?
Therapy helps you and your partner learn how to express your needs and feelings in a way that promotes understanding rather than conflict. You’ll learn skills like active listening, validation, and leading with empathy rather than defensiveness.
To Flourish Individually
in a More Dynamic Relationship
Take the first step toward building a better relationship.
