As a trained therapist, I am versed in the most current models for couples treatment. My approach is especially guided by the model known as Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). EFT stresses that the key to understanding the broken trust in a couple, is to identify and work with what is termed “the negative cycle”. It is this cycle that couples find themselves in over and over, when vulnerable feelings surface.  

Couples who are distressed and seeking therapeutic help often describe their biggest issue to be the escalation of a repeating, longstanding, or more recent cycle of unpleasant exchanges that has caused the breakdown in communication. EFT names this as “the enemy,” not the couple, for it perpetuates a lack of trust and a lack of emotional safety for both partners. Caught in the cycle, both partners can feel increasingly emotionally isolated and alienated from each other, experiencing feelings of hopelessness, being misunderstood, undervalued, rejected, or abandoned.   

In our work together, the first phase is to create order from chaos by making room for each partner's experience. We begin with attempting to answer the how, why, when, and naming the pain, the devastation, and the implications of this choice that has led to the loss of trust. We make ample room for the surge of numerous surprising and unprecedented feeling reactions that are occurring within both partners who are struggling and are in pain. Exploring the gaps in communication that have led to this rupture is central to our work together.  

Through exploration that can shed increased understanding, we may discover that each partner has felt alone, emotionally unsafe, and betrayed. It can be a shared partner experience.  

In our second phase, we focus on the gaps in communication that may have led to one or both partners reaching outside the boundaries of their relationship. We work toward identifying what kind of new conversations are needed between partners that will foster a more open, attuned, and responsive relationship with their partner.

Seeking couples therapy, or even individual therapy, with a trained and attentive therapist can aid in sorting through the painful parts of this rupture. While the outcome may vary with each individual couple, a restructuring of new and different conversations can lead toward a beginning of creating a new bond between partners.