Couples Therapy How I Can Help I offer specific, practical methods to help you calm your emotional reactivity together, bridge distance that may have grown between you, and engage with each other in new ways that are more effective, productive, and fulfilling. It is important to know that lots of therapists do couples therapy or marriage counseling (these terms are interchangeable), but fewer of them have extensive training and in-depth experience in this specialty. Make sure you find out what your therapist's particular qualifications are for couples therapy. My role as a therapist is to help you understand more deeply: How to communicate to your partner in a constructive way that can: - minimize defensiveness and counterargument - bring you closer together - build more positive experience as a couple How the emotional brain was designed by evolution to protect you, but how instead it can stoke conflict or lead to distance (or both!) in relationships The structure and process of your specific conflicts and patterns How personal characteristics of each partner play into your situation How patterns are carried into your current relationship from the families you grew up in, and how they affect things now How to empathize with your partner in a way that will replace anger with new understandings And then most importantly, how you and your partner can each adjust your responses to the other in order to slow down--and ultimately stop--the cycles of blame, hurt and conflict And from there how you can work towards the relationship you would like to have and the kind of person you'd like to be To find out in more detail about these things, some common couples situations, and examples of how I work CLICK HERE. Your primary role as a client is to allow yourself to be open and reflective to learning new ways of seeing, hearing, feeling, and trying new things. The more you can focus on learning about yourself as an individual, and on taking risks to be vulnerable (instead of dwelling on your partner's faults), the faster and more positively your relationship will progress (and the more time, money and effort you will save in the long-run). Why Dr. Solley? I am a staff therapist with the Couples Institute in Menlo Park--one of the leading couples sites in the country. My interest in family systems and couples therapy goes all the way back to my earliest internship at a family therapy center prior to graduate school over 20 years ago. From almost the same time I have also been deeply influenced by the work of John Gottman as well as a number of other giants in the field. Clients describe me as fair, empathic, steady, collaborative, grounded, and a very focused listener. One of the most frequent complaints from couples who have not had good experiences with other therapists is that the therapist let them continue their destructive negative interactions. If you as a couple are engaging in destructive or unproductive patterns, I will be firm and directive to help you build more effective skills. If you are working well with principles and skills that you are learning, or if you need more room to feel or reflect, I will pull back and give you more space to do those things. It is one of my highest priorities to make sure you are getting the best experience possible out of therapy and I take active steps to monitor my work with you and make corrections on an ongoing basis. I work with all kinds of couples, and I especially enjoy working with premarital or early relationship couples, and with new parents and all the stresses that they encounter (click here to see my New Parent brochure). See more about my background on the About Page. Getting Started As I say in my brochures, a stitch in time really does save nine. Research shows that it is much easier to change patterns early on rather than after they have become deeply entrenched habits and interactions. It is still possible to change longer-term patterns as well, depending on individual motivation and willingness to reflect, try new things, and other factors, but the longer you wait the more you will have to put in. If you are wondering about couples therapy please call soon for an evaluation so you can start working towards having the relationship you want Other Psychotherapy I see individuals for therapy on a selective basis. My orientation for individual therapy integrates a variety of theoretical frameworks (psychodynamic, cognitive behavioral, attachment theory, neuropsychology, EMDR, positive and mindfulness psychology, family and systems theory) which I see as sharing many common ideas in addition to having their separate identities. Central to me are the importance of the therapeutic relationship, empathy, and emotional attunement. I consider each client, couple, or family as unique and tailor my therapy as much as possible according to his, her, or their needs and styles. Workshops & Seminars I have taught graduate courses, trained many burgeoning therapists, and present widely around the Bay Area. Please contact me if you are interested in having me present to your group on any aspect of couples therapy, parenting, neuropsychology or learning differences. HOME   |   THERAPY   |   ABOUT DR. SOLLEY   |   RESOURCES   |   OFFICE INFO Website design by HYPERSPHERE ©2007, Robert Solley, Ph.D. All rights reserved.