Couples Therapy in Los Angeles
In-person in Los Angeles. Virtual across California, Nevada, and Oregon.
Modern, depth-oriented therapy for couples ready to stop having the same fight—and start actually being seen by each other.
You love each other.
That's not the question. The question is why love alone hasn't been enough to fix the dynamic you've both gotten stuck inside.
The same argument keeps surfacing in different costumes. Conversations that should be simple keep ending in distance. One of you over-explains while the other goes quiet. One of you presses; one of you retreats. You're sleeping next to a person you genuinely care about and feeling lonelier than you should.
This is what most couples come in for. Not a single dramatic problem—a pattern. A loop. A way of being together that worked for a while and stopped working somewhere along the line.
If you're considering couples therapy in Los Angeles, this is the page that tells you who I work with, how I work, and what real couples therapy actually involves.
What Couples Therapy Actually Is
Couples therapy is often misunderstood as the place you go when things are bad. That's one version of it. There are others.
In clinical terms, couples therapy is a structured, depth-oriented process in which two people examine the patterns of their relationship—how they communicate, how they fight, how they repair, how they connect—with a trained third party who can see what neither of you can see from inside the dynamic.
It's not:
A space where the therapist takes sides
A series of communication "tips" that don't survive the first real argument
A place to win
An indication that something is irreparably wrong
It is:
A clinical setting where the pattern between you becomes the focus, not who's right
A space to slow down conversations that usually move too fast to land
A way of understanding the deeper dynamics underneath the surface conflicts
A process that, when it works, makes the relationship more itself—not different, more honest
Couples who do this work well often describe it the same way: not as fixing what was broken, but as finally being able to access what was already there.
My couples therapy practice in Los Angeles is focused on a specific kind of couple:
High-functioning partners who are competent everywhere else and somehow lost the thread with each other
Young couples and newer relationships building the foundation for something real—premarital work, early relationship growing pains, navigating moving in or moving forward
Long-term partners and married couples working through a season of disconnection, conflict, or transition
Couples navigating life shifts—career changes, family planning, parenthood, loss, identity shifts
Anxious-avoidant pairings where one partner pursues and the other withdraws (and you both feel misunderstood)
Couples who keep having the same fight and want to understand what's actually underneath it
Couples in repair mode after a breach of trust, a difficult period, or a long stretch of distance
The common thread: two people who genuinely want to do the work, even when the work is hard.
Who I Work With
A non-exhaustive list of what tends to come up in couples therapy:
Communication breakdowns — when conversations keep collapsing before they finish
Recurring conflict patterns — the same argument, different costumes
Emotional disconnection — sleeping next to someone and feeling distant from them
Conflict resolution — moving from reactivity to repair
Trust ruptures and repair — after a breach of trust, secrecy, or a difficult chapter
Attachment dynamics — anxious-avoidant cycles, fear of abandonment, fear of engulfment
Differences in intimacy, sex, and desire — including mismatches in libido, emotional intimacy, or physical connection
Life transitions — career changes, moving in, getting married, having children, blending families
Pre-marital work — building shared foundation, expectation-mapping, examining individual histories that will shape the marriage
Cultural, religious, and family-of-origin dynamics—including blended families, intercultural relationships, or in-law complexities
Identity shifts in long-term relationships — when one or both of you have changed and the relationship hasn't quite caught up
If your situation isn't on this list, that's fine. The work isn't issue-specific—it's pattern-specific. What matters is what's happening between you, not what category it lives in.
What I Help Couples Work Through
How Couples Therapy Actually Goes
A few things distinguish modern couples therapy from the version most people picture.
We work with the pattern, not the personalities.
Most couples come in convinced the other person is the problem. Both are usually right, and both are usually wrong.
What's actually happening is a dynamic—a pattern that emerges between you, shaped by both of your histories, attachment styles, and nervous systems. The work isn't about figuring out who's right. It's about understanding what's happening between you that neither of you, alone, can change.
I'm not neutral. I'm balanced.
Therapy that's perfectly neutral often isn't very useful. My job isn't to referee. It's to track what's actually happening, name what each of you is doing (and not doing), and help both of you see the pattern clearly—even when that means saying something hard.
I'll advocate for both of you. I'll also push back when one of you is sidestepping something important. That's what good couples work requires.
We slow conversations down so they can actually land.
Most couples' conflicts move too fast. By the time you're three minutes into a familiar argument, both nervous systems are activated and neither of you is actually hearing the other.
Couples therapy is one of the few places where conversations can move at a speed that allows real understanding. Where the moment something gets activating, we can pause. Look. Name what's happening. Try again, differently.
Over time, that capacity transfers home.
We work with individual histories, not just the relationship.
Most patterns between couples have older origins. The way you respond to conflict was shaped before you ever met your partner. So was theirs.
Without flattening either of your individual stories into something pathological, we look at how each of your histories is showing up in the room—because that's often where real change becomes possible.
The relationship between us is part of the work.
The way you both relate to me in session often mirrors something about the way you relate to each other—and that's useful information. Therapy isn't just talking about your relationship. It's experiencing being in a relationship together, with a third person who can see what's happening.
WHAT TO EXPECT IN SESSIONS
What couples sessions actually look like
Sessions are fifty minutes, weekly or biweekly depending on what the work needs, in-person in Los Angeles or virtual across California, Nevada, and Oregon.
Early sessions typically include:
An initial joint session to understand what's been going on
Sometimes one or two individual sessions with each of you (depending on the situation)
Mapping the pattern between you—the cycle, the triggers, the recurring loop
Identifying what each of you brings to the dynamic
Setting working goals you both feel aligned on
Later in the work:
Slowing down conversations that usually move too fast
Working with both of your nervous systems in real time
Addressing the deeper attachment, history, and identity dynamics underneath the surface
Building new ways of being together that hold under stress
The work isn't linear. Some sessions are practical. Some are difficult. Some feel quieter and turn out to have shifted more than you realized.
HOW LONG THIS TAKES
How long couples therapy usually takes
It depends on what you're working with and what you both want.
Initial shifts in awareness and de-escalation often within the first 4–8 weeks
Meaningful change in your dynamic—where the old pattern starts losing its grip—generally within three to six months
Deeper structural work in attachment, individual histories, and long-standing patterns tends to unfold over a longer arc
Maintenance and integration—sometimes at a less intensive cadence—often continues beyond that
Some couples come in for focused, time-limited work on a specific issue and finish. Others stay longer because the work keeps opening new territory. Both are valid.
What I can tell you is this: when both partners are genuinely willing to do the work, couples therapy is one of the most effective interventions in clinical psychology. The data on this is strong.
THE PRACTICAL DETAILS
In-person: Los Angeles
Virtual: California, Nevada, Oregon
Session length: 50 minutes
Frequency: Weekly or biweekly, depending on what the work needs
Format: Private-pay, with superbills available for potential out-of-network insurance reimbursement
Fees: Discussed in initial inquiry
If private-pay therapy is new to you, the short version: it protects your confidentiality, gives both of us clinical autonomy, and lets the work be directed by what you actually need rather than what insurance dictates.
For couples whose schedules or privacy needs require it, couples therapy is also available through my concierge practice—including in-home sessions across Westside LA, Greater LA, Malibu, Calabasas, and Westlake Village.
A NOTE ON WHEN TO START
Most couples wait too long.
The research on this is consistent: couples typically delay seeking help an average of six years after problems first surface. By the time they arrive, the patterns have entrenched, the resentments have layered, and the work is harder than it needed to be.
You don't have to be in crisis to come in. Some of the most generative work I do is with couples who aren't in trouble—they're just paying attention to dynamics that, left unaddressed, would have become trouble.
If you've been noticing something between you and putting it on a back burner, this is your reminder that back burners have a way of becoming front burners.