Relationship Counseling for the Real World
Specialized psychotherapy for couples and individuals navigating the intersection of relationship difficulties, substance use, and the lasting effects of trauma.
Virtual Counseling offered in Illinois, Texas, and 40+ PSYPACT states.
Most couples I work with aren’t falling apart on paper.
From the outside, life might look pretty good. You're building successful careers, raising families, and managing day to day responsibilities. But being responsible and successful isn’t all you want from your relationship. Behind closed doors, you keep having the same arguments, struggling to trust each other, or wondering why the changes you've both promised to make feel so difficult to sustain. And ultimately, it is making you feel disconnected and more alone than together at times.
Often, substance use, trauma, or complicated family histories make these patterns even harder to understand and change. When we ignore these pieces of our history, we ignore the bigger picture of why we might be struggling, and we often stay stuck.
Maybe you’ve tried couples therapy before but something important felt like it was missing.
Perhaps the focus was entirely on one partner’s substance use or one partner’s anger, leaving little room to understand the relationship beyond those issues. Or maybe you learned communication skills, but nobody really asked about the drinking, drug use, trauma history, or explored how your family history was impacting the way you were showing up for your family you are building.
My approach brings these conversations together.
Because I am an expert in substance use treatment, trauma focused care, and relationship counseling, we’ll talk openly about substance use without automatically making the person using substances responsible for every problem in the relationship. We’ll explore what happens when one of you raises a concern, how the other responds, what makes certain conversations feel so difficult, and how both of you have learned to duck, dodge, and handle hurt, fear, and conflict.
You need a specialist who can meaningfully address relationship difficulties without ignoring the substance use, the anger and resentment, and compassionately call you each out on behaviors that derail conversations. I won’t shy away from difficult conversations or minimize behavior that is causing harm. But I also won’t reduce your entire relationship to one person’s substance use, past experiences, or mistakes. We’ll look honestly at each of those concerns, how they affect one another, and what needs to actually change so meaningful, lasting progress is possible.
My Specialities
Couples & Substance Use
Substance use can complicate trust, intimacy, conflict, and connection. I help couples talk openly about alcohol, cannabis, stimulant use, opiate use, and any anything else without automatically making the person using substances responsible for every problem—or minimizing the impact of their behavior while using on the relationship.
Couples & Trauma
Our past experiences can influence how we respond to conflict, express vulnerability, and protect ourselves in relationships. I help couples understand how trauma and complicated family histories may be shaping their relationship today, while working toward meaningful changes in how they relate to one another.
Individual Substance Use Psychotherapy
Whether you’re questioning your substance use, considering change, or struggling to maintain changes you’ve already made, I offer specialized psychotherapy grounded in harm reduction. We can explore your relationship with substances without requiring abstinence or a particular definition of recovery.
You don’t have to have it all figured out before reaching out.
You don’t need to agree on everything, know exactly what’s keeping you stuck, or have a clear plan for what needs to change. We an begin by talking about what’s happening and what you’re hoping might be different.