High Conflict Couples Therapy in California, Oregon and Connecticut
For couples where conflict has stopped feeling like a disagreement and started feeling like a war.
If arguments in your relationship escalate quickly, if repair feels impossible, if you find yourself bracing for the next fight before the last one has even fully resolved, you are not broken. You are caught in a pattern.
And patterns, even the most entrenched and painful ones, can change.
I specialize in high-conflict relationships and I offer virtual couples therapy throughout California, Oregon and Connecticut for couples who are ready to understand what is actually driving the cycle between them.
What High Conflict Actually Means
High conflict in a relationship does not always look like screaming. Sometimes it looks like:
What these situations have in common is a reactive cycle that has become the dominant way two people relate to each other. Someone gets triggered, defenses go up, and before either person knows what happened the conversation has become something neither of them wanted.
Most couples in high-conflict relationships are not fighting because they do not love each other. They are fighting because they are scared. Scared of not being loved. Scared of not being enough. Scared that the distance between them is permanent.
“That fear is what I work with.”
How I Work With High Conflict Couples
I use Emotionally Focused Therapy to help high-conflict couples slow the reactive cycle down long enough to see what is actually happening underneath it.
This is not about teaching you not to fight. It is about helping both of you understand the emotional needs driving the conflict and develop new ways of responding to each other when things get hard.
In my experience, the couples who present as the most volatile are often the ones who care the most. The intensity of the conflict is frequently a measure of how much the relationship matters to each person. That intensity, redirected, becomes the raw material for something genuinely different.
I am warm and direct in how I work. I do not take sides, but I am not passive either. I stay actively present in the room, help both partners feel genuinely understood, and hold the space while things begin to shift.
“The intensity of the conflict is frequently a measure of how much the relationship matters to each person.”
I regularly work with couples navigating betrayal and broken trust, including affairs and other breaches of trust.
What High Conflict Couples Therapy Looks Like
It is not comfortable at first. I want to be honest about that. Coming into a space where both of you feel safe enough to be vulnerable when you have been in survival mode in your relationship takes time.
What I have seen happen when couples stay with the process is something I would describe as a gradual softening. The armor starts to come off. The real conversation, the one underneath the argument, starts to become possible.
Not every couple gets there. But many couples do.
Virtual sessions available throughout California, Oregon and Connecticut. I also offer Couples Intensives for high-conflict couples who need extended, concentrated support.
A Note on Safety
High conflict is not the same as abuse. If you are afraid of your partner or do not feel safe at home, couples therapy is not the right place to start, and individual support should come first. If you need help right now, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is available at 1-800-799-7233.
If your relationship has felt more like a battleground than a partnership, I would love to talk. A free consultation is the first step. No pressure, no commitment, just a conversation about where you are and whether working together might help. I provide virtual high-conflict couples therapy throughout California, Oregon and Connecticut.