Relationship Issues & Intimacy
Root Cause Relationship Therapy Relieves Current Symptoms and Heals the Underlying Core Issues for Lasting Freedom
Relationship issues happen to all of us. They do not discriminate.
Relationship challenges know no bounds. They come in all shapes and sizes.
They come to all types of relationships, including marriages, couples, and consensual non-monogamous relationships.
They come to all phases of relationships, including early dating, raising kids, and being married for 50 years.
They come to all sexual orientations, including gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual, queer, and heterosexual.
They come to all types of relationships, including children, adult children, parents, siblings, friends, acquaintances, neighbors, supervisors, and coworkers.
So there's no shame in having them.
And... relationship issues can bring you to your hands and knees.
You may have noticed, relationship challenges can turn a well-functioning person into a bowl of mush. They are no joke. It's not you, it's the nature of relationship issues.
But the good news is you don't have to bear the weight of them on your own.
As it turns out, there is some rhyme and reason to relationship issues. An experienced relationship therapist can resolve your current relationship symptoms.
While you're treating your current symptoms, why not address the root cause? Resolving your underlying core issues creates the personal freedom to not recreate this.
Relationship Clarity provides a solid foundation to address what's going on in your relationship.
Relationship Clarity is discerning what is about you and what is about your partner. It begins with the willingness to look at your relationship exactly as it is.
When we relate to someone in a romantic relationship, we tend to project the things we would ideally like in a partner and relationship onto the partner and relationship.
Relationship Clarity is seeing beyond your projections and how you need your partner and the relationship to be. It's seeing how things actually are.
With the clarity to see yourself, your partner, and your relationship as they are, you can objectively sort what's actually going on with yourself and in the relationship.
This objective clarity provides a solid foundation to make clear, conscious choices and begin to move in a direction that serves you, your partner, and the relationship.
This clarity also allows you to see and feel your underlying issues. Now you can truly heal the core emotional wounds and maladaptive patterns that created these symptoms.
And most importantly, now you are free to create the clear and loving relationship you've always dreamed of.
So let's team up and get to work.
Your loving relationship awaits you.
Relationship Therapy Specialties
Conflict Resolution and Difference in Priorities
Conflict resolution and clear communication are skills that can be developed with guidance. The priorities that each partner has toward the other can become unbalanced and need to be accounted for.
Intimacy, Romance, and Sexual Compatibility
Emotional intimacy involves exposing yourself to your partner, which often requires some internal work. Feelings of romance and sexual compatibility can ebb and flow and need to be addressed.
Relationship Alterations: Something's Changed
Changes such as Empty Nest, Birth of a Child, New Marriage, Living Together, Retiring, Loss of a Loved One, Depression, Infidelity, PTSD, Alcohol Use, & Addiction can radically alter your relationship dynamics.
Hi, I'm Michael
When I'm not playing the drums, exploring the Pacific Northwest, or interpreting dreams, I offer psychotherapy sessions with my root cause approach, which both relieves current symptoms and heals the underlying core issues to provide lasting freedom to fully enjoy life.
I bring 30 years of postgraduate experience and extensive training to create a personalized program tailored to your specific needs and situation.
My specialties include: 1) relationship issues and intimacy; 2) anxiety, depression, and social isolation;
3) men's issues and masculine roles; and 4) life transitions such as empty nest, divorce, and breakup.
I'm happy to guide you. Therapy works. Find someone you can work with. It's worth it. Whether it's working with me or somebody else, you owe it to yourself. If you'd like, schedule a free 15-minute consultation. I'm easy to talk to, and I'll help you get the ball rolling.
How Root Cause Relationship Therapy Works
Phase 1
Relieve Current Symptoms & Find Relationship Clarity
The first priority is to relieve the stress, pain, and suffering of your current symptoms of relationship stress. Establishing relationship clarity is an efficient way to get an accurate bearing on what is going on in the relationship.
Phase 2
Heal the Root Cause of Relationship Symptoms
Now that you've identified your symptoms, we can trace them to identify your underlying core issues. Healing these core emotional issues frees you from future symptoms and helps you enjoy love and closeness in your relationship.
Phase 3
Create the Relationship You Truly Want
Now that your core issues don't define what you can and can't have in your relationship, you're free to create the relationship you want. Ongoing guidance and support help you integrate the things you value into your relationship.
Relationship Therapy Workflow
This is for those of you who like to see things broken down in the specific work we will be doing together. For some, the above section of the three phases will suffice. Either way is fine. We will address what we need to as we proceed in our work together.
While each client's relationship and situation requires different interventions, the following is a general therapy workflow to address current symptoms and underlying issues, ultimately achieving lasting personal freedom.
Phase 1: Relieve Current Symptoms and Establish Relationship Clarity
1. Identify the Current Symptoms of Stress, Conflict, and Wounding in your Relationship.
With your life history and experience and my knowledge of the symptoms of relationship stress, we'll compile a list of your current symptoms. During our therapy sessions, we will work together to identify ways to address each of these symptoms.
2. Discern what's about you and what's about your partner.
This is the nitty-gritty of relationship clarity. There will be things about your relationship stress and conflict that are about you, and things that are about your partner. It is essential that you know the difference. Without this clarity, you cannot get an accurate bearing on what is going on in the relationship. We err on both sides of this. We make things about us that are about our partner. We also project things about ourselves onto our partner.
3. Identify the Core Elements You Want in Your Relationship. Consider What Your Partner Wants.
It is important to remember what you want in your relationship. This may be an update, as things may have changed since you last considered it. It helps to break down the things you want in your relationship into its core elements. Core elements are the essence of the things you want in your relationship. They include trust, intimacy, romance, honesty, and acceptance. Consider how what you want and what your partner wants fit.
4. Personal Program to Relieve Your Current Symptoms and Establish Relationship Clarity
Together, we will design a personalized program that will alleviate the current symptoms of your relationship stress. This personal program will provide a new orientation for your relationship, replacing the previous maladaptive orientation you relied on.
Phase 2: Heal the Root Cause of the Symptoms of Your Relationship Stress
1. Trace Your Symptoms of Relationship Stress to Their Underlying Core Emotional Issues
Now that you have identified your symptoms of relationship stress, we can walk them back to identify your underlying core issues. Your symptoms point to your core issues if you know what to look for. By addressing your core emotional issues, you can free yourself from experiencing future symptoms and enjoy greater love happiness, and freedom in your relationship and life.
2. Identify your Limiting Beliefs Associated with your Core Issues.
We all acquire various core beliefs about ourselves and the world in childhood, which are reinforced as we grow into adulthood. While these beliefs serve you for a while, they limit you as you grow and mature. We will explore the beliefs and stories you tell yourself that obstruct love and connection in your relationship.
3. Disempower the Underlying Fear Associated with your Core Issues.
Fear keeps limiting beliefs intact. Since fear is future-based, you can break each fear down to an if/then statement about what you believe will happen. This format clarifies how fear limits your life and presents it in terms you can manage. As you challenge your fear by taking action, you see it for what it is: an illusion.
4. Heal the Core Emotional Wounds Associated with your Core Issues.
Beneath the relationship stress, core issues, limiting beliefs, and fear, deep-seated emotional wounds reside. They arise when you become triggered by experiences. They often involve trauma, betrayal, abandonment, and loss. These wounds surfacing offer an opportunity to feel and heal them, creating lasting emotional freedom.
Phase 3: Create the Loving Relationship You Truly Want
1. Create a Clear Intention for a Loving Relationship.
Even if you're creating a new relationship with the partner you have been relating to, this is an opportunity to create a new, loving relationship with them. When you offer your intention, it activates this loving relationship in your life. This creates a clear focus for working with and integrating the things you want into your relationship.
2. Integrate the Things You Want into Your Relationship.
Taking action and practicing trial and error brings the things you want into your life. Introduce new approaches to your life, and notice what works and what doesn't. An updated personal program and therapy sessions provide the guidance and support to sustain these approaches long enough to integrate them into your life. Notice if the things you try create connection or separation with your partner. Do they make you feel close or distant?
3. Be Conscious of Relationship Contracts.
All relationships are contractual. Contracts are conscious and unconscious agreements that you made with your partner. When you or your partner changes, it breaks the old contract and creates an invitation to a new one. The person who breaks the contract typically feels guilty for betraying the contract and their partner. The partner who has the contract broken typically feels betrayed and hurt- even if they do not know why.
4. See your partner as they are. Identify what you project onto your partner. Be mindful not to project.
Relationship clarity requires the willingness to objectively see your partner exactly as they are. To do this, we have to let go of how we need our partner to be. There is a tendency to project things a bout ourselves and the way we need our partner to be onto our partner. This creates tension and emotionally pushes our partner away. Awareness of this tendency helps you be mindful not to project onto your partner.
5. Communicate clearly. Speak in terms of what you feel, want, and need. Move beyond blame.
Relationship clarity provides a foundation for clear communication. Communicate by sharing what you feel, want, and need, rather than about how your partner is or feels. Cease pointing out our partner's issues and what they need to be doing. Speaking with I statements rather than you statements is a good rule of thumb. Move beyond blame. Blaming is projecting. There's simply what works for you and what works for your partner.
Bonus Phase: Build Trust & Intimacy
1. Create shared Experiences.
Together, you and your partner explore ways to create shared experiences. Diversity is best. Make them fun and enjoyable. Adventurous, romantic, sad, formal, casual, and practical experiences. Different experiences evoke different things. All the world's a stage.
2. Expose How it Feels to You.
Intimacy is about exposure and discovery. And you can lead by exposing how the various experiences that you share with your partner feel to you. You will inevitably feel vulnerable. That means you're on the right track.
3. Discover How it Feels to Your Partner.
Now you can invite your partner to share how things feel to them. This is best orchestrated with an inquisitive mind. It's finding that place of innocent curiosity where you truly want to know what it's like for them. And asking.
4. Spend Time in the Three Worlds. There's your world, their world, and your shared world. Spend time in each. Spending time in your world allows exposure, while time in theirs brings discovery. And your shared world is a private, special place that creates a deep, intimate bond.
Word on the Street
"The real core of the work I did with Michael is seeing how I have always been looking outward to define myself. What I have found in working with him is that I already had the resources within me to actually create the changes I wanted to make. For me, this has been the pivotal change. I have to say, Michael held my feet to the fire, and that is what I really needed. He helped me get in touch with trusting my heart and moving from that place."
Hassle-Free Steps to Your First Session
Step 1:
Consultation
Text/Call Office to Schedule Free Consultation
a. Text/Call our office to book Free 15-min. Phone Consultation to discuss your needs & determine therapy fit.
b. Office staff will Text/Call you to initiate your therapy journey.
Step 2: Register
Register Text Line
& Client Portal; Complete Forms
a. Respond to Spruce invite for text service. b. Respond to Therapy Notes invite to create Client Portal. c. Fill out forms in Client Portal. d. Notify office when forms are complete.
Step 3: Eligibility
Office Text/Calls on Insurance Eligibility; Book First Session
a. Office Staff will text or call you to discuss Insurance Eligibility.
b. Text/Call office to schedule your First Session. c. Receive a Video-Conference Link for your First Session.
Step 4:
1st Session
Create Your Personal Program in First Session
Together, in your first therapy session, we'll create a personalized program that resolves your current symptoms and explores their root cause for lasting relief & personal freedom.