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Relationships and Couples

The Relationship You Have with Yourself Shapes Every Other One

You’re struggling with a partner, or a family that still knows exactly where your sore spots are. Or you’re carrying the ache of still being single when you didn’t expect to be, while friendships that used to feel easy now feel like work. Underneath, the pattern is usually the same. Something about how you learned to attach, to trust, and to ask for what you need (or to not ask at all) is playing out again.

It shows up in high-conflict arguments and in bridges burned with people who mattered. It shows up in how you talk to yourself, too, and that inner voice quietly sets the terms for what you’ll accept from everyone else.

I help people understand why their relationships keep taking the shape they take, and what actually shifts that, beyond communication scripts and surface-level advice.

Your Relational Wounds Require Relational Tending

Here’s the ground we cover:

  • Attachment patterns, and where they came from
  • Your relationship with yourself: self-worth, self-criticism, the inner voice that’s harder on you than anyone else could be
  • Romantic relationships: dating, partnership, child rearing, infidelity, non-monogamy, and everything in between
  • Family dynamics, old and current
  • Couples, whichever direction the relationship is heading
  • Friendships, and the loneliness that creeps in even when you’re surrounded by people

For some patients, codependency sits underneath all of it. We work on setting better boundaries, standing up for yourself, and reconnecting with your own needs and feelings. When two people bring patterns like these into one relationship, the work takes a different shape.

Trace the Fight You Keep Having to Its Source

Relational pain is some of the hardest we deal with as humans. When it lives between two people, it’s hard to see clearly, because each of you is inside it.

My work with couples is psychoanalytic. We look at what you each bring into the relationship, where it came from, and how your patterns meet and set each other off. One partner’s pulling back lands on the other’s fear of being left, and the familiar fight starts before anyone says much.

Couples arrive in crisis, or after the relationship has settled into something neither of you chose. The goals differ, too. Sometimes it’s to improve the relationship, and sometimes it’s to intentionally uncouple, with care for each of you and for anyone else affected, such as children.

You don’t need to agree on which yet. We’ll sort that out together. I encourage in-person sessions for couples, though online works too.

Change the One Relationship That Shapes the Rest

Whether you come alone or as a couple, change here is gradual. Some people come out, finally, on their own terms.

For others, fear stops running their choices. They grow more independent, or more able to rely on others, depending on what was missing. Relationships feel healthier, and communication gets more authentic and effective.

Many patients describe becoming who they actually are after years of managing a version of themselves for everyone else. None of it happens at once, so the pace matters.

Begin at a Pace That Feels Manageable

The work starts conversationally. For many patients, it deepens into the sustained, depth-oriented work I describe on my Psychoanalysis page.

Reaching out is its own way of asking for what you need. Tell me which relationship brought you here, and we’ll find the pace that’s right for you.

Request a Free 20-Minute Consultation

Call me today at (415) 993-1301

Talk to Me First

That sentence you almost said is still waiting. It doesn’t need to arrive polished, and the dream doesn’t need to make sense yet. There will be a pause nobody hurries, and room for whatever you bring into it.

A free 20-minute consultation is the best way to find out whether this is the right fit. I can usually see new patients the same week or the week after. Bring the sentence with you.

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