Aurisha Smolarski, LMFT

Relationship can look different, but they each deserve your care.

• Are you feeling disconnected, alone, or misunderstood in your relationship?
• Is the constant arguing or bickering getting tiresome?
• Are you feeling emotionally distant
  and sexually indifferent?
• Are you and your partner not communicating well, often leaving you both feeling defensive or undervalued?
• Has trust been compromised?
• Need support in navigating a co-parenting relationship?
• Need guidance to separate in a collaborative and peaceful way?

Couples therapy is a safe place to figure out what’s working, what’s not working, have difficult conversations, push past the limits of fear and find solutions to get your relationship to where you want it to be.   

I am a PACT Couples Therapist. the PACT Model (Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy) as an effective approach to working with couples. It is based on attachment theory, neuroscience and arousal regulation to help couples learn more about themselves and their partner.

Married or Partnered couples:  Feel empowered to grow together as a couple instead of apart and re-connect as a team to the relationship that you are hoping for. Understanding unhelpful patterns, childhood attachment wounds, traumas, and insecurities that may be impacting your relationship in confusing and unhelpful ways you learn how to care for and reach for your partner to decrease hurt and increase connection. You will learn co-regulation skills, conflict resolution and repair skills, what being a team really means and looks like, rekindle sexual desire and create a secure functioning and long lasting relationship. 

UnCoupling : You may be coming in for couples counseling to help you do one of the hardest things you’ve ever done- to uncouple, to separate from a person you once and possibly even still love. I will help you do this in a caring and empowering way so you both understand how you got here, minimize blame, find acknowledgement, express anger and hurt in a safe and supportive place. Divorce is a challenging process and so many feelings arise during that process. I can help you get through it so that the outcome is better for you and for your children (if you have kids). Separations and divorce can be peaceful and collaborative. The relationship you once had is worth a good ending. 

Co-Parenting:  Learn how to become a co-parenting team and minimize trauma for your kids. Just because you are no longer married doesn’t mean the relationship is over. It’s now a co-parenting relationship which also deserve care. A co-parenting relationship that is done well has shown to decrease the stress and trauma of a divorce on children. A good co-parenting relationship is good for the parents, good for the kids and good for the greater good. I can help you create mutuality, collaboration, win-wins, and maintain a respectful co-parenting relationship so you both can go on in your lives without putting undue burdens on your kids.

Read my articles on creating win-wins and collaborations in the co-parenting relationship.

Stan Tatkin, PsyD discusses in this TedxTalks the underlying more primitive parts of ourselves that come into play in relationships.

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                                                                                      c.2015