Relationship Therapy

Transformative guidance for restoring and enhancing connection with the people you love.

Healthy relationships take work.

We can help you grow and get better together.

Building and maintaining a strong, healthy relationship takes effort, patience, and commitment, but the rewards are immeasurable. Through effective communication, mutual understanding, and space to play, couples can create and maintain a partnership that brings deep connection and joy. Facing challenges together can lead to an even more more resilient, loving relationship.

Relationship therapy provides the tools and guidance to help you navigate these challenges and build a relationship that thrives, no matter what life brings.

Our specialities.

  • There are many reasons why you and your partner may be having difficulty connecting sexually. We work with couples who feel stuck due to:

    • Differences in libido or sexual desire

    • Long-standing patterns in which one partner pursues and the other tends to reject

    • Communication issues or life stressors such that sex feels low priority

    • Uncertainty of how to proceed when one partner experiences pain or other physiological challenges during sex

    • Wounds around sexual interactions (either with each other or with others in the past).

    We are sensitive to how these difficulties develop over time and are ready to help you get unstuck.

    Learn more

  • At the heart of any strong relationship is effective communication—the ability to truly hear and understand each other. Regardless of how long you've been together, every relationship requires effort to avoid assuming each other's intentions, beliefs, feelings, and goals.

    We’ll help you understand your needs, communicate them clearly, and respond from a centered place. As a result, you will learn how to listen to each other with empathy and resolve issues more effectively.

  • When a partner more newly identifies as gender expansive, transgender, non-binary, or in any way different from how they originally understood their gender identity, it can lead to significant shift in the relational dynamic. Many of these shifts are welcome and exciting: when both partners feel more self-realized and embodied, it creates space for a new sense of happiness and intimacy. Sometimes, however, the shifts are daunting, confusing, and take time to adjust to as a relational team. This is where we come in: as specialists in supporting cis-trans relationships, we can help hold space for both partners throughout the transition process. NRCW additionally runs a group for cis partners of trans and gender expansive folx. Learn more.

  • Relationships can flow from moments of enmeshment and co-dependence to moments of hyper-independence and distance. It is also common to struggle when one partner longs for reconnection immediately after conflict while the other needs space. Relationship therapy at NRCW can help you and your loved one(s) identify the degree of interdependence that aligns with your shared values and work toward a balance that maximizes connection with yourself and one another.

  • Perhaps you and your partner entered your relationship with a monogamous structure and are now considering other structures that better fit your needs. Or maybe you and your partner(s) are having difficulty finding ways in which all of your needs are met within your relationship arrangement. You do not need to traverse these challenges alone. We can help you navigate change from an intentional place and ride the waves of challenge productively and lovingly.

 Our Approach

Our approach is attachment, relational, and trauma-informed. We guide our clients toward a greater state of regulation and mindfulness so that they act from a centered place that improves connection and reduces conflict.

We are an LGBTQIA+ affirming practice and are members of Kink and Polyam Aware Chicago Therapists (KPACT). You can learn more about our training and theoretical approach here.

How does relationship therapy work?

The process.

Relationship counseling at NRCW begins with a session together followed by individual sessions so we can understand your individual and relationship needs and goals. When we return for our next joint session, your therapist will share their impression of your relationship challenges, clarify goals, and offer the first steps toward healing.

As you move forward in your work, you will gain insight into patterns of conflict and their function. Your therapist will guide you towards replacing non-generative patterns with new behaviors that facilitate connection and align with your relationship goals.

Your role.

Throughout this process, your therapist will encourage you to reflect on how you contribute to patterns of disconnection, how your own life experiences before the relationship may be showing up in the relationship, and where you have power to make changes.

To get the most out of the couple’s counseling sessions, there will be times when you’re assigned exercises to engage in between sessions. You will always have choice regarding which exercises you’ll try.

 “Great relationships—the masters—are built on respect, empathy, and a profound understanding of each other. Relationships don’t last without talk.”

-John Gottman