Chris L'Esperance
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist #114845
Covid-19 Services:
Now offering online therapy services for
Santa Cruz and San Luis Obispo County Residents.
Relational Issues and Couples Counseling
Why are we having so much trouble communicating?
There are many contributing factors to communication in romantic relationships including built up resentment, mistrust due to infidelity, and disconnection from life being busy and stressful. Difficulty with communication in romantic relationships can also be related to attachment styles, cultural differences, and difficulty with empathy and understanding. Every couple has a unique set of situations and dynamics that may lead to challenges with communication and relationships.
In couples counseling we will get to know and understand the dynamics that play a role in communication in your relationship. We will focus on identifying barriers to communication and work on strategies to overcome those barriers in order to promote connection, understanding, and empathy. Therapy provides an opportunity to discuss the issues that are hard to talk about, a space to learn about yourself and your partner, and strategies to work towards building healthy relational dynamics that will lead you towards a more connected, rich and satisfying romantic relationship.
Why are romantic relationships especially difficult?
By the time we reach adulthood, most of us have developed conscious and unconscious strategies for taking care of ourselves mentally and emotionally. This begins in our earliest relationships, the relationships we have with our parents or other caretakers. We all have an array of emotional needs like love, respect, acknowledgement and consideration. These emotional needs are met by our parents or caretakers in an ideal parent-child relationship. However, most of us do not grow up in a perfect world in terms of our relational development. We may be taught that we need to earn love through achievement or obedience, we may have had absent or negligent parents/caretakers, or we may have been discouraged from our feelings and emotional needs. These things can set the stage for how we understand ourselves and how we function in romantic relationships. We develop strategies to take care of ourselves when we cannot get our needs met in our early relationships. Most often, we carry these dynamics into adulthood and into our romantic relationships.
My approach:
The approach I use to work with couples and relationships is called Emotionally Focused Therapy. I focus on what leads to connection and disconnection between romantic partners and use that as information to guide clients closer to a healthy, connected, and satisfying relationship.
Part of employing the Emotionally Focused Therapeutic approach includes helping clients gain a deeper understanding of their own individual emotional functioning. It is important for clients in couples counseling to be able to identify and name their own feelings and emotional needs. This sounds simple, however, most of us are not accustomed to communicating in this way. Building this skill can improve understanding and increase connection. This creates the foundation to address common issues in romantic partnerships such as infidelity, disagreement in finances, disagreements on parenting, difficulties with extended family and others.
What is attachment and why is it relevant in romantic relationships?
Attachment styles and attachment wounds play a big role in romantic relationships. Attachment most commonly refers to the bonds in the parent-child relationship and between romantic partners. These relationships are part of what provide us a sense of emotional safety, security, connection, and belonging. Often, parent-child relationships are imperfect. This can take many different forms, severities, and can have a variety of different impacts on a person’s development. A common result is what is referred to as insecure attachment, which becomes either insecure anxious attachment or insecure avoidant attachment. If insecure attachment is not addressed during development it can later impact adults in their relationships, especially romantic relationships.
Individuals with an anxious attachment style often have a fear of abandonment and rejection. They tend to want reassurance that their partner is not going to leave them and still loves them. Folks with an anxious attachment style often want to resolve disagreements and disputes immediately and can sometimes have difficulty regulating their own emotions. This may be difficult to understand for their partner, or even frustrating.
Individuals with an avoidant attachment style might seem distant or aloof to their partners. People with avoidant attachment tend to share less emotion with their partners and usually ask for less emotional support and/or reassurance from their partners. Avoidant people still have a fear of abandonment and rejection, but it is usually buried under a belief that they don’t need anyone to help them with their feelings. They may also assume they will be rejected eventually so they may have difficulty allowing themselves to be vulnerable. It is important to note that much of this, for both avoidant and anxious people, is occurring unconsciously. This means that they are not typically conscious thoughts or intentional behaviors.
Individuals in a partnership may have the same attachment style or different attachment styles. This can lead to conflict, misunderstanding and disconnection. Fortunately, this is where we can focus our attention. We can learn to heal these insecure attachments by employing effective communication skills, understanding patterns of connection and disconnection, and learning to support each other in meeting emotional needs. This is all part of the therapeutic process I use when working with couples.
How can couples counseling help?
Couples counseling provides the time, space and strategies to work through challenges that disrupt a healthy connected romantic relationship. I want to help clients develop the skills and strategies to be able to effectively express themselves and listen to their partners. I want to support clients in identifying, understanding, and overcoming the barriers and challenges in their relationships. I want to empower clients to feel more agency and of a sense of control within the dynamics of their relationship. Most importantly, I want to help clients have a deeply connected, rich and satisfying relationship, along with the ability to overcome and grow from the challenges that you and your partner face.