Your Questions Answered: Individual & Couples Therapy FAQ

Individual therapy offers a space to better understand yourself, your emotions, and the patterns that influence your thoughts, behaviors, and relationships. Whether you're navigating anxiety, depression, relationship concerns, or a life transition, we'll work together to develop healthier coping strategies, improve self-awareness, and create meaningful change.

Absolutely. Healthy relationships begin with understanding yourself. Individual therapy can help you recognize relationship patterns, strengthen communication, establish healthy boundaries, and respond to challenges in ways that support stronger, more fulfilling connections with others.

Yes. Anxiety, depression, and life transitions can leave you feeling overwhelmed or uncertain. Therapy provides a supportive environment to process your experiences, develop effective coping skills, and build resilience as you navigate life's challenges.

Yes, I accept Aetna, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Cigna and Carelon insurance.

Yes. In EFT, we look beyond the topic of the argument to understand the pattern the two of you get caught in. Often, the same conflict keeps resurfacing because each partner is reacting to deeper feelings such as hurt, fear, rejection, or a need for reassurance and connection. Together, we'll identify your negative cycle and work on new ways of responding to one another so you can move out of the pattern rather than repeating it.

Many approaches to couples therapy focus primarily on improving communication, solving problems, or teaching specific relationship skills. EFT goes deeper by looking at the emotional and attachment needs underneath those difficulties.

Rather than simply learning how to argue more effectively, we'll work to understand what is happening emotionally between you, identify the negative cycle that keeps you stuck, and help you create new experiences of trust, safety, and emotional connection. The goal isn't to eliminate conflict, but to help you feel more secure and connected when difficult moments arise.

Yes. Online couples therapy can provide a meaningful and convenient way to work on your relationship without traveling to an office. Sessions take place through secure video, and we can use the same EFT-focused process to slow down difficult interactions, understand the patterns between you, and practice new ways of connecting.

Online therapy can be especially helpful for couples with demanding schedules, transportation challenges, or who live outside the Dayton area. I provide secure virtual therapy throughout Ohio.

Ideally, both partners participate because couples therapy focuses on the relationship between you. However, it's common for one partner to feel ready for therapy before the other.

If your partner isn't willing to participate, you don't have to wait to begin working on yourself and your relationship. Individual therapy can help you better understand your emotions, relationship patterns, needs, and ways of responding. Changes you make can also influence the relationship, even when your partner isn't attending therapy.

When one or both partners are questioning whether the relationship can continue, traditional couples therapy may not feel like the right place to start. If you're unsure whether you want to repair the relationship or move toward separation, Discernment Counseling may be a better fit.

Discernment Counseling is a short-term, structured process designed to help couples gain clarity about whether to work toward rebuilding the relationship, separate, or pause before making a decision. The goal isn't to push you toward saving or ending your marriage, but to help you make a thoughtful decision about what comes next.

Discernment Counseling is designed for couples who are uncertain about the future of their relationship, particularly when one partner is leaning toward leaving and the other wants to continue working on the marriage.

Rather than beginning with the goal of fixing the relationship, we'll slow things down and explore what has brought you to this point, each partner's perspective and motivations, and the possible paths forward. The process is intentionally brief, typically lasting one to five sessions, and is designed to help you move forward with greater clarity and confidence.

There isn't a set number of sessions that works for every couple. The length of therapy depends on what brings you in, how deeply you want to work, how frequently we meet, and the changes you're hoping to make.

Some couples begin noticing meaningful changes within the first several sessions, while others benefit from ongoing support as they work through more deeply established patterns. We'll regularly talk about your progress and what you feel would be most helpful moving forward.

Couples therapy can be beneficial whether you're facing ongoing conflict, feeling emotionally disconnected, struggling to communicate, rebuilding trust, or simply wanting to strengthen your relationship. You don't have to wait until things feel hopeless to benefit from therapy.

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is an evidence-based approach that helps individuals and couples understand the emotions and relationship patterns that keep them feeling stuck. By creating greater emotional awareness and security, EFT helps foster healthier communication, deeper connection, and lasting change.

Couples therapy can help improve communication, rebuild trust, strengthen emotional connection, navigate recurring conflicts, and better understand each other's needs. Together, we'll identify unhelpful patterns and work toward creating a healthier, more satisfying relationship.

Absolutely. While couples therapy involves both partners, you don't have to wait for your partner to be ready before seeking support.

Individual therapy can give you a place to better understand what you're feeling, recognize patterns in your relationship, clarify your needs, and explore how you want to show up in the relationship. You can begin making meaningful changes even if your partner isn't ready to participate.

Couples therapy is generally not covered by insurance because relationship counseling is typically not considered a medically necessary service. My current insurance participation applies to individual therapy, when coverage and clinical circumstances qualify.

Insurance benefits vary, so I recommend checking directly with your insurance company to understand your specific coverage before beginning therapy.