Marriage Counseling
Couples Therapy
Relationship Coaching and Mentoring
Serving clients worldwide.
Request a client package by email.
Please include your country of residence.
New Hope For Relationships
Relationships ask us to grow, and that growth isn’t always straight-forward or easy.
Through a combination of education, guided processes, and behavioral interventions I help couples and individuals find the clarity they want and turn their relationship challenges into stories of triumph and transformation.
Twenty years of experience helping clients worldwide informs my work.
I help with all relationship topics and issues including:
- Communication
- Boundaries
- Sex and Sexuality
- Emotional Intimacy and Connection
- Family Dynamics
- Decision Making
- Trust and Repair
- Nervous System Regulation
- Affairs
- Separation and Divorce (Conscious Uncoupling)
If you’re ready to get started, request a client package by email now. Please include your country of residence.
If you want to learn more about what I do, keep reading.
I work differently from other counselors, therapists, and coaches in my field.
Here’s how I’m different:
I treat the individuals in the relationship, as well as the relationship itself.
Most contemporary couples counseling and marriage therapy treats the relationship, not the individuals in the relationship.
I believe that healthy and satisfying relationships are the result of healthy, self-aware, emotionally mature individuals, and so I have developed a unique integrative approach that attends to both the relationship dynamic and to the individuals involved.
Sometimes this means working with the two people in a relationship separately, in one-on-one sessions. This is determined on a case-by-case basis.
Wants over needs.
Marriage counselors have trained people to think and speak in terms of “needs” (i.e. getting needs met and meeting each others needs).
“Need” is the language of survival.
I want to help my clients get beyond survival mode and into thriving, so I emphasize wants over needs.
Experience has shown me that many people feel shame and doubt about their own wanting. When “need” becomes the default language, desire remains at the margins, and this leads to desire-confusion and alienation, which makes relationships more difficult.
To be clear, I’m not talking exclusively about sexual desire. I’m talking about the natural ability to enjoy knowing what you want, to know you deserve it, and to ask for it easily.
Trauma informed, growth oriented.
I’m trained in recognizing and working with trauma, and I have personal experience engaging my own trauma within an inter-generational, family of origin context. I’m sensitive and alert to the role that trauma can play in my clients’ lives and relationships.
I’ve also observed that trauma can become an over-arching focus that ceases to be helpful beyond a certain point. I try to give trauma the attention it requires, without obscuring or sidelining the growth and transformation that lies beyond.
Attachment balanced with differentiation.
Attachment theory provides the foundation for most couples counseling today. But while an attachment perspective can help illuminate the childhood roots of certain dynamics in an adult romantic relationship or marriage, it can also promote emotional fusion and dependency, which isn’t helpful.
Differentiation based relationship therapy emphasizes emotional self-regulation and self-validation as primary personal assets necessary for the development of emotionally mature and resilient relationships.
My approach is differentiation based, and also recognizes attachment styles and the value of attachment theory.
Hands-on coaching and mentoring.
I don’t just listen. Once we establish an understanding of your growth trajectory and the changes you want to make, I offer precise feedback, coaching, and mentoring to help you get there.
Many of my clients who have been to other counseling or therapy tell me that they’re grateful for the practical direction and guidance I provide.
It’s true, I want you to have the best relationship and life possible and when I see ways for you to move in that direction I will definitely tell you.
A developmental lens.
The troubles that arise in relationships are not anomalies or accidents, but rather necessary “growing pains” that give each of us an opportunity to take our next leap forward on our developmental journey.
Developmental psychology tends to focus on childhood and early life, but the developmental process does not end with the transition to adulthood.
Adult romantic relationships (marriages) provide the perfect catalyst to continue our development and emotional maturation process. I believe that this is one of the primary purposes of marriage and relationships, not just a side-effect.
I have been studying the developmental functions of marriage and relationships throughout my twenty year career, and my developmental lens and approach to couples work makes me different from many other professionals in the field.
My R3 Relationship Masterclass is a leading-edge example of this developmental perspective. You can read about it and listen to a free sample here.
While it would be nice if everyone was able to hold the perspective that relationship challenges help us grow, the fact is that most people only come to marriage counseling when the issue has become urgent and feels like an emergency. This is normal, and it marks the second stage of relationships. I call this the “disillusionment stage” of relationship, and it’s covered in my R3 Masterclass.
Part of my job is to maintain that broader perspective of growth, even when you, understandably, cannot.
A holistic, “whole-person” view.
Finally, rather than just doing mental or cognitive “talk therapy”, or just somatic, body-centered therapy, or an exclusively emotion-based therapy, I have developed a method that engages all three: mind, body, and heart.
It is holistic, integrative, and systems-based, meaning that it supports mental, emotional, and physical well-being simultaneously and synergistically, without sacrifice or downside.
Learn more about The Schanfarber Method here.
One more thing… I love my work. It’s changed my life, and the lives of many others. I never get tired of it, and I’m always excited to help new people.
Interested in working with me?
Request a client information package by email. Please include your country of residence.