Marriage Counseling Counselor Therapist Therapy Burbank Glendale Los Angeles Pasadena

Frequently Asked Questions

What is your philosophy and approach?

To be a happy couple requires five things:

     1. Feeling understood and being able to understand your partner most of the time.
     2. Rekindling the good feelings that brought you together in the first place.
     3. Believing that past hurts and betrayals have been resolved and that trust has been repaired.
     4. Being able to resolve conflicts without hurting one another consistently or deeply.
     5. Feeling safe to trust, share your thoughts and feelings, and comfortable being hugged and held.

My approach is to provide the healing, knowledge, skills and coping mechanisms needed to make the above possible. I tend to be directive, though the methods and approach will vary depending on the needs of the couple.

How long does therapy last?

This can rarely be decided without first meeting to determine the nature and scope of your issues and goals. Individual clients may chose to work on one or two very specific behaviors and feel satisfied with their progress after a few sessions. Others will want to work on deeper, long-standing issues which are causing current problems. This is more often the case with couples, and the process will take more time.

Couples generally wait about six years to come into therapy, and the process of understanding, changing and healing takes more time the longer the couple has waited to seek help. Any suggestion that significant change can be made in less than 10 sessions is usually overly optimistic or misleading unless the problem is both simple and recent. When couples expect results in only a few sessions, they usually end up disappointed with both therapy and their relationship.

Do you accept insurance?

We do not accept insurance, but do provide you with a "superbill" which conforms to insurance industry standards for reimbursement. Read over your benefit plan to determine whether you have a choice of therapists or whether you’re restricted to the insurance companie’s captive panel. We often find that people prefer to avoid using their plan because insurance companies cannot guarantee that the information they accumulate about you will be kept confidential. Further, relationship therapy and sex therapy are usually not covered in standard policies.