Marriage and Couples Counseling

Do you feel deprived, on eggshells, or frustrated in your relationship?

Marriage and Couples counseling can help you increase communication, reduce conflict, foster mutual respect, and enhance intimacy and companionship.

Every relationship has bumps in the road but what makes the difference is to feel that you and your partner have the ability to navigate setbacks, discuss difficult topics, and maintain open lines of communication. For many of us, these skills are not always learned as we grow up.

Couples counseling is a place for you to have constructive dialogues about topics that may be difficult for you to discuss on your own. My role as your marriage and couples counselor is to make it safe for you and your partner to constructively address what isn't working and to talk about what you'd like to be better. Couples counseling helps you establish a track record of overcoming challenges so that you can do this on your own, without a therapist's help. Once you and your partner feel that you have the ability to talk constructively no matter what issue comes up, you can handle pretty much anything in your relationship.


Marriage and couples therapy can help if you are experiencing one or more of the following challenges:

  • Difficulty discussing or resolving differences
  • Communication that has become stilted or counterproductive
  • Sensing that your relationship is drifting or that you and your partner are living separate lives
  • Lack of intimacy, affection, or quality time
  • Feeling that your relationship is not living up to its promise
  • Unresolved disagreements about finances, parenting, sex, friendships, or joint activities
  • Crises such as infidelity, health issues, or one partner questioning the relationship
  • A cycle of blame or disrespect
  • Worries that one or both of you has given up on the relationship
  • Excessive conflict
  • Feeling that your partner withdraws when you seek closeness
  • Feeling that one or both of you is holding on to past upsets and can’t let go
  • Controlling, addictive, or destructive behavior in your relationship
Couples counseling offers a safe place to speak and be heard in what may be your most important relationship. Couples and marriage counseling is designed to help you solve impasses, listen and communicate more clearly, and understand yourself, your partner, and your relationship more deeply.

My job is to help you achieve these by serving as a resource, coach, ally, cheerleader, advisor, and sometimes even a referee. I tailor marriage and couples counseling to your individual needs drawing from a combination of empirically validated couples therapy approaches including Emotionally Focused Therapy, adult attachment therapy, Gottman’s approach, Imago therapy, Acceptance and Commitment therapy, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy. I work with all manner of relationship issues including recovery from affairs, blended families, parenting challenges, lack of intimacy, controlling behavior, post-traumatic stress disorder, and pre-martial counseling.

Among the possible benefits of marriage and couples counseling:

  • A deeper and more intimate connection
  • A greater sense of partnership, affection, and companionship
  • The feeling of being in a healthy partnership rather than feeling alone
  • Ability to state your needs and feelings clearly and constructively so you can avoid or resolve conflicts
  • Greater willingness to compromise and solve problems
  • Less blame and more companionship
  • Tools and techniques to foster constructive communication and closeness
I am happy to answer your questions about how marriage and couples counseling can achieve your goals. Email or call me for a free phone consultation to discuss how I can be helpful to you.
In addition to regular marriage and counseling sessions, I also offer private intensive couples therapy programs in either day-long or two-day formats. These intensives are designed for couples for whom one or more of the following applies:

 
  • Face an immediate relationship crisis
  • Live distant from Marin County
  • Have a schedule that would make therapy sessions during normal weekday hours difficult
  • Have not found conventional weekly couples therapy to be effective
  • Seek to make changes in their relationship more rapidly than with weekly counseling sessions
  • Seek to address long-standing issues through a comprehensive exploration of their relationship

I tailor intensive couples therapy programs to each couple's unique needs. Please contact me if you would like to know more, or want to determine if a couples' intensive is right for you.


My office is in Greenbrae near Marin General Hospital, just off Hwy 101 and Sir Francis Drake Blvd. I offer individual therapy to adults as well as couples therapy and marriage counseling. In addition to seeing clients, I provide education through workshops and published works on relationships, marriage, family relations, parenting, self-esteem, achieving goals, and setting healthier boundaries. I hold both doctoral and masters degrees in clinical psychology and have been licensed in Marin county as a marriage and family therapist for more than 25 years. I offer services to a diverse population including married and unmarried couples as well as straight and LGBTQ couples and individuals of all ethnicities. Communities served include San Rafael, Kentfield, Larkspur, Ross, Corte Madera, Mill Valley, Tiburon, Sausalito, San Anselmo, Novato, Fairfax, Marin City, Terra Linda, Greenbrae, Bel Marin Keys, Petaluma, Stinson Beach, Muir Beach, Ignacio, Hamilton, Nicasio, Lagunitas, Forest Knolls, Woodacre, Bolinas, and throughout Marin County .

Dan Neuharth PhD MFT Marin County Psychotherapist and Marriage & Couples Counselor
California Lic. LMFT29178

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