The patternsbetween you.
It's rarely about what's being said. It's what the two of you have created together over time, and what each person learned to protect.
What's not
being said.
What looks like an argument about money, sex, parenting, or who did what is usually carrying something more important underneath. Do you see me? Do I matter to you? Can I depend on you? Am I alone in this? That's often where we begin to understand what's really going on between you.
Each person comes into a relationship with their own history: their family, their earlier relationships, their longings and fears, and the ways they learned to protect themselves. Those histories meet each other. Old ways of getting needs met or managing disappointment quietly find their way into the relationship you're in now, and often neither person realizes it's happening.
There's nothing you need to know
before you begin.
Neither person is the problem.
My approach to couples work is psychodynamic and relational, and attachment is the lens I keep returning to. I want to understand each person, where they come from and what they learned about relationships. At the same time, I'm paying very close attention to what the two of you have created together.
A lot of the work is noticing the pattern as it happens between you, sometimes right there in the room. Rather than deciding who is right, I'm interested in what just happened: what you heard, what it brought up in you, and what made you pull away, get louder, or shut down. It's the dynamic you've become caught in together, and once we can see the dynamic rather than live inside it, there's an opportunity to understand it and begin doing something different.
My training in EMDR and Somatic Experiencing is part of how I listen. When it's useful, we can bring EMDR and somatic work into couples sessions too.
You don't have to come in agreeing with each other, or even knowing whether the relationship will ultimately work, but there does need to be some willingness to be curious about yourself, your partner, and what the two of you have created together.
There isn't one timeline.
iA first conversation
A brief phone call, no charge, to hear a little about what's happening between you. When someone reaches out for couples work, I generally want to begin with the couple. If it becomes clear that individual therapy would be helpful alongside our work, I'll make that recommendation.
iiSlowing it down
In the early work we slow things down enough to see what's actually happening between you: what one person does, what that brings up in the other, and how their response comes back around.
iiiThe work itself
Sessions are 50 minutes, with the option of a session and a half or a double when we want more time. Some couples come in around something specific and the work is relatively short. For others we're looking at patterns that have been developing for years.
ivWhat changes
Progress isn't that you stop having conflict. What changes is what happens when it comes up. You catch yourself sooner, stay curious instead of certain, and find your way back to each other faster.
If something here resonates.
I'm accepting new couples clients. We start with a brief, free phone call. It's an opportunity to ask any questions and a way to feel whether we're a fit.
Begin a ConversationEMDRIA-Approved Consultant · Facilitator, Parnell Institute · Somatic Experiencing Practitioner
Los Angeles, CA 90025© 2026 Christine Ashe Therapy · Site Credit