Couples Therapy

Integrative, trauma-informed couples therapy for California residents.

Every relationship has its own history, dynamics, and emotional language. I tailor the work to the couple in front of me — grounded in relational, evidence-based, body-aware practice.

What this work builds

I help couples learn to:

  • Respond rather than react

  • Recognize triggers earlier

  • Increase emotional regulation

  • Feel more grounded during conflict

  • Develop greater safety, presence, and connection

Common Areas of Work

I help couples navigate and resolve:

You don't have to wait for things to fall apart. Most of what couples bring is one of these — often two or three layered together.

  • Communication problems

    • Constant arguing

    • Feeling unheard or misunderstood

    • Avoidance or emotional shutdown

  • Infidelity and broken trust

    • Affairs (physical or emotional)

    • Lying or betrayal

    • Rebuilding trust after deception

  • Differences in values or future goals

    • Whether to get married

    • Whether to have children

    • Religion, lifestyle differences, career priorities

    • Where to live

    • Long-term compatibility concerns

  • Jealousy and insecurity

    • Attachment anxiety

    • Fear of abandonment

    • Social-media-related jealousy

    • Boundary problems with friends or ex-partners

  • Emotional disconnection

    • Feeling like "roommates"

    • Loss of intimacy or affection

    • Loneliness inside the relationship

    • Feeling emotionally neglected

  • Sexual issues

    • Mismatched libido

    • Lack of sexual satisfaction

    • Avoidance of sex

    • Sexual incompatibility

  • Family or in-law conflict

    • Overinvolvement from parents

    • Loyalty conflicts

    • Cultural expectations

    • Extended-family pressure

  • Recovering from repeated unresolved conflict

    • "We keep having the same fight"

    • Cycles of resentment

    • Accumulated hurt over years

“My therapeutic approach is one of wholeness. Rather than finding temporary relief of symptoms, I help clients find lasting growth and healing.”

Esma Verma, licensed clinical social worker, smiling in her therapy office
meet your couples therapist

I'm caring and straightforward.

Couples appreciate that I’m both caring and direct. I’m not cold or overly clinical, and I won’t sugarcoat things or avoid difficult conversations. I help couples get underneath the surface and start making real changes.

Therapeutic Modalities

One integrative approach, six tools.

Different moments in therapy call for different tools. I weave these approaches responsively, based on what's emerging in the room between the two of you.

Relational Self-Awareness (RSA)

RSA helps couples understand how attachment patterns, family systems, relational histories, and unconscious beliefs influence the relationship. This work supports greater accountability, differentiation, emotional intimacy, and self-awareness.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

ACT helps couples build psychological flexibility and move toward values-based connection rather than fear-driven or reactive patterns. This work supports emotional presence, acceptance, and intentional action within the relationship.

Somatic Therapy

Relationships are experienced not only emotionally and cognitively, but physically. Somatic therapy helps couples recognize how stress, trauma, and emotional activation live within the nervous system and body.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

CBT helps identify thought patterns and beliefs that contribute to conflict, shame, defensiveness, or emotional distancing. Couples develop practical tools for communication, emotional awareness, and behavioral change.

Brainspotting

Trauma and emotional pain are often stored deeply within the brain and body. Brainspotting is a focused brain-body therapy that helps process unresolved experiences contributing to emotional reactivity, shutdown, anxiety, or relational distress.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)

DBT-informed skills support emotional regulation, mindfulness, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness — particularly for couples navigating high emotional intensity, trauma responses, or chronic conflict cycles.

benefits of couples therapy

What couples therapy makes possible.

Relationships can activate our deepest fears, vulnerabilities, attachment wounds, and longings for connection. Many couples find themselves repeating painful cycles despite genuinely wanting closeness and understanding.

Together, we work to identify the underlying dynamics driving relational distress while developing practical and embodied tools for change. Healing in relationships does not come through perfection. It happens through awareness, repair, vulnerability, emotional safety, and intentional practice.

Over time, couples often:

  • Understand the deeper emotional and relational roots of conflict

  • Explore how trauma and nervous-system responses impact connection

  • Increase emotional regulation and self-awareness

  • Learn healthier communication and repair strategies

  • Build trust, safety, intimacy, and resilience

  • Create more secure and intentional patterns of relating

The Practical Details

What to Expect

Couples Therapy - 45 minute sessions

Weekly ($345/ session)

Best for couples who want consistent momentum and ongoing support.

Every Other Week ($345/ session)

Some couples prefer a bi-weekly rhythm that allows time for integration while making therapy more financially manageable.

As-Needed Sessions ($345/ session)

Couples may also schedule sessions only when support is needed, typically ranging from 0–3 sessions per month. This option works well for couples who want professional support available without committing to a weekly schedule.

insurance

Most clients with out-of-network benefits get 60–80% reimbursed.

I'm an out-of-network provider. Mentaya automatically submits claims to your insurance after each session, so you don't have to deal with paperwork or submit anything yourself.

Please select "couples service" when getting your estimate.

Check Your Coverage →

a different Pace

When weekly therapy doesn't fit.

Some couples want to do focused work in a concentrated format rather than across months of weekly sessions. Brainspotting Intensives are three-hour in-person sessions in San Francisco or West LA, at a pace that respects your nervous system.

From the blog

Thoughts on Therapy & Healing

Take the First Step

When You’re Ready to Begin

If you're ready for therapy that meets you where you are, let's talk.