Taking that first step towards couples counseling or marriage counseling is a big one. Establishing a good relationship with a couple’s counselor is equally important. As you begin the journey you’ll need someone who believes in your relationship every time you enter their office, who has the experience to guide you through the process, and who provides a warm and welcoming space to begin the process of discovering the factors which make up your relationship. Relationship counseling of any type, couples, marriage, LGBTQ, or other constellations is a team effort and, in the end, what’s important isn’t so much about the nature of your problems as it is about your motivation to change.

NOTE: Suzanne offers Intensive Therapy Sessions rather than traditional hourly sessions. These special "Intensive" sessions are highly effective and gradually replacing standard sessions among many relationship therapists. Click Here to learn how these Intensive Sessions could benefit you.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer all need and deserve tailored, research-based support when they are in distress. Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman made a key contribution to research on daughters of lesbians: her work showed that daughters with lesbian moms do just as well as those raised by straight moms. Dr. John Gottman conducted the first longitudinal study of its kind of gay and lesbian relationships using multiple methods and measures. I worked with HIV+ and AIDS diagnosed gay men at St Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital in New York City and a sizable portion of my private practice is devoted to gay and lesbian couples.

When it comes to couples counseling there are hundreds of good and compelling approaches to choose from, but the approaches I prefer to use are based on decades of solid scientific research. My counseling methods include The Gottman Method and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). Sometimes EMDR can be used as well, especially helpful when one of you would like additional help in moving past a trauma or is experiencing difficulty feeling secure enough to gain the most benefit from the counseling sessions.

1. Helping you identify and move away from destructive conflict and into productive, even enjoyable dialogue about the differences the two of you bring to your relationship.
   
2. Helping you both to increase the sense of bondedness between you in your relationship.