Some couples come to me as a last stop before divorce.
Most leave closer than they were as newlyweds.
If you are here, it’s likely that something in your relationship has ruptured and you are tired of trying the same things and ending up in the same place. I understand. I also know that the distance between where you are and where you want to be is not a matter of trying harder, but rather is a matter of working differently.
As a Certified Emotionally Focused Couples Therapist, attachment expert and one of the only Certified EFCT therapists and supervisors in the city, I work exclusively with couples, using a method, and my years of experience to restructure how you connect.
This is not couples therapy that teaches you to fight better.
Many couples come in hoping I will help them communicate more efficiently, negotiate their differences, or simply understand why their partner behaves the way they do. And while those things matter they are not what changes a relationship at its root. Couples often come to me as a last resort after already wasting time, and money on prior couples therapy that didn’t work for them because those therapies focused on the above surface concerns like “fighting fair” and I am telling you that does not work for everyone.
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT) works differently. It is one of the most extensively researched approaches to couples therapy in the world, is considered the Gold Standard of Couples Therapy by the APA and it works because it goes underneath the arguments, the silence, and the cycles you keep getting stuck in — and addresses what is actually driving them: unmet needs for safety, closeness, and trust.
Together, we build something new. Not a better script for the same old fight. A fundamentally different way of being with each other.
To learn more about EFCT therapy click here.
Structured work. Real results. No pixie dust.
EFCT is not open-ended talking about your complaints and getting charged an hourly fee for it. It follows a clear, evidence-based experiential map. We flow from identifying the patterns that keep you stuck and understanding the vulnerable emotions beneath them (Stage 1), to reaching for each other in new ways that build genuine safety and trust over time (Stage 2) and then applying this new effective and secure relationship to the problems that frustrate you in the day-to-day to address real life (Stage 3).
For those couples willing and wanting to both change, by the time they graduate from therapy, they are not just relieved the fighting has slowed — they understand themselves and each other in ways they did not before they walked in.
That said: this work asks something of you. Mutual accountability. A willingness to look inward at your own part, not just at your partners. And the courage to do something differently, even when it feels uncomfortable. My most successful couples come in with this mindset, and leave with a healed relationship they both want to be in.
If this is you, and you’d like to get started, you can request an appointment below with Stephanie Cox, MS, LMHC our Certified Emotionally Focused Couples Therapist, Supervisor and Owner. She serves clients all across the state of Florida via tele-therapy.
