Individual Therapy for Relationships in Washington, DC
When your relationship is struggling, nothing feels right.
What presents itself in a relationship can be profoundly revealing about what is wounded or unresolved within us, and within our individual power to change.
I help you identify what those patterns are and deal with what caused them. So you start to feel differently in your relationship (or future relationships): more confident, secure, fulfilled, and deeply connected.
I offer in-person therapy in Dupont Circle, Washington, DC, and online therapy for residents of DC, Maryland and Virginia.
What you may notice about your relationships today…
“I keep ending up in abusive relationships where I feel hurt all the time.”
“Every time I start to get close to someone, I push them away.”
“My past partner cheated on me, and I haven’t been able to trust anyone since.”
“Dating is hard for me, and I’m not sure why. Why do I pick the wrong partners?”
“I’m really anxious about my relationships; I’m afraid they’re going to leave me.”
“I keep chasing the same type of person, even though I know they’re not good for me.”
… likely has roots in your early relationship experiences.
A caregiver who abandoned you
(or maybe died too soon)Abuse (physical or emotional),
trauma, or neglect in childhoodNever seeing a healthy relationship modeled for you growing up
Emotionally immature parents who made you think your feelings were “too much”
Alcoholism or addiction in your home that made formative relationships unstable
Parents who fought all the time, got divorced, or walked out/shut down during conflict
Work through your earliest connections to have better relationships today.
When you finally deal with the experiences that shaped you, everything feels different.
my clients often report…
✔ Ability to trust another person and develop true intimacy
✔ Leaving a harmful relationship, or finally getting into a healthy relationship for the first time
✔ Developing self-compassion for and insight into your attachment style
✔ Greater self-worth and ability to choose new partners who treat you well
“Claire is an empathic listener who works hard to help clients achieve their therapy goals. A skilled clinician, Claire guides clients toward a greater understanding of themselves and others resulting in improvement in their lives.”
Debra Caplowe, lcsw
We heal attachment wounds
in relationship.
Including the therapist-client relationship.
If you’ve never experienced being seen and appreciated without judgment, working with an experienced, trauma-informed therapist can be a profoundly healing experience.
FAQs about individual relationship counseling
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Yes, so much of what shows up in a marriage or relationship is about patterns you learned long before you ever met your partner.
When you come in on your own, we can slow down and look at what you're bringing into the relationship, like the old expectations, the old fears, and the ways you learned to protect yourself that might not be serving you anymore.
As you understand that more clearly and start to shift it, your marriage / relationship shifts too, even if your partner never sets foot in my office
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I do. A lot of my clients hold high-pressure, high-visibility roles here in DC. I understand the particular kind of stress that comes with those environments, especially relationship strain.
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I work primarily with a psychodynamic approach. My role is to help you make connections between your present and your past, actually feel what you may not have had the space to feel at the time, and understand yourself well enough that you can start doing things differently, rather than repeating the same patterns and hoping for a different result.
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Yes, trauma recovery is a significant part of my practice, and I’m trained in trauma-informed practices to prevent re-traumatization. I've worked extensively with people healing from childhood abuse, neglect, and other early wounds, as well as trauma in adulthood, helping them move through what happened so it stops running their present.
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If you're in a relationship that feels painful, confusing, or like you can't quite name what's wrong — that's exactly the kind of work I do.
Often people find themselves returning to the same painful dynamic over and over, hoping this time it'll be different. In our work together, we look at why that pattern feels so familiar, help you understand where it comes from, and give you the clarity and grounding to make different choices going forward.
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Yes. Relationship anxiety almost always has roots in earlier experiences of attachment.
In our work, you and I build a relationship that's steady and consistent, which becomes a place where you can actually work through that anxiety in real time rather than just talking about it in the abstract. Over time, that safety helps you trust more easily, both with me and in your relationships outside our sessions.
“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
-Carl Jung