Some couples come to therapy knowing that trauma is part of their story. Others arrive feeling stuck, disconnected, or in recurring conflict, only to discover that what happened before this relationship is shaping what happens inside it.

This work is for couples where one or both partners carry the weight of childhood sexual trauma, complex family wounds, or early experiences that made closeness feel unsafe. It is relational work. It asks both of you to show up.

What brings couples here

You may recognise some of these:

• Intimacy feels charged, complicated, or has quietly disappeared

• Touch, desire, or sex has become a source of tension or avoidance

• A partner's trauma response is pulling you apart, and you don't know how to stay close without causing harm

• You love each other, but something underneath keeps getting in the way

• Old patterns from your family of origin keep playing out between you

How I work

Most couples I work with aren't struggling because they don't love each other. They're struggling because love keeps bumping up against something older. We figure out what that is together, and we work with it at the level it lives — in the body, in the nervous system, in the space between you.

A lot of that older material shows up in the body before it shows up in words. One person shuts down. The other reaches harder. A conversation about something small suddenly carries the weight of everything. I pay close attention to these moments. We slow them down rather than move past them, and we work with what's actually happening, somatically and relationally, until something shifts.

As you build more safety with each other, there's more room to bring what's hardest. When sexual trauma is part of the picture, sex and intimacy are often where the most pain lives. The longing to be close and the fear of it, sitting right next to each other. Touch that carries history. Desire that feels complicated or out of reach. We work toward being able to talk about these things honestly, at a pace that feels manageable, building real trust around desire, boundaries, and what closeness can look like for the two of you.

I draw on Imago relationship therapy, somatic approaches, and attachment theory, and at times use structured dialogue to help you develop new ways of communicating and a steadier sense of safety with each other.

Session structure

For couples where sexual trauma is a central part of the work, I offer 90-minute virtual sessions every other week. This format is intentional. Deeper material needs more time, and it needs space to settle between sessions. The biweekly rhythm allows both partners to process what surfaces, rather than returning week after week before the last session has had a chance to land.

Get in touch

If this work feels relevant to where you are, I invite you to reach out. We can have a brief conversation to see whether working together makes sense.