Therapy for Couples in Academic Medicine
Whether one or both of you work in the field, you are both keenly aware of the demands of the role and the effort it’s taken to get here. You love the life you’ve built together. And yet, the lived reality of making both your marriage and career work has you feeling pressure at the seams.
Perhaps these feel familiar…
You had hoped to get away for your anniversary this year, but the call schedule had other ideas, and then the weeks just kept filling up. Your split is feeling more like 100/100, leaving less than zero for your relationship. Maybe next year, you tell each other, each of you more disappointed than you’re letting on.
It’s already been a long day, and you’re both ready to call it a night. But that IRB amendment has to be reviewed and submitted now (the committee meets tomorrow). You get a sinking feeling when you realize you’re going to be bringing the laptop to bed again - last time it devolved into an argument about how often this happens. One of you was left feeling alone, and the other inadequate.
That K award submission deadline is fast approaching, and it’s consuming every waking moment. Which is most of the moments of the day, if you’re being honest. You’ve hardly seen each other at all this week; you can sense the quiet resentment building.
Your child wakes up with a fever, and the jockeying begins about whose day can be rearranged and who will stay home. It feels like a competition - and you’re not on the same team.
You’re trying to be present and hear your partner’s experience of the day, but the language for the second paragraph of the Results section of that “revise and resubmit” you’re working on just keeps knocking around in your head, and between that and replaying the tough clinical consult you were a part of this morning, you’ve had to ask them to repeat themselves. Twice.
You two have always been a great team, and you love and respect each other and each other’s work deeply. But lately, things are feeling more tense, and you’re starting to worry that the only way back to connection is to overhaul your whole life. You’ve built a life and career you genuinely love, but the disconnection makes it hard to actually enjoy.
There are nights when you fall into bed exhausted and fall asleep before you can say goodnight, and nights when conversations descend into a cycle of criticism and blame. You’re desperately hoping things will “slow down” next semester.
What We Do in Sessions
Couples therapy gives you dedicated time to slow all of this spin. Without all the noise and complexity, you can start to hear and see one another clearly. To reassure one another. To find your way back.
We’ll start with a session with both of you together. I’ll learn about your relationship and history together. We’ll start to talk through goals. Then, I’ll meet with each of you 1:1. This is your chance to share with me your story, and how things are feeling for you in the relationship, before we move into the rest of our work all together.
In session, we will be honest and unflinching about the real demands of your work. We will also create space to identify and voice your equally real longings and desires in your relationship. This is where we rebuild the bond between the two of you, so you can feel like you’re in it together.
I won’t give you homework - our work is contained in each session. That’s where the change happens. You show up, commit to the work with an open mind, and I will move you through it.
My approach is empathetic, intentional, and warm. You can trust that I won’t let things get too heated, and I’m not afraid to interrupt to ensure we stay on track. I am not a “smile and nod” therapist. You can also trust that I won’t serve as a judge, handing down rulings or taking sides. In couples therapy, I see your relationship as my client. My job is to help the two of you feel into the connection that’s there in new ways.
Our work is confidential and private. I don’t work with insurance, and there is no diagnostic paper trail following you.
Many of my clients wait too long to reach out. They are waiting for things to get better with time, or worry that reaching out means they can’t handle this on their own. That they’ve failed, when they pride themselves on handling so much. The truth is, time alone doesn’t improve your connection, but it can entrench disconnection and resentment. Reaching out for evidence-based support isn’t failure - it reflects your strong commitment to health and your recognition that there’s an efficient path to healing available to you.
What Getting Better Looks Like
Not a whole new life, but a new way of being in it. Together.
When your child wakes up sick, it starts to feel like you’re on the same team strategizing together. When work means you have to miss something important, you can lean into trusting that you’ll find a way to reconnect. The resentment fades when you know how to reassure one another in new ways, and ask for what you need more clearly.
What you want is for both of you are able to ask for what you want and know your partner will respond calmly. Or for both of you to both feel like your partner actually listens, that you can say what you need to say, share your feelings and solve problems together without things getting heated.
The goal of couples work isn’t zero conflict: all relationships include ruptures and repairs. But after therapy, every rupture doesn’t feel like proof that your entire life has to change before it can feel better. It brings the tension down.
What I hear clients say most often about our work together is that they start to feel that they’re “in it together” and the security they derive from that is an immense relief. The work demands don’t go away, but it all feels so much more doable now. They are free to do the work they’re meant to do in the world, for their patients, mentees, and colleagues. And they can enjoy their life with their partner at the same time.
If this would feel like a relief to you, schedule a 25 min consult today. I’m looking forward to connecting with you.
