David Gordon,
PsyD

Couples therapy offers partners a dedicated space to slow down, examine what is happening between them, and begin to understand the dynamics that have come to define their relationship. Whether a couple is navigating a specific crisis, struggling with longstanding conflict, or simply feeling that something has quietly eroded over time, therapy can help illuminate what lies beneath the surface and open the door to genuine change.

My approach to couples therapy is relational in orientation, drawing on psychodynamic and interpersonal frameworks to understand not just what a couple fights about, but why — and what those struggles reveal about each partner's history, needs, and ways of seeking connection. Most relational difficulties between partners are not simply matters of poor communication or incompatibility. They are often expressions of deeper longings, fears, and patterns that were shaped long before the two people ever met.

Couples therapy can be valuable at many different moments in a relationship — early on, when patterns are beginning to calcify; during periods of acute distress or rupture; or as a space for growth and deepening even when things are generally going well. I work with couples of all orientations, identities, and relationship structures.

Group psychotherapy is one of the most powerful and underutilized forms of psychological treatment available. While many people initially feel hesitant about sharing their inner lives in a group setting, the group itself becomes the primary instrument of healing — a living laboratory in which longstanding interpersonal patterns can be identified, understood, and changed.

My approach to group therapy is relational in orientation. This means that the focus is not simply on discussing problems from the outside world, but on what unfolds between group members in real time. The relationships that develop within the group — the feelings of closeness, envy, competition, vulnerability, and connection — reflect the same patterns that show up in members' lives outside the room.

In relational group psychotherapy, members are encouraged to notice and share their reactions to one another honestly and with curiosity. Over time, this creates opportunities to understand the impact we have on others, to receive genuine feedback, to practice new ways of relating, and to experience — perhaps for the first time — that it is possible to be truly known and still accepted.

This form of therapy is particularly well-suited to people who feel stuck in repetitive patterns in their relationships: difficulty with intimacy or trust, struggles with conflict or self-assertion, a sense of disconnection or loneliness, or a feeling that something always seems to go wrong in their connections with others. While the origins of these patterns may lie in early experience, the group offers a here-and-now context in which they can be worked through and transformed.