Couples Therapy
Every relationship goes through periods of difficulty. Whether you’re caught in repetitive conflicts, struggling to communicate without it escalating, feeling disconnected from your partner, or navigating a specific crisis, couples therapy offers a structured, evidence-based path toward understanding and change.
At Chicago Psychotherapy, our couples therapists use approaches with the strongest research support — Cognitive Behavioral Couples Therapy (CBCT) and Gottman Method Couples Therapy — to help partners break destructive patterns, rebuild trust, and develop the communication and emotional skills that sustain relationships over the long term. We also offer relationship enhancement work for couples who are not in distress but want to strengthen their connection, as well as specialized support for couples navigating the transition to parenthood or the impact of an individual mental health condition on the relationship.
How We Help Couples
Relationship Enhancement
Not every couple who comes to therapy is in crisis. Some couples seek out therapy proactively — to deepen their connection, improve their communication, or build a stronger foundation before challenges arise. Our relationship enhancement work is designed for couples who are generally satisfied in their relationship but want to invest in making it even better. This might include premarital counseling, communication skills work, or structured conversations designed to strengthen intimacy, shared meaning, and mutual understanding. We also plan to offer weekend intensive workshops focused on communication skills enhancement and relationship enrichment for couples seeking a concentrated, immersive experience.
Couples Therapy for Relationship Distress
When conflict has become frequent, communication has broken down, or trust has been damaged, couples need more than good intentions — they need new skills and new patterns. Our therapists use CBCT and Gottman Method approaches to help couples identify the negative interaction cycles that keep them stuck (criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling, contempt), understand the underlying emotions and unmet needs driving those patterns, and build concrete, practiced alternatives. Treatment addresses the specific issues each couple brings — whether that’s persistent conflict about parenting, finances, or household responsibilities; emotional disconnection and loneliness within the relationship; infidelity or breaches of trust; differences in sexual or emotional intimacy needs; difficulty navigating in-law or extended family dynamics; or decisions about the future of the relationship.
Our goal is not to take sides or determine who is “right.” It is to help both partners understand each other more fully and develop the capacity to repair when things go wrong — because they will, in every relationship. What matters is whether you can find your way back to each other.
Treatment of Individual Conditions in the Couples Context
Sometimes a mental health condition — anxiety, OCD, depression, or trauma — is significantly affecting the relationship, or the relationship dynamics are maintaining the individual’s symptoms. In these situations, treating the individual in isolation misses half of the picture.
Our team offers couples-based treatment using CBCT protocols specifically adapted for anxiety, OCD, depression, and trauma. This approach brings the partner into the treatment process — helping them understand the condition, recognize the ways they may be inadvertently accommodating or reinforcing symptoms, and learn to respond in ways that support recovery while protecting the relationship. For example, a partner of someone with OCD may have been providing extensive reassurance or participating in rituals without realizing it. Couples-based treatment addresses both the OCD and the relational pattern simultaneously.
Transition to Parenthood
The arrival of a child — whether first or subsequent — reshapes a relationship in profound and often unexpected ways. Sleep deprivation, shifting roles, changes in intimacy, and the sheer intensity of caring for a newborn can strain even the strongest partnerships. We have two clinicians on our team who are certified Perinatal Mental Health specialists (PMH-C), with specific expertise in supporting couples through this transition. Whether you’re expecting, newly postpartum, or struggling to find your footing as partners and parents, we can help you navigate the adjustment while protecting and strengthening your relationship.
Evidence-Based Couples Therapy
Cognitive Behavioral Couples Therapy (CBCT) is a structured, skills-based approach that helps couples identify the thoughts, behaviors, and communication patterns contributing to relationship distress — and replace them with more effective alternatives. CBCT has a strong evidence base for improving relationship satisfaction, reducing conflict, and addressing the impact of individual mental health conditions on the relationship. The majority of our couples therapists are trained in CBCT.
Gottman Method Couples Therapy is grounded in over four decades of research by Drs. John and Julie Gottman on what makes relationships succeed and fail. The Gottman approach helps couples build friendship and intimacy, manage conflict constructively, and create shared meaning. It provides a research-based framework for understanding the patterns that predict relationship breakdown — and the specific behaviors and practices that predict lasting satisfaction. Several members of our team have additional training in the Gottman Method.
Your therapist will draw on one or both approaches based on your specific needs, goals, and the issues you bring to treatment. Many couples benefit from a combination of the structured skills work of CBCT and the relationship-deepening framework of the Gottman Method.
Why Choose Chicago Psychotherapy for Couples Therapy
Evidence-based, not intuition-based.
Our couples therapists use structured, research-supported approaches — not generic talk therapy applied to two people in a room. CBCT and Gottman Method are among the most rigorously studied couples interventions available, and our team is specifically trained in both.
We treat the whole picture.
When individual mental health concerns are affecting the relationship — or when relationship dynamics are maintaining individual symptoms — we have the clinical expertise to address both simultaneously using couples-adapted protocols. This integration of individual and relational treatment is rare and deeply effective.
Perinatal expertise.
With two PMH-C certified clinicians on our team, we offer specialized support for couples navigating pregnancy, postpartum adjustment, and the transition to parenthood — a period when many couples struggle but few seek the specific help that exists.
LGBTQ+ affirming.
Our practice is committed to providing inclusive, affirming care to couples of all identities, orientations, and family structures.
Flexible format.
We offer weekly sessions, and will soon be offering weekend intensive workshops for couples who want a concentrated, immersive experience. We work with couples in person at our Lincoln Park location and via telehealth across Illinois.
Is Couples Therapy Right for You?
Consider reaching out if you and your partner find yourselves having the same argument repeatedly without resolution; if communication feels impossible or always escalates; if you feel emotionally disconnected, lonely, or like roommates; if trust has been damaged and you’re unsure how to rebuild it; if a mental health condition is creating strain in the relationship; if you’re navigating a major transition — new baby, job change, relocation, blended family; if you want to strengthen your relationship before problems develop; or if you’re unsure about the future of the relationship and want a structured space to explore that honestly.
You don’t have to agree about whether to come to therapy — it’s common for one partner to be more hesitant than the other. What matters is a willingness to show up.