Our approach
Three traditions,
one steady conversation.
Adlerian Individual Psychology
Alfred Adler believed we each live by a private logic — a set of quiet conclusions about what we must do to belong and matter. In a couple, two private logics are constantly negotiating. Joanna helps each of you say yours out loud, so the other can finally see the rule you've been following.
Adler's antidote was social interest: the courage to belong, contribute, and move toward something larger than yourself. In couples work that becomes shared purpose — the thing the two of you are building, and the encouragement you offer each other along the way.
Attachment-based EFT, after Dr. Sue Johnson
Most fights are not really about the dishes. They are protests against disconnection. Joanna slows the exchange down until the negative cycle becomes visible — the pursue and withdraw, the criticize and shut down — and names the cycle as the shared enemy rather than one of you.
Then she goes underneath the reactive feeling to the primary one: the fear of being too much, the fear of not being wanted. That's where reaching for each other becomes possible again.
IFS-informed parts language
Internal Family Systems offers a kinder grammar: it isn't that you are defensive, it's that a part of you steps forward to protect something tender. Joanna speaks that way on purpose. It's much easier for your partner to be curious about a protective part than to be accused of a character flaw — and easier for you to hear, too.
What a session actually looks like
- 1. One of you brings the moment — a snap, a silence, a decision you keep circling.
- 2. Joanna reflects it back at attachment level and checks she has it right.
- 3. She turns and makes specific room for the other partner.
- 4. She names where you already agree, even when the tone hides it.
- 5. She offers one small shared experience to try before the next session.
- 6. When you're ready, she writes you a reflection you can both keep.