Our couples therapists help partners navigate:

• Infidelity, betrayal, and rebuilding trust

• Communication breakdowns and recurring arguments

• Sexual intimacy, mismatched desire, and sexual identity exploration

• Co-parenting challenges, blended families, and family-of-origin patterns

• Considering separation, divorce, or opening the relationship

• Healing from addiction, grief, infertility, chronic illness, or shared trauma

If you’re unsure whether we can help with what you’re going through, contact us for a free consultation. 

While trauma may not have originated from a current relationship or be occuring actively in the present, it undeniably affects current relationships and shows up in the present. Trauma affects an individual’s ability to recognize their own emotions, respond to their emotions, regulate themselves,  communicate clearly, show up with vulnerability in a relationship, and separate what is “theirs” or resulting from past trauma to what is “their partner’s” or resulting from a partner’s past trauma. When you have one or two individuals in a couple who have experienced trauma, it affects the dynamic significantly. While it is each individual’s responsibility to take accountability for their actions and choices in a relationship, doing this work together as a couple can help strengthen connection and open up opportunities to have vulnerabilities validated and held by a partner in ways that are healing and transformative for each of you.

Watch Hill Therapy works with couples and families who have experienced ongoing complex trauma as well as single-event traumas within relationships with their current partners, previous partners, or family of origin.

This might include experiences such as:

• Childhood Trauma, Abuse, or Neglect

• Sexual Abuse, Sexual Assault, Physical Abuse

• Emotional Abuse & Neglect

• Witnessing violence & unhealthy relationship patterns in caretakers and trusted adults 

• Shame, Self-Blame, Self-Criticism

• Anger, Blame & Criticism 

• Chronic Relationship Problems

• Dissociation

• Emotional Distress, Emotional Trauma & Dysregulation

• Substance Misuse, Addictions, and Infidelity

• Financial Distress & Financial Infidelity

• Emotional Ruptures, Mutual Triggering, Triggering & Trauma Responses

• Communication Difficulties

• Defensiveness, & Withdrawal

• Anxiety & Avoidance

Studies suggest that up to 70% of couples experience positive effects from therapy. In our experience, the success of couples therapy depends on each partner’s commitment to the process, the types of issues you’re experiencing, the fit between therapist and clients, and how you define “success.”

No. We work with couples in every stage and configuration: dating, engaged, married, long-distance, polyamorous, ethically non-monogamous, cohabiting, or somewhere in between. If you consider yourselves a couple and you want the relationship to grow (or to make a thoughtful decision about its future), we're here for you. 

Trauma focussed relationship therapy involves doing couple or family therapy that is trauma-informed. This means prioritizing safety both physically and emotionally for everyone in the room. Trauma often makes it difficult to differentiate between what is safe and what feels safe, and both of these are crucial to building relational safety. Without relational safety, each individual will not be able to meet one another authentically and with vulnerability, which is what is needed to build a genuine connection. 

Rather than approaching the process with blaming, shaming, or deciphering who is in the right or who is in the wrong, we bring attention to what is actually happening in the space together and seeking to understand why and where those patterns are coming from. Patterns are not created in isolation, and so it takes the awareness and mindfulness of each person to respond differently in order to create a changed dynamic. This starts with prioritizing safety, autonomy, and presence for each partner.

When one or both partners do not feel safe in the relationship, they might react in a number of different ways they may have learned from previous relationships  in order to maintain a sense of control and distance from potential relational pain, including defensiveness, criticism, anger, withdrawal, or dissociation. And these reactions naturally trigger a protective reaction from the other partner, and the cycle of defense and attack keeps the two from engaging in real connection at whatever level they feel comfortable to do so. 

We approach this pattern with curiosity and inquiry-not a demand that it cease immediately. We trust that these reactions are there for a reason and emerged to protect an individual at some point in their life. But we do inquire and reflect into whether these strategies are still useful in the current relationship and whether another one might be more useful. We provide a nonjudgemental space for each individual, together, to reflect on how they experience the relationship, how it impacts them, and how they would like to be in the relationship differently.

Yes. Our office in the heart of downtown Chicago, at 25 E Washington St, offers a warm, private space for in-person couples sessions. We also offer fully virtual and hybrid couples therapy, so you can choose the format that fits your schedules, your commute, and your comfort level.

Couples therapy is sometimes covered by insurance, though specific coverage varies significantly by plan. We are in-network with BCBS PPO and can provide superbills for out-of-network reimbursement with other carriers. Many insurance companies don't reimburse for relational or couples codes specifically, so we recommend calling your plan directly to ask about covered services before your first session.