Currently Accepting New Clients for In-Person Therapy In Massachusetts,
and Virtual Therapy in New York, and Washington State.
You love each other. That's not really the question.
The question is why it sometimes feels like you're two people running parallel lives: busy, competent, caring, but not quite together in the way you want to be. The spark isn't gone, exactly. It's more like you can't always find it. Conversations stay surface-level. Physical closeness comes and goes. You're great partners in the logistics of life, but you miss being great partners in each other.
You're not in crisis. You don't need to be rescued. You just want more: more connection, more ease, more of that feeling of being deeply known by the person you chose.
Sometimes that work happens with your partner in the room. And sometimes a woman needs to start with herself first.
This isn't your typical couples therapy
Most couples therapy asks you to talk about your relationship. What we do goes deeper than that.
Using PACT (aka the Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy), I work with couples in real time, in the room, watching how your nervous systems respond to each other in the moment.
We look at the patterns underneath your patterns: why certain things land as criticism even when they weren't meant that way, why one of you withdraws when the other reaches out, why the same conversation keeps ending the same way.
Sessions are 90 minutes to three hours, which means we go deep enough in a single meeting to actually shift something. Most couples work with me once or twice a month. Many also choose an intensive, three consecutive days at my office near Newburyport, when they want to go further, faster.
The goal isn't a perfect relationship. It's a secure one, where you feel genuinely close, fight fairly and repair quickly, and actually look forward to spending time together again.
And....if you're a woman who wants to do this work on your own, I offer individual therapy too. Same depth, same directness, just you.
You Understand Each Other.
Including yourself. When you understand what drives your own patterns, everything shifts, in your relationship and in your life.
You stop having the same fight
With your partner, with yourself, with the story you've been telling about who you are and what's possible for you.
You Remember Why
Why you chose each other. Who you were before life got loud. And who you still want to be.
On connection, and why it's worth fighting for
I recently spoke at TEDxHartford about something I've spent 30 years watching in my office: when we stop being curious about each other, we stop being connected. And when we stop being connected, everything else gets harder.
If you want to know how I think about relationships before we ever meet, this is a good place to start.
Hi, I'm Carolyn
I'm a woman in midlife. I'm also a therapist, author, and TEDx speaker with more than 30 years of experience helping people figure out how to love each other and themselves better.
I'm also someone who knows firsthand what it's like to love someone and still get it wrong, and how to do the hard, humbling work of building something better. That experience is in the room with me every time I sit down with a couple.
I recently moved to West Newbury with my husband, and I see couples in person at my office near Newburyport and virtually in Washington State and New York.
I'm direct. I bring humor to hard conversations. And I genuinely believe that most couples who want to do this work can get somewhere extraordinary.
"Carolyn, you were amazing. Present, solid, unbiased, intelligent, engaged. So, so helpful for both of us and that's a f***ing miracle. 🩷" — J & M
Ready to feel that way again?
The first step is just a conversation. Reach out and we'll talk about what you're looking for and whether this is the right fit.
In-person sessions near Newburyport, MA. Virtual sessions in Washington State and New York.