Hi, I'm Carolyn
Therapist. Author. TEDx Speaker. Someone who has sat on both sides of this work.
I've spent more than 30 years helping people figure out how to love each other better. But before I was any good at that professionally, I had to learn it the hard way personally.
I know what it's like to be in a marriage that isn't working and to not quite understand why. I know the particular loneliness of being with someone and still feeling alone. And I know what it takes to do the hard, humbling work of building something different, because I've done it. My husband and I are both in second marriages, and we did not arrive here by accident.
That experience is in the room with me every time I sit down with a couple. Not as a story I tell, but as a kind of understanding that I think people feel.
I also work with women individually, and this work is close to my heart. So much of what gets in the way of a good relationship is the relationship we have with ourselves first. For women especially, midlife has a way of surfacing all of it: the identity shifts that come with an empty nest, a career change, or menopause. The quiet question of who am I now that I'm not needed in the same ways? I find this chapter of life genuinely fascinating. Full of grief, yes, but also full of possibility that most women haven't given themselves permission to claim yet.
I know this not just from my office but from my own life. Moving across the country in my fifties, leaving behind the community and identity I'd built over decades, cracked something open in me that I didn't see coming. I'm still in it. And honestly, that's made me a better guide for women who are in it too. I'm not standing at the finish line waving you through. I'm on the path.
My clients would also confirm that I'm pretty funny. I find the humor in hard situations. I'm direct without being harsh. I'll tell you what I see, I'll push back when I need to, and I genuinely believe that most people who are willing to do this work get somewhere they never expected.
What I actually do
My work with couples is built on PACT (the Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy, developed by Dr. Stan Tatkin). It's a neuroscience and attachment-based approach that works in real time, in the room, with what's actually happening between the two of you, not just what you report happened at home.
For women, the work looks different. We move at your pace, go where you need to go, and focus on what it means to have a genuinely good relationship with yourself. Your needs, your desires, your next chapter. Whether you're navigating menopause, an empty nest, a career shift, or simply a growing sense that something needs to change, this is a space to get honest about all of it without having to take care of anyone else in the room.
I'll also say this: I'm a native New Yorker (sarcasm and occasional profanity fully intact) and somewhere in the middle of my own midlife I found myself connecting to something larger. I wasn't expecting it. But I kept finding myself surrounded by women having the same quiet experience, in my community, in my office, in conversations that started practical and went somewhere else entirely. If you're feeling the pull to reconnect with who you actually are, to reclaim parts of yourself that got quietly set aside, or to finally feel like you belong to yourself again, I'd love to talk. You don't have to have it figured out to reach out.
On connection...and why it matters more than we think
In 2025 I spoke at TEDxHartford about something I've watched play out in my office for three decades: what happens to us when we stop being curious about each other, and what becomes possible when we start again.
If you want to get a feel for how I think before we ever meet, this is a good place to start.
A little more background
I grew up in circumstances that gave me an early education in what it feels like when family systems don't work, and a deep desire to understand why, and what could be different. That sent me into social work, where I spent my early career working with some of the most challenging youth in Washington State: kids in treatment foster care, children returning home after intensive psychiatric treatment, families that most people had given up on.
After several years as a therapist and then Clinical Director at the YMCA's mental health programs in Seattle, and a stint teaching graduate students at the Washington School for Professional Psychology, I opened my private practice in 2005.
I started with children and families. Then couples found me, or I found them. After training with Dr. Stan Tatkin, the founder of PACT, I was completely hooked. I've since trained extensively with Dr. Tatkin, contributed to the PACT Institute newsletter, and served as a PACT Institute Ambassador for two years. I'm currently a PACT Level 3 candidate, the highest level of training in this approach.
In 2025 I published Fire It Up: Four Secrets to Reigniting Intimacy and Joy in Your Relationship with Flashpoint Press.
Eighteen months ago, my husband and I relocated from Seattle to West Newbury, Massachusetts, five minutes off 95 and ten minutes from Newburyport, where I now see couples in person and virtually in Washington State and New York.
