Queer and Gay Couples Therapy in the Arts District, Downtown Los Angeles and Online
For couples navigating change, conflict, and the question of what comes next.
The love is still there. But so is the distance.
You wonder why you keep having the same argument. You don’t know why one of you always seems to shut down right when the other needs to connect. You’ve tried talking it through on your own, but find yourselves circling back to the same place.
Maybe you’re navigating a transition, a loss, an identity shift, a decision about your future together. You want to feel like a team as you go through this, but you have your doubts. Things between you feel okay for the most part, but you want them to be better. You know this will take intentional work.
In any relationship, conflict is inevitable.
Relationships are shaped by our histories — through time, intensity, and transition. The way you witnessed conflict growing up may influence how you approach it now. For those who grew up in immigrant homes, your parents' ideas of love and commitment may differ from your own. For Queer and Gay couples, there is an added layer: most of us grew up without relationship models that looked like ours, left to figure out the rest on our own.
Couples therapy with me is an opportunity to slow down, understand each other more deeply, and build new patterns together. Ones grounded in your shared values, your individual needs, and the relationship you actually want to have. Drawing on the Gottman Method and Internal Family Systems Therapy, I help couples move from recurring conflict to genuine understanding. Not just managing the problem, but transforming your day-to-day lives.
I SUPPORT COUPLES NAVIGATING:-
When one or both partners are exploring their gender identity or sexual orientation, a relationship can experience profound shifts — in dynamic, in language, in intimacy.
This is a space for both partners to be honest about their needs, their fears, and their hopes.
My clients navigating this together share feeling better able to communicate openly, develop a shared understanding of identity development, and clarify what this transition means for their relationship.
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Whether you are moving in together, deepening your commitment, or building an ethical non-monogamy structure that works for everyone involved — this transition deserves more than momentum.
Couples therapy at this stage helps you develop a shared vision, build the communication patterns that will carry you through hard times, and have the honest conversations that most couples put off until they become problems.
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Loss takes many shapes — miscarriage, stillbirth, infertility, a partner's terminal diagnosis, the slow grief of chronic illness, the anticipatory loss that comes with aging. These experiences leave couples holding grief, trauma, and complex decisions with very little space to grieve openly or together.
Therapy at this stage creates room to process what you are carrying, stay connected to each other through it, and begin to imagine what life can hold on the other side.
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Whether you are building a family together, navigating what it means to build a life within, or intentionally apart from, each other's families, or raising a child outside of heteronormative and gender-prescriptive expectations — this is a space for clarity, honest conversation, and the confidence to trust your own path.
I help couples feel grounded in who they are and what they are building together, prepared for the relational and institutional challenges that come with being a queer family, and empowered to create a home where every person in it feels genuinely safe and celebrated.
What to expect
After your initial free consultation, the first two sessions focus on understanding the history of your relationship and what's brought you to this moment. In the third session, I share my observations and work with you to develop goals and a clear path forward.
From there, our sessions focus on building the skills, understanding, and communication tools that allow you to work as genuine partners — through conflict, transition, and change.
I offer 55-minute sessions and 75-minute sessions. Session lengths and rates are listed on the Contact + Fees page.
Trust is to human relationships what faith is to gospel living. It is the beginning place, the foundation upon which more can be built. Where trust is, love can flourish.
— Barbara Smith
Your relationship deserves the same care you give everything else in your life.
Offering in-person Queer and Gay Couples Therapy in the Arts District / Little Tokyo, Downtown Los Angeles — and online throughout California.