Annie Harton Kassell

Approach Description: The Gottman Method Couples Therapy: Gottman Method comes out of decades of research watching what actually keeps couples together and what quietly pulls them apart. In practice with me, that means we do not just talk about your problems in the abstract. We look at how you two actually interact: the way conflict starts, the moments connection gets missed, the small patterns that add up over years. You will learn to spot the difference between the fights that are really about the dishes and the ones that are about feeling unseen. We build the friendship and trust underneath the relationship, not just the conflict skills on top of it. The goal is not a couple who never argues. It is a couple who can argue and still feel like they are on the same side. Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT): EFT works from a simple truth: underneath most of the fights is a quieter question, "Are you there for me? Can I count on you?" So we do not stay on the surface of who left the dishes or who said what. We slow down and find the raw spot the argument keeps hitting, usually a fear of being too much, or not enough, or alone in it. Most couples are not fighting because they stopped caring. They are fighting because the old way of reaching for each other stopped working. EFT helps you find a new way in, one where you can be honest about what you actually need without it turning into a war. When that shifts, the constant conflict tends to lose its fuel. Family Systems: No one struggles in a vacuum. You are shaped by the family you grew up in and the one you are building now, by patterns that go back further than you realize. A family systems approach means we do not treat your struggle as something wrong with you in isolation. We look at the whole picture: the roles you got handed young, the loyalties and expectations you carry without naming them, the way one person's pain ripples through everyone else. Sometimes the thing that will not budge in you makes complete sense once we see the system it grew in. Understanding that does not excuse anything. It just gives you somewhere real to start. Christian Counseling: For some clients, faith is not a side topic. It is the ground they stand on, and they want a therapist who can hold that with them rather than around it. If that is you, I can bring a Christian understanding of your worth into our work, and prayer or Scripture when you want it. I am Catholic, and I do this with care, never pressure. Faith here is always an invitation. If you would rather keep it out of the room, that changes nothing about how welcome you are or how seriously I take your work. You do not have to believe anything in particular to sit down with me.