As the poet Rilke said, "Loving another person is the hardest work there is, such that all other work is mere preparation."

Dr. John Becker is a Licensed Psychologist and Certified Imago Relationship Therapist with over thirty years post doctoral experience available to help you with that work.

Couples Therapy

Are you in an important relationship that is stuck or in crisis?

It's been argued that 95% of marriages fail to achieve what we're all hoping for, to find true love. This failure rate is not because so many people have married the wrong person. This extremely high failure rate is due to the lack of knowledge that we all have when we enter into the most important relationship of our lives. Most try to compensate for this lack of knowledge by trying to use what they do know with more intensity. They become even more kind, more helpful, more critical, more deferential, more inquiring, or more withdrawn.

There are more effective and creative alternatives than trying the same approach with more and more effort or, if that approach fails, separating from your romantic partner. Psychological research in recent years has revealed proven strategies that lead to deepening safety, respect, joy, passion and love in romantic relationships. What's even more exciting is that these skills are very learnable.

While usually, consultations for couples are done on a weekly or biweekly basis, Dr. Becker also sees couples for "Compact Couples Counseling" in a private, two six-hour day format.

It is preferable that your partner actively participate in learning these skills with you from the beginning. However, you can learn how to, respectfully, invite your partner into deeper levels of emotional intimacy by learning these skills initially by yourself.

Dr. Becker's approach to Couples Therapy is especially cost effective because, rather than encouraging a continuing need for his advice, interpretations and arbitration, he helps you learn and master the skills necessary to dissolve conflict and create continuing emotional safety, joy, and passion in your relationship.

Divorce Counseling

If you've already decided to divorce, Dr. Becker offers a number of services that can help reduce unnecessary suffering for yourself, for your estranged spouse, and certainly for any children you may have.
This counseling can help you mourn, not only the loss of your marriage, but also the loss of the marriage you had hoped for. The counseling can help you reclaim the power of parts of yourself that may have been neglected during your marriage and help you develop an inspiring vision and plan for the future. If you have a child or children from the marriage, the counseling can help you learn how to create an optimum emotional "co-parenting climate" which is so critical for the future well being of children.


Pre Commitment/ Pre Marital Counseling

Ready to commit to your life partner?

Premarital counseling is arguably the wisest preparation for a life-long marriage that remains "full of life." It's also one of the best ways to avoid the documented fact that some 50% of first and some 63% of second marriages end in divorce. Learn the skills that are crucial to success in your marriage before the honeymoon ends.

A personal note frm Dr. Becker:

I grew up in a family and culture that was very private and viewed the normal experiences of fear, confusion and need for support of almost any kind as shameful and "weak." As a consequence, even though I was a psychologist myself, when my own marriage was in trouble in my early thirties, the idea of being "found out" or exposed as less than interpersonally skillful by my spouse in couples therapy, was terrifying. Of course, because it was shameful, I distracted myself from my fear by focusing on anything else....the expense, the time, my shame-based thinking  that the problem had to do with my spouse's personality, etc. All this to say that I know it can be difficult to walk into a therapist's office and that I respect and admire anyone who does.