Get to Know Meghan Semler
Tell us a little about you. I was born and raised near Philadelphia and attended undergrad at Kenyon College where I played soccer, studied Chinese Religions, and spent a semester abroad in Taiwan. After college I worked at a brokerage firm in DC and then for the...
5 tips to improve communication in your relationship
Is your relationship stuck in a rut because of issues you are ignoring? It doesn’t have to be this way. By learning to communicate better with your partner, you can address issues before they become problems and provide needed emotional reassurance. Even couples who...
FIVE HABITS THAT HELP TO MANAGE CONFLICTS
People used to believe that highly satisfied couples had very few disagreements and very little conflict. But when relationship researchers measured the incidence of disagreements, they discovered that highly satisfied couples disagree just as often as other couples....
FOUR HABITS THAT DAMAGE RELATIONSHIPS
Marriage researcher John Gottman’s groundbreaking work on how couples interact revealed the four most common interactional patterns that damage relationships. While everyone exhibits these behaviors sometimes, when they become habitual, they are damaging to the...
BIDS FOR ATTENTION AND CONNECTION
What is a “bid” and how do you make one? Marriage researcher John Gottman calls bids the “fundamental unit of emotional communication.” Bids are actions that people take to connect to or to gain the attention of their partner. Bids can take many forms: pointing at...
ATTACHMENT STYLES
Attachment for Survival Many people are aware of typical survival routines like fight, flight, or freeze. Someone becomes angry and they take an aggressive stance. Someone becomes frightened and they run away. Someone becomes horrified and they freeze. Lesser known as...
Why Change Feels So Hard
Coming to therapy can feel really hard. What usually brings us to therapy is the feeling of being out of control in some way and not knowing a way to change. One person might be in a series of unstable relationships. Another might not be able to stop drinking. And...
What is Couples Therapy and How Can It Help Me?
When I tell people that I am a couples therapist, they have all sorts of questions. In today’s post, I thought I would write about the questions I’m asked most frequently about couples therapy and share how I answer them. Who should go to couples therapy? There are...
