MARISA GIULIANI-O’KEEFE
L.P.C., L.M.F.T., ED.S.
“A Contemporary Approach to Marriage Therapy”
Most Requested Couples Therapist in Essex County, NJ
DUE TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC, I WILL BE TAKING ALL SESSIONS VIRTUALLY FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE.
Couples Therapy
As a consumer, you have infinite options in terms of who you will see to save your marriage. I believe it is imperative that you a chose the right person for this very specific job. Unlike many of the therapists and counselors that you may interview, I do not see a broad range of client issues. I am a Couples Specialist and that is the primary work that I do.
My specialty is Couples therapy and I see between 25 and 35 couples per week. My education was specifically modeled in Marriage and Family therapy, and my residency and training was only with couples. I believe that this work is not for every counselor, nor should it be an option that counselors offer, who are not specifically trained to do it. Many times, these well-intentioned therapists do more harm to your relationship than they do help. On a weekly basis, I have numerous couples contact me who have seen other therapists for relationship counseling only to find themselves worse off than when they started. You will not find that here! Now, I cannot promise you that I can/will save your marriage, that depends on how invested both you and your partner are.
Couples therapy is hard work and as I tell most couples, staying together is often more difficult than just walking away from a relationship. Although, it is often one of the most painful events a family (children) can experience.
Couple’s therapy (or relationship therapy) is a subset of relationship counseling. It normally last six months and focuses on both the “here and now,” as well as, each partner’s past and how they each have learned to love. Couples therapy is more about seemingly intractable problems with a relationship history, where emotions are the target and the agent of change. My brand of Couples therapy is quite different from most others because I believe in a skills based approach to marriage and I believe that I can teach people how to be “better” at being in a relationship. I use a variety of techniques including: Emotionally Focused Therapy, Gottman Techniques, Imago Therapy, Love Mapping, Sex Training, and Generational Genograms just to name a few. My sense is, if you are willing to work at your marriage, than you will find success in my office.
Infidelity
Infidelity is one of the most difficult and all-encompassing events a person can encounter in their life time and it is about 1/3 of the population that I see each week. You are not alone and you have come to the right place to start the healing process. Extra Marital Affairs or EMA’s, are created through secrecy and a lack of transparency in a marital relationship. No one knows how many marriages are disrupted by affairs; estimates of lifetime incidence range from 30% to 70%. Affairs are a detonation to marital trust and commitment and leave those injured to experience intense shock and devastation.
Clients often experience hypervigilance, chronic anxiety and agitation, difficulty sleeping, vivid dreams or memories, and an overall feeling of confusion. It is imperative that the partners do not make any decisions and try to minimize the “acting out” that often accompanies the discovery of an affair. Children should not be privy to these parental matters and exposing them to this can be detrimental to them in later years.
If you have recently discovered that your partner has had an affair, then you are probably in an extreme state of panic and uncertainty. This is a reasonable place to be and you will most likely feel this way for at least six months. The most important thing that you can do for yourself is find a quality Marriage and Family Therapist, who can help you navigate the hurdles that are ahead of you. Not every couple will move forward, but statistics show that about 70% of couples often do. In fact, those couples that move through an affair often find that their marriages change for the better and that their overall marital satisfaction increases after they have been through marriage counseling. I am extremely experienced with marital affairs and have helped a great deal of couples conquer the most devastating situations with grace. Please contact me today if you need help with a marital affair.