Couples Therapy & Relationship Counseling
Every relationship has its own language, its own history, and its own way of breaking down. At Anchor Psychotherapy, Bren M. Chasse, LMFT offers couples and partners of all kinds a safe, affirming, and culturally attuned space to be fully known — and to do the real work of healing, reconnecting, and growing together.
Couples come to therapy for many reasons — persistent conflict, the aftermath of infidelity, a slow drift that's hard to name, or simply a desire to build something more solid before cracks become fractures. Sometimes couples arrive in crisis. Sometimes they arrive quietly — without a clearly identifiable issue, but a felt sense that something in the relationship needs tending. Regardless of the reason, Anchor Psychotherapy is committed to meeting you where you are – with empathy, zero judgment, and a genuine investment in your relationship's future.
Emotionally Focused & Attachment-Based Couples Therapy
At Anchor Psychotherapy, the foundation of couples therapy is structured though an emotionally focused and attachment-based lens.
When working with couples, one of the primary goals of treatment is to develop a more secure and resilient emotional connection with each other. Within this framework, emotions are understood as the primary drivers of behavior and communication in relationships. When partners feel emotionally unsafe, misunderstood, or disconnected, even small disagreements can escalate into deeply entrenched conflicts. Therapy creates the space to slow down those cycles — to identify and name what is actually being felt beneath the surface, understand the triggers and patterns driving reactive behavior, and develop healthier ways of expressing your needs to your partner.
Rooted in attachment theory is the understanding that our earliest relationships — with parents, caregivers, and significant others — shape how we relate to intimacy, conflict, and connection throughout our lives. Understanding your own attachment style and how it interacts with your partner's is often one of the most clarifying and transformative steps a couple can take. From there, the work turns to building more secure emotional bonds, repairing rupture from the past, and creating a relationship where both partners feel consistently seen, valued, and safe.
Couples Therapy After Infidelity: Healing Betrayal and Rebuilding Trust
Infidelity is one of the most painful experiences any relationship can endure — not only because of the breach of trust itself, but because of the deep, often invisible emotional wounds it leaves behind. As human beings, we are fundamentally wired for attachment. When that attachment is ruptured by betrayal, the emotional fallout can be enormous: pain, rage, shame, grief, profound disconnection, and a shattered sense of what was real.
From an attachment perspective, infidelity disrupts the core beliefs both partners hold about each other and about the relationship itself. The unfaithful partner may wrestle with guilt and shame in ways that make genuine accountability and empathy difficult — and that absence of empathy can deepen the wound for the partner who was betrayed, resulting in an attachment injury affecting how they relate to others long after the initial event.
Rebuilding a relationship after infidelity is possible — but it requires courage, commitment to repair—both individually and relationally. For couples committed to healing, this process involves strengthening the foundation of the relationship – deepining communication, rebuilding trust incrementally, learning new ways to support each other, and helping both partners understand the relational dynamics that contributed to the rupture. For couples committed to healing, the result can be a relationship that is not just restored, but meaningfully stronger than it was before.
Affirming Couples Therapy for All Relationship Structures
Anchor Psychotherapy is committed to ensuring every couple feels they are both understood and genuinely supported. Bren is committed to serving couples and partners of all backgrounds and relationship structures with the same level of respect, competence, commitment, and care. This includes LGBTQ+ couples, non-monogamous partnerships and polycules, people of color, sex workers, and couples navigating cultural or intergenerational challenges. Bren meets couples where they are and has expertise in working with partners amid complicated and high-conflict situations. Interventions are designed to ensure everyone in the therapy room feels seen, cared for, supported, and validated.
How Trauma and Complex PTSD Affect Romantic Relationships
Trauma, in all its forms, can poorly impact relationships, making it difficult for an individual to build healthy, secure attachments. For individuals who have experienced trauma, particularly complex or relational trauma (C-PTSD), the impact on intimate relationships can be profound and far-reaching. Trauma alters the nervous system in ways that can leave person feeling chronically hypervigilant, emotionally reactive, or shut down — responses that are deeply protective but that can create significant barriers to intimacy, vulnerability, and the ability to develop a secure connection.
For partners that carry a history of unresolved trauma, navigating intimacy can trigger feelings of anxiety, avoidance, confusion, or even feel threatening at times. Trauma can make it difficult to trust others and fuel distructive patterns of connection. Rather than simply managing the symptoms of trauma, Bren structures couples therapy in a way that is both trauma-informed and facilitates meaningful change.
Bren has a strong understanding and appreciation for the unique challenges that trauma survivors face in their relationships. At Anchor Psychotherapy, Bren integrates somatic, behavioral, and relational strategies to create a shame-free space where both partners can begin to feel safe and show up fully in their relationship—both for themselves and their partners.