Looking for marriage counselor recommendations
Hi there,
Can you please recommend a marriage counselor that actually saved your marriage/got results for you? And hopefully didn’t take 10 years to get to that point? Looking for someone not super far from Berkeley.
Thanks so much!
Feb 24, 2024
Parent Replies
I don't have a specific counselor to recommend to you. I will recommend that you look into The Gottman Institute, and a counselor trained in the Gottman method. It's a rigorously studied, evidence-based approach to relationship counseling. The counselor my former spouse and I worked with started off with having us read The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work. I found it very helpful. Had we worked through it with her support, we might have had a chance at staying together. Unfortunately, my former spouse did not engage and the counselor didn't address his avoidance. We divorced. Reading the book helped me realize just how dysfunctional my marriage was and made it easier for me to accept the divorce. I wish we would have gotten help much sooner. I wish you and your spouse the best.
https://www.drmarydeyo.com/
she is great and we've worked with her for a few years.
Saved my marriage: Dr. Hans Stahlschmidt
https://www.stahlschmidt-therapy.com/
He's also a house painter, in case you need literal work on your home.
Dr. Jacob Ofman helped us immensely at a time when we were desperate, and very close to splitting up our marriage and family. We saw him from late 2007 through 2008, with a few one-off check-ins after that in 2009 and 2012. We found Jacob after seeing another therapist from 2005 to 2007, who did so much damage to me and our marriage. Jacob has a gift of creating a space for each partner in a couple to unpack what's real and painful for them while holding the other partner's reality--which may be quite different--with equal compassion and respect. Jacob also gave my spouse and me tools that allowed us to make fundamental behavioral changes individually that supported our relationship. All these years later, my spouse and I are happy in our marriage, so glad we fought through the bad years, and grateful to have gotten the (time-consuming, expensive, painful, eye-opening, radically impactful) help we needed. Our kids tell us often how lucky they feel to have parents who are together and like each other!
Jacob's contact info:
5299 College Ave. Suite C
Oakland, CA 94618
510-339-3090