I have been working with couples and families for over 25 years. I believe that couples are often locked in harmful patterns of anger and withdrawal. Couples have the best of intentions in try-ing to make things better on their own, only to feel like they get caught up in the same old pat-terns. I think each person has unfulfilled needs and wants which result in partners feeling unheard and misunderstood. These pent up frustrations can come out as anger, criticism, and even insults. I work with partners to communicate hurts and needs in a way that each person can listen to and in the process develop new methods of communicating. I am also interested in who were your models for communi-cating. Was it your parents or caregivers? If we understand where we learned our methods of communicating, we can gain awareness of how we recreate these patterns in our own relationships.