Michelle and Barack: The Perfect Imperfect Love Story
Dr. Michele Marsh is a licensed psychologist and certified sex therapist at Council for Relationships’ Center City Office. Dr. Marsh is also the Director of the Sex Therapy Track in the Master’s in Family Therapy Program in partnership with Thomas Jefferson University. Pictures of President Obama and Michelle Obama glow with energy and broad smiles,…
Read MoreMy Message to Women: You do not have to suffer in silence
Elyse Stein Batoff, Psychologist, LMFT has years of experience working in the area of Women’s Psychological Health Services. She has offered the emotional support that has been needed by many women as they go through physical changes and issues ranging from infertility, pregnancy, postpartum depression, sexual concerns, and menopause. Collaboration with physicians such as OB/GYN’s…
Read MorePlanning a Wedding? Here’s Why You Should Go to Premarital Counseling
Wanda Sevey, MDiv, LMFT helps individuals, couples, and families with communication and relationship skill building. She is trained in Emotionally Focused Therapy and highly skilled at coping with stress, anxiety, and depression. You just announced your marriage engagement. Congratulations! As you prepare for your wedding, be sure to place premarital counseling near the top of your to-do…
Read MoreLike Great Wine, Sex Can Get Better with Age: Strategies for Satisfying Sex Throughout Your Entire Life
Staff Therapist Dr. Alishia Kalos is a licensed psychologist with specialized experience in addressing sexual and relational concerns such as intimacy, communication, desire, arousal, satisfaction, pain, relationship contract negotiation, unusual sexual interests, and sexual behavior challenges. Alishia sees clients at our Center City and Paoli locations. Sexual health and intimacy are core elements of…
Read MoreWhy Most Relationship Problems Can’t Be Solved
Relationships naturally ebb and flow. Even for the most intimate and closest of partners, communication can break down and devolve into conflict, leading to resentment and stress. How do you keep love alive even when you disagree? You probably have a few regular issues in your relationship that come up on a regular basis. One of you…
Read MoreHappily Ever After Requires Hard Work
Staff Therapist Dr. Rita DeMaria, PhD, LMFT, CST specializes in working with individuals and couples who are struggling with relationship, marital and sexual issues. You meet the right person and fall in love, you marry and live happily ever after… Or do you? Finding Mr. or Ms. Right is a story many of us long…
Read More9 Communication Tips for Couples
Your greatest contribution to effective communication is clarity, focus, and non-defensiveness; your second greatest is support for your partner in providing the same. Here are some specific tips: Take responsibility for yourself. When you have an issue, speak up. Don’t expect your partner to guess or know what you like, want, feel, or need. Don’t…
Read MoreA Couples Therapist’s Guide to Enhancing Intimacy
Intimacy is at the heart of a strong relationship, and sex in a loving relationship should be the physical embodiment of intimacy that comes from a place of love and connection. Intimacy can be cultivated in many ways, such as spending quality time together, enjoying physical, non-sexual contact, or enjoying shared interests and listening to…
Read MoreLove and Marriage: Sex and Sensuality are Keys to Success
Dr. Rita DeMaria is a staff therapist and Director of Healthy Relationships and Wellness at Council for Relationships. With Valentine’s Day coming up, it’s a perfect time for couples to assess the sensuality and intimacy levels in their relationship. Many couples put their intimate sensual and sexual relationship on the back burner and then wonder…
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Tune Out Technology and Tune Into Love
As technology and culture evolve, environmental distractions abound. Individuals are becoming connected to the digital world at a mind-blowing pace with innumerable opportunities for entertainment and social connection through one’s cell phone or other digital device. This is often seen gazing out across a busy restaurant, bar, or other social arena where both sole individuals…
Read MoreSeparation and Divorce
While counseling frequently helps couples to make their marriages more satisfying, there are also times when counseling can help a couple to decide that they need to bring their marriage to an end. Sometimes people learn in the process of therapy that unresolved conflicts have been left unaddressed for so long that the damage to…
Read MoreWhat “We Need Help Communicating” Usually Means
It’s not unusual for couples to notice that they’ve drifted apart after a few years of being together. They gradually notice that they love one another but no longer feel ‘in love’ and miss the closeness they once shared. They remember that when they first met they could spend hours talking and listening to each…
Read MoreIt’s Just Marriage
We’re quickly arriving at a moment in time when we won’t be talking about “gay marriage” anymore because there won’t be a distinction between “gay marriage” and “marriage.” When the Supreme Court declined to take up the issue of same sex marriage last week the effect was to let stand state laws that will lead…
Read MoreReauthor Your Sex Story
All sorrows can be born if you put them in a story or tell a story about them. ―Isak Dinesen Sex therapy clients have usually done their own research, mining the Internet and talking to friends in an effort to solve their problem before coming to the wise decision that it might be helpful to…
Read MoreConfusing the Symbolic with the Real in Coping with Sexual Infidelity
April Westfall, PhD is a Licensed Psychologist & Senior Staff Therapist in the University City and Wynnewood Offices. With our divorce rate for first-time marriages in the US continuing to hover around 50% – and even higher for those previously married couples – not surprisingly, many newlyweds look to the ceremony itself as if it were…
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Should We Have More Sex? Part 1: Let’s Talk About It
As a sex therapist and educator, I am frequently reminded that our society remains seriously ambivalent about sex. The dominant culture of our time is both fascinated by and repelled by sex. We are bombarded with sexual images, videos, lyrics, billboards and entire TV shows such as “Strange Sex”. From this we can determine that…
Read MoreMoving Beyond the Betrayal: Why Some Couples Are Able to Get Past a Partner’s Infidelity More Easily than Others
Infidelity and affairs in marriage and our committed relationships have been around forever and will continue to be so. No couple, however happy and well suited to each other, can completely escape the possibility of it happening to them. Most affairs are conducted in secret and end of their own accord without being brought to…
Read MoreA Little Distance Can Make the Heart Grow Fonder
One of the great joys of working with couples in therapy is coaching them on strategies to remove the obstacles that are keeping them from the happy, intimate relationship they are wanting for themselves. It may sound strange but one path to greater closeness is a little distance. I don’t mean separate vacations or any…
Read MoreGrowing Closer – How Couples Become Their Own Counselors
Of all the ways partners can grow closer to one another, the most important one is to speak and listen to one another from their hearts. One sure sign of this kind of communication is when I hear a husband say “I could see that my wife was angry but I suspected that she was…
Read MoreWhat to do When Your Friends are Getting a Divorce (Part 3)
In parts one and two, we touched on some ways for Ann to explore and cope with her experience of Mary and Andy’s divorce. This last part will look at the possible impact on Ann’s relationship with her own husband, since one of her worries was that this might happen to her and Jim. STAY…
Read MoreWhat to do When Your Friends are Getting a Divorce (Part 2)
In Part 1, we noted some of the feelings which Ann might experience as she copes with the news that her friends, Mary and Andy are in the process of divorcing. In the second of our three articles, we will look at some of the issues which might come up for Ann as she experiences…
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