Marriage Counseling in Hoboken

Licensed Psychotherapist
More than 10 Years Experience
Near Hoboken PATH & Light Rail Station

Sometimes life’s changes can seem overwhelming.  Making the right decision about marriage, starting a family, or just keeping the relationship you have intact may be the most important step you ever undertake.  Knowing how to nurture a good relationship, or deal effectively with a troubled one, can be difficult — and sometimes agonizing. A marriage counselor needs to be a good fit with both partners and needs to have an outlook that works for the couple.

Beginning with the first session, I seek to help both partners feel comfortable and emotionally safe enough to explore the difficult issues that bring people to marriage counseling. I use a “systems” approach which basically assumes that each partner shares in the problem and also in its solution. In this approach there are no victims and no villains. I serve as the therapist to the relationship, rather than as a therapist to either individual; so my role is to help coach each partner to discover new ways of relating, to make it more likely that each one can get his/her emotional needs met in a healthy, sustainable way.

Partners come into marriage counseling with a variety of issues to address including communication and conflict resolution, sexual and intimacy issues, fighting and anger problems, identity and role conflict, dependence vs. independence, religion, ethics and values, jealousy, parenting, infidelity, money and finances, family and in-law struggles, step family issues, gender roles, infertility, adoption, and many more.

I help couples with these difficulties by working with them to explore the emotional meaning of the conflict, that is, helping them become aware of influences from the past that have lead to this present situation, clarifying each partner’s perception of the present situation, and finally by illuminating each partner’s goals for the future. We then work to move toward those goals by helping to enhance communication, problem solving and conflict resolution skills.

Please feel free to contact me with any specific concerns you
have and to discuss ways she can help you work toward
your goals for a happier, healthier relationship.

Lani Sommer-Padilla, MSW, LCSW
Licensed Clinical Social Worker