Couples counseling/marriage therapy has been a primary specialty area for Dr. Lepage, and remains one of her favorite things to do. She has worked with young couples in their teens, early married couples, mid life couples with and without children, and retired couples in their 70s. Her approach to couple's therapy is active, interactional, and problem-solving based while also being realistic and grounded in empathy. Using an active style, she listens intently to the communication content and patterns, and intervenes to help couples become aware of their unhealthy patterns and learn new ones. Building on this she uses an in-session interactional approach, prompting and guiding couples though difficult conversations and the practice of new skills. A scientific trial-and-error tact is taken to potential solutions, as ideas developed in-session are assigned for use between sessions to best determine what is effective for each unique couple. Having done couple's counseling and marriage therapy for many years, Dr. Lepage understands and is empathetic to both male and female perspectives, and works to develop empathy between the couple, as well as realistic expectations of self and others. Lastly she aims to help each person regain a sense of contentment and happiness with self, the relationship, and life in general. At Lepage Associates, as a senior clinician in couple's work, Dr. Lepage provides peer supervision to the other psychologists, and often even when working more directly with another clinician (all skilled at couple's work in their own right!), you will also have Dr. Lepage's mind on your case as well.


Couples' issues are a special area of interest and expertise for Dr. Imbraguglio. Her doctorate in Clinical Psychology includes a minor in Interpersonal Dynamics, and she won the Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation award presented by the Virginia Consortium for Clinical Psychology for her research on relationship aggression. Through her research, she gained a specialized understanding of how the behavior displayed by an individual in a couple can affect his or her partner and change the level of aggression the couple experiences in the relationship. With this understanding, she has helped couples to break the unhealthy patterns they have developed and replace them with positive healthy ways of interacting. Specific areas of couples therapy for which Dr. Imbraguglio has experience include improving communication, moving past an affair or other break of trust, conflict management, setting boundaries with family members, increasing sexual and emotional intimacy, and balancing individual needs with the needs of the couple. She has worked with couples of many ages, from couples in their early 20s to couples in their 60s. She has also worked with couples in different stages of relationships, including helping couples decide to get married and preparing for marriage, helping couples navigate careers and children, to helping divorcing couples figure out what went wrong. Her experience with couples includes bi-racial and gay and lesbian couples as well.


Couples therapy is a specific interest for Dr. Molly Parks. She has assisted couples in working through family and relational aggression, increasing intimacy, improving communication, and effective co-parenting both within relationships and after divorce. She enjoys working with couples at all stages in their relationship. This includes improving and strengthening communication skills before entering into marriage and helping couples work through and take control of deep-seated patterns of behavior and communication styles than cause conflict after years of marriage or partnership. Dr. Parks is an active member of the American Family Therapy Academy, where she receives ongoing training on the most effective treatments for couples, and she enjoys challenging couples to work toward deeper and more fulfilling relationships. Dr. Parks has worked with couples of all backgrounds, and welcomes same sex-partnerships in her practice.


Dr. Kuzyszyn-Jones enjoys an early intervention, "preventive medicine" approach with couples experiencing difficulties. She encourages couples to come in early in their relationship to help develop excellent couple's communication and interaction skills. This also helps couples identify possible topics that may become problematic, and allows these concerns to be addressed sooner rather than later. When problems do occur, she encourages couples to come in as soon as they realize the problem is not alleviating quickly; research has shown that people who get help for problems early on are more successful and therapy takes less time. If individual issues such as depression, anger management, high emotionality, or substance abuse are impacting the relationship, Dr. Kuzyszyn-Jones can take a combined individual and couple's sessions approach to address these concerns. Dr. Kuzyszyn-Jones was trained in an integrative therapy model to include psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, family systems, and experiential theories and techniques, all of which she uses in providing therapeutic services for a wide variety of life challenges, to address the unique needs of each person and couple. Each client brings a very personal and individual set of needs and desires to their relationships and to the experience of therapy. Dr. Kuzyszyn-Jones is sensitive to these personal factors while helping her clients identify and focus on the specific problems that are affecting them in their relationship and daily lives.


Dr. Colleen Hamilton has experience working with couples with a range of issues, from those looking to solve a certain problem or improve their communication, to those who are questioning their relationship and its future. She is experienced in assisting couples explore their relationship to identify strengths, areas for growth, and common goals, to allow the couple to reestablish their connection, improve their interactions, and increase their satisfaction with the relationship. Communication training, self appreciation, and respect for their partner are large components of her interventions. When separation is being considered, Dr. Hamilton provides a safe, neutral, respectful environment in which the couple can work to determine not only how, but also if, they want their relationship to proceed.


As many people know all too well, being in a relationship is a risky business -- the immutable 50% divorce rate attests to that. How do you merge two distinct personalities into a thriving partnership that works well for both individuals? How do couples survive the inevitable crises that accompany that journey?  Dr. Karg agrees with the French writer André Maurois who once said, "A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day." Her goal is to help couples learn how to develop and maintain the skills that are used each day to develop and maintain a fulfilling relationship.

Dr. Karg offers innovative new strategies for strengthening good relationships and repairing troubled ones. Her approach to therapy is based on the scores of empirical research conducted by Dr. John Gottman (best known for his cutting-edge research on developing and maintaining happy marriages) and Dr. Marsha Linehan (best known for her unprecedented research on developing and maintaining skills for mindfulness, emotional regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, and distress tolerance). Couples therapy with Dr. Karg is solution-focused. Therapy sessions and homework assignments are focused on developing and practicing new and different coping skills to help couples gain knowledge and skills for how to think, feel, and respond in difficult situations, and how to maintain effective relationships. Examples of skills that are developed in couples therapy include: balancing emotions and logic; practicing self-care (e.g., eating right, getting enough sleep, exercise); being objective; identifying, describing and allowing yourself to experience emotions; having a non-judgmental stance with yourself or others; focusing on the here and now; being assertive and negotiating; being gentle, courteous, validating, and respectful toward your partner; and practicing acceptance.