The Better Therapy Difference:
Our Clinicians:
Rune Moelbak, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and certified emotionally-focused couples therapist in the Houston, Texas area. He is the founder of Better Therapy PLLC, and has more than 10 years of experience providing therapy for adults and couples. He has received training in the Gottman Method and Emotionally-Focused Couples Therapy (EFT), two of the most effective couples therapy approaches. He is the author of many articles published in psychological journals and is the author of the relationship blog “Couples Insight”. He is a clinical supervisor at the University of Houston and has taught doctoral level courses in personality assessment. He is committed to providing the highest quality of couples therapy and has specialized knowledge about the many ways couples struggle. To familiarize yourself with his ideas about relationships, visit his couples blog or sign up to get his FREE guide to making relationships work.
Approach to Couples Therapy:
Gottman Method Couples Counseling
John Gottman is one of the foremost researchers of relationship distress. His close observations of successful and unsuccessful couples in their own living environments has led him to identify the key behaviors that lead to relationship success, and the key behaviors that predict divorce and break-ups.
Gottman Method Couples Counseling consists of teaching you the skills Gottman found successful couples used, and stopping those behaviors Gottman found predicted divorce.
Gottman Method Couples Counseling is based on research of what works and what doesn't work, and is one of the most acclaimed methods in the couples therapy field today.
The therapy itself is skills-based and is designed to help you learn and practice methods to get to know each other at a deeper level, communicate in ways that get you heard without making your partner defensive, and negotiate conflict areas that currently have you gridlocked.
The Gottman Method helps you build a stronger set of skills designed to strengthen your friendship with your partner, reduce conflict, and envision a shared plan for the future. These are all elements Gottman's research found to be important for a strong and healthy relationship or marriage.
If you would like to learn more about the Gottman Method, you can read our blog post:
Emotionally-Focused Couples Therapy (EFT)
EFT is a couples therapy method that is rooted in a theory of relationship distress that is based on "attachment theory". Attachment theory proposes that all human being are born with an innate need to bond to others as a means of comfort, security, and survival. This need is assumed to be as essential as the need for oxygen or the need for food. Without a secure bond to others, people become depressed, anxious, or distressed, and tend to numb out or become angry and push others away
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) is a method that helps couples in distress identify the different ways in which they threaten the attachment security of their partner and protect against their own attachment anxieties. Couples are helped to see their anger or their tendency to withdraw in the greater context of their attachment patterns and gain the tools to make more conscious decision about how they relate and how they can get their needs met
Once partners become more aware of their underlying needs, fears, and longings, they are helped to communicate with each other on the basis of these more tender and vulnerable emotions. This draws them closer to each other and strengthens their relationship bond. Now instead of relating through their anger or anxieties, couples instead relate by asking for what they really need, and they become able do so in a way that makes their partner listen to them, rather than become defensive or withdraw
To this day, Emotionally-Focused Couples Therapy is one of the only couples therapy approaches that has substantial research support documenting that it really works. Research has shown that upon completed treatment, 70-75% of couples move from distress to recovery, and approximately 90% show significant improvements
> Click here to read more about the research support for EFT