You are not fighting about the dishes. You probably know that by now, even if it is hard to say out loud. The fight about the dishes, or the silence, or the way your partner pulls away exactly when you need them most, is about something much older than this relationship. It is about what you learned, often long before you ever met your partner, about whether people could be trusted to show up for you.

Attachment style is one of the most powerful and least visible forces operating in any intimate relationship. It shapes how you seek closeness, how you respond to conflict, how much distance you can tolerate before anxiety sets in, and how you interpret the thousand small signals your partner sends every day. Most people have never heard of attachment theory, or have heard of it only in passing, yet it is running in the background of nearly every significant exchange they have with the person they love.

If you feel caught in an anxious-avoidant relationship, where one of you reaches and the other retreats, this post is an invitation to understand what is actually happening beneath the surface, and what becomes possible once you do.

A Quick Refresher on Anxious and Avoidant Attachment

Attachment styles are the templates for closeness we form early in life, based on how reliably our caregivers responded to us. I cover all four styles, and where they come from, in What Are Attachment Styles? Here are the two that matter most for this post.

People with an anxious attachment style tend to crave closeness and fear abandonment. They are highly attuned to any hint of withdrawal, pursue contact when the relationship feels threatened, and have a difficult time self-soothing, so they rely on their partner to help them feel emotionally better.

People with an avoidant attachment style learned early that emotional needs were best managed alone. They value autonomy, can feel overwhelmed or even smothered by a partner’s emotional needs, and tend to withdraw and need alone time under stress. They may care deeply about their partner while struggling to express that care in moments of intimacy or conflict. Self-soothing comes more easily to them. What is harder is “inter-regulating,” or emotionally communicating with their partner in order to feel more calm together.

These strategies are not pathologies. They are intelligent responses to the conditions in which a child found themselves. The problem is that they tend to persist long past the context that created them.

The Anxious-Avoidant Relationship: One of the Most Common Couple Patterns

Of all the attachment combinations that appear in couples therapy, the anxious-avoidant pairing is one of the ones I see most often (opposites attract, as it were!). It is sometimes called the pursuer-withdrawer dynamic, and if you have ever felt like you are chasing a partner who keeps stepping back, or like you are being crowded by a partner whose needs you can rarely satisfy, you may recognize it immediately.

The dynamic works like this: The anxiously attached partner, feeling disconnection or threat, moves toward their partner, seeking reassurance, contact, or resolution. The avoidantly attached partner, feeling overwhelmed or crowded by the intensity of that approach, steps back, goes quiet, or focuses on something outside the relationship. This withdrawal triggers the anxious partner’s fear of abandonment or rejection, intensifying their pursuit. The intensified pursuit triggers the avoidant partner’s need for space, deepening the withdrawal, which further triggers the anxious partner’s frustration about unmet emotional needs. The cycle accelerates.

Neither person is wrong. Neither person is the villain. Each is responding, from their particular attachment history, to something that feels genuinely threatening. The anxious partner is not being dramatic; the threat of abandonment can feel very real to their nervous system. The avoidant partner is not being cold; the sense of overwhelm and the need to regulate through distance is real to their nervous system. Two people, each doing what their early experiences have taught them to do, together create a pattern that is very frustrating for both partners.

The anxious-avoidant dynamic is not a sign of incompatibility. It is a sign that two people with different nervous system histories have not yet found a shared language for what each of them needs. That language is learnable if partners are able to access empathy and take an overview perspective on their attachment dynamic.

The particularly painful irony of this pattern is that both the anxious and the avoidant partner often share the same underlying fear: the fear of being ultimately unlovable, unseen, or abandoned. They simply respond to that fear in opposite directions. One partner moves toward, while one moves away. The pursuit-withdrawal cycle is, at its root, two people expressing a similar wound in opposite registers.

How Attachment Style Creates Relationship Problems: Beyond the Obvious

Attachment style relationship problems are not limited to the obvious pursuit-withdrawal dynamic. Attachment patterns shape relationships in subtler ways that are worth naming.

• Conflict repair. Securely attached people tend to repair relatively quickly after disagreements, returning to warmth without needing an extended period of distance or extensive processing. Anxiously attached people often cannot settle until they feel the rupture is fully resolved and the relationship is stable again. Avoidantly attached people typically need a period of space before they can re-engage, which can be experienced by their partner as continued stonewalling even when it is actually de-escalation and self-regulation of their nervous system. These different repair rhythms create significant misattunement in couples where they are not understood.
• The interpretation of neutral events. Attachment style powerfully shapes how we interpret ambiguous signals from our partner. An anxiously attached person who receives a short, flat text response from their partner when they expected warmth may spend hours wondering what they did wrong. An avoidantly attached person who is asked a direct question about their feelings may experience the question as pressure or criticism rather than curiosity. Sometimes even seemingly ordinary events can lead to conflict because of a gap in the meaning each partner assigns to them.
• Intimacy and vulnerability. Secure attachment allows for genuine vulnerability, the capacity to share what is actually happening inside without excessive fear of how it will be received, while also not feeling the need to frequently express unmet needs. Anxious attachment can produce a flood of vulnerability, sharing everything in an attempt to secure reassurance, without the ability to sift through and self-soothe some feelings that do not need to be addressed. Picking your battles, so to speak. Avoidant attachment tends to produce a restriction of vulnerability, protecting the inner world as a way of managing the risk of exposure and the feeling of not being “good enough.” Both patterns, in their extreme forms, lead to disruptions in intimacy and connection.
• Parenting together. Attachment styles do not stay in the marital relationship. They show up in how each parent responds to their children’s emotional needs, how the couple navigates disagreements about parenting, and in the attachment patterns their children develop. Working on attachment in couples therapy has generational implications that extend well beyond the couple themselves.

Couples Therapy and Attachment: How the Work Actually Changes Things

The most important thing to know about attachment styles is that they are not fixed. Research on what is called earned security suggests that people can develop more secure attachment patterns in adulthood, through consistently attuned relationships, through individual therapy, and through couples work that creates new relational experiences rather than simply talking about old ones.

Couples therapy that is grounded in attachment theory, particularly Emotionally Focused Therapy, works directly with these patterns. Rather than focusing primarily on communication skills or conflict management techniques, attachment-based couples therapy goes deeper, identifying the underlying emotional needs and fears that drive the surface behavior, helping each partner see their own pattern and their partner’s pattern with more compassion and less reactivity, and creating moments of genuine emotional responsiveness between partners that begin to update the templates each person carries. Because so much of this lives in the nervous system, I sometimes bring in Brainspotting to help heal the attachment wounds underneath.

In my work with Denver couples at BE Therapy, what I observe repeatedly is how profoundly the anxious-avoidant dynamic shifts when both partners begin to understand what is actually happening beneath their reactive behaviors. The moment an avoidant partner can express that they pull away not because they do not care, but because closeness has often felt unsafe, and their anxious partner can hear that as information rather than rejection, something fundamental changes. The pursuer often softens, and the withdrawer does not need to flee as far. The cycle slows, and with more empathy for each other’s experience, emotional connection is strengthened.

A note on change and realistic expectations: Changing attachment patterns is meaningful work, and it takes time. These are not habits formed last year; they are templates established in the first years of life and reinforced across decades of experience. Couples therapy can catalyze real and lasting change in how partners relate, but the change tends to be gradual and non-linear. There will be setbacks, and moments where triggers still happen and the pattern reasserts itself, like rubbing up against a healing wound and agitating it. This is not failure; it is the normal rhythm of deep change. The couples who make the most progress are those who bring patience alongside their commitment.

What to Do About an Anxious-Avoidant Relationship: Practical Starting Points

Understanding your attachment style is valuable. Knowing what to do with that understanding is what actually changes things. Here are some practical starting points for couples who want to begin working with attachment dynamics in their relationship.

• Name the pattern, not the person. Instead of saying “you always withdraw,” try, “I think we are doing that thing again where I come toward you and you need space.” Naming the pattern as a shared dynamic rather than a character flaw in one person reduces defensiveness and creates a sense of partnership in addressing it together. Focus more on the process than the content.
• Learn your own triggers. Attachment responses are triggered by specific cues: a particular tone of voice, a period of silence, a canceled plan, a partner absorbed in their phone. Getting to know your own triggers is the first step toward responding to them more consciously, rather than reacting from the full force of the nervous system’s alarm.
• Make bids for connection more explicit. The Gottman Institute’s research identifies what they call bids for connection as the fundamental currency of close relationships. A bid is any attempt, however small, to connect with your partner. Many attachment-related conflicts arise not because bids are rejected, but because they are not recognized as bids at all. Making your bids explicit and learning to recognize your partner’s bids tends to change the emotional temperature considerably. I share more on what keeps couples connected in Trouble Communicating With Your Partner?
• Repair quickly and specifically. After conflict, a short, genuine acknowledgment goes further than a lengthy processing conversation. “I know I went quiet and that probably scared you. I needed a few minutes, but I want you to know I am not going anywhere” is a nicely worded repair because it is specific, and it addresses the partner’s likely fear. It does not shame or blame one’s partner, or draw a conclusion that anyone was necessarily wrong or right.
• Consider attachment-informed couples therapy. One of the most effective ways to change attachment dynamics in a relationship is a therapeutic process specifically designed to address them. If the patterns described in this post resonate with what is happening in your relationship, working with a couples therapist who has training in attachment and EFT can provide what no amount of reading can fully replace: the experience of new relational possibility, inside a therapeutic relationship that models the safety you are trying to build together.

Attachment patterns are not destiny. They are the starting point of a story, not the end of it. With the right support, people change the way they love, all the time.

The Invitation: From Pattern to Possibility

If you have read this far and recognized yourself, your partner, or your relationship in these pages, that recognition is already significant. Most people spend years, sometimes decades, in painful relational patterns without ever understanding the mechanism behind them. Naming what is happening is the beginning of being able to choose something different.

Attachment style relationship problems tend to respond well to couples therapy, precisely because the dynamics are consistent and well understood. The anxious-avoidant relationship in Denver looks much the same as the anxious-avoidant relationship anywhere else, because these patterns are rooted in our early experiences rather than our circumstances. They respond to the same kinds of support: attunement, safety, new experience, and the slow accumulation of evidence that this relationship is different from the ones that originally shaped the pattern. And if the worry underneath all of this is whether your partner is right for you, my post on relationship anxiety may help.

You do not have to keep running the old program. If you are ready to understand what is actually driving your relationship dynamics and begin building something more secure, I would be glad to be part of that process.

About BE Therapy

Bozhena Evans, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker and the founder of BE Therapy, a practice in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, serving the Denver metro area and specializing in couples therapy, sex therapy, and Brainspotting for anxiety, trauma, and nervous system regulation. Bozhena brings warmth, clinical depth, and a deeply relational approach to every session, drawing on the latest research in attachment, neuroscience, and somatic healing to help couples and individuals build more honest, connected, and fulfilling lives. She works with clients in person in the Denver metro area and via telehealth throughout Colorado.

Ready to Understand Your Attachment Pattern, and Change It?

BE Therapy offers a free 20-minute consultation for new clients, a genuine, no-pressure conversation about what you are experiencing and whether working together feels like the right fit. Whether you are coming as an individual or as a couple, the first step is simply reaching out.

The post The Anxious-Avoidant Relationship: How Attachment Style Is Quietly Running Your Relationship, and What to Do About It appeared first on Bozhena Evans Therapy.

It is one of the most honest questions a couple can ask, and one of the most frightening ones to say out loud: is what we are doing in therapy actually working, or are we simply delaying a conclusion that has already been written? If you have found yourself wondering whether couples therapy can save a marriage, you are not alone. It is the question that sits quietly behind many first appointments, and sometimes not so quietly. One partner may believe deeply that the relationship is worth saving, while the other may be showing up out of obligation, or out of love mixed with exhaustion, not yet sure what they believe. Both are valid places to begin.

The honest answer to this question is more nuanced than a simple yes or no. Couples therapy can save a relationship or marriage; it does not always. What it almost always does, when partners are able to genuinely engage, is provide a clearer picture of where partners diverge, what they want or need from one another, and which of these are possible to achieve. Regardless of what couples decide to do in the end, couples therapy offers communication and empathy tools that help partners feel more heard and understood. Committing to understanding each other better and improving communication is, at minimum, better than the alternative of staying stuck indefinitely.

Can Couples Therapy Save a Marriage? What the Research Actually Shows

When people ask whether couples therapy can save a marriage, the research offers genuine reason for hope, particularly when treatment begins before the relationship has deteriorated considerably.

Emotionally Focused Therapy is one of the most rigorously studied approaches to couples treatment. An often-cited review of the EFT research found that 70 to 73 percent of couples moved from distress to recovery, and roughly 90 percent showed significant improvement. The Gottman Method is another well-researched approach with decades of study behind it. That research does not include nervous system tools such as Brainspotting, which I often weave into couples work to support deeper emotional processing and nervous system regulation.

These are not small numbers. For the majority of couples who commit to the work, something meaningfully better is within reach. The research does not promise that every relationship can be saved, but it does suggest that most troubled relationships contain more potential for repair than either partner may believe when they first walk through the door.

Timing matters considerably, too. Couples who seek help during the earlier stages of disconnection tend to do better than those who wait until resentment has calcified into contempt. I wrote more about that in When to Start Couples Therapy.

What Couples Therapy Can and Cannot Do

Part of what makes this question so complicated is that people bring very different expectations to marriage counseling. Some arrive hoping the therapist will fix their partner. Some arrive hoping to be told whether to stay or leave, or hoping for a guarantee that I can fix their relationship. Some arrive genuinely uncertain what they want, carrying a complicated mixture of love, resentment, grief, and hope that they have not yet been able to sort through on their own.

A skilled couples therapist cannot make two people want the same things. A therapist cannot manufacture chemistry that has waned, force accountability from a partner who has none to give, or guarantee that a relationship will survive. What a couples therapist can do is create conditions that are very difficult to create on your own: emotional safety for both people to speak honestly, a slowing-down of the reactive patterns that keep couples stuck, and a structured process for excavating what is actually happening beneath the surface of the conflict.

Couples therapy gives both people the opportunity to feel truly heard, which they may not have felt in a long time. That experience alone is significant. When people feel genuinely understood and attuned to rather than managed or attacked, defensiveness softens. Curiosity becomes possible. The relationship starts to be something you examine together rather than something you fight over.

Here is a realistic picture of what committed couples therapy can accomplish:

• Interrupting destructive patterns. Most couples in distress are not fighting about what they think they are fighting about. The conflict about dishes or parenting or money is usually a delivery mechanism for something deeper: the fear of not being valued, the longing to be truly known, the wound of feeling unseen. Couples therapy identifies the underlying pattern, what therapists sometimes call the negative cycle, and begins to interrupt it.
• Rebuilding emotional safety. When a relationship has become a place where honesty feels dangerous, people stop being honest. Therapy creates a container where both partners can speak more authentically, which is the necessary precondition for any real change.
• Developing the skills that sustain connection. Many couples have never learned how to repair effectively after conflict, how to express a need without it sounding like blame or an accusation, or how to stay present with a partner’s pain without becoming defensive. These are learnable skills, and therapy teaches them.
• Clarifying what each person actually wants. Sometimes the most valuable thing couples therapy does is help both people get honest about what they want and need, whether that is a renewed commitment, a different kind of relationship, or something they have not yet been able to name.

When the Marriage Feels Too Far Gone

One of the most common things I hear from couples seeking help for a troubled marriage is some version of: we have tried everything, we have had the same fight a hundred times, and nothing changes. By the time they arrive, one or both partners may have privately concluded that the relationship is beyond repair.

This conclusion is understandable. It is also, more often than not, premature.

Repeated conflict without resolution is not evidence that the relationship is unfixable; it is evidence that the couple has been using tools that do not work and getting pulled into a well-reinforced negative cycle of conflict. The fact that nothing has changed yet does not mean nothing can change. It often means the right kind of support has not yet been introduced.

That said, there are situations where the prognosis for a marriage is genuinely poor, and honesty requires naming the reality. Relationships where one partner is entirely unwilling to examine their own patterns, where there is ongoing deception or hidden behavior, or where one person has already emotionally and permanently disengaged are more challenging to repair. Not impossible, but unlikely.

There is also contempt, which John Gottman’s research identifies as the strongest predictor of relationship failure among the communication patterns he studied. Contempt is not anger. It can be the loss of respect and appreciation or, even more concerning, a feeling that your partner is fundamentally beneath you, worthy of ridicule or disgust rather than care. When contempt has become the dominant emotional posture of one or both partners, the work of therapy is harder and requires genuine willingness to reconnect with what was once valued in the relationship.

A note on commitment: Couples therapy is not a passive process. Outcomes tend to be better when both partners show up with genuine willingness to look at their own patterns, practice new behaviors between sessions, and stay in the discomfort long enough for something to shift. One person carrying most of the motivation while the other watches tends not to produce lasting change. If you are the more motivated partner, individual therapy alongside couples therapy can be a powerful complement.

Is Couples Therapy Just Delaying the Inevitable?

Sometimes people worry that therapy is simply postponing an ending that is already written, that they are spending time and money on a process that will ultimately confirm what they already know. This is a legitimate concern, and it deserves a direct response.

Marriage counseling, done well, does not delay the inevitable. It illuminates needs and problematic patterns and brings new insights, while also improving communication, all of which fosters growth and understanding whatever the outcome. If a relationship is genuinely not workable, a good therapeutic process will make that clearer, not murkier. Both people will have a fuller understanding of what has happened, what has been tried, and why the particular combination of who they are together is not producing what either of them needs. That kind of clarity is not a failure of therapy; it is therapy doing exactly what it is supposed to do.

There is a meaningful difference between a relationship ending because two people gave up too soon without adequate support, and a relationship ending because two people did the honest work of understanding themselves and each other and reached a clear decision. The second kind of ending, while painful, tends to carry less ongoing grief, less bitterness, and more dignity for everyone involved, including any children. It also leaves room for holding both the joy of the relationship and its ending at once, without too many regrets. If you are wrestling with whether to stay or go, my post on relationship anxiety may also be helpful.

In my experience working with Denver couples, the relationships that end after genuine therapeutic engagement tend to end more consciously and more kindly than those that end after years of quiet withdrawal and accumulated resentment. The people who come through that process, whether they stay together or not, tend to have a better understanding of themselves and a greater capacity for honest connection in whatever comes next.

Therapy does not guarantee that a marriage will survive. What it does tend to offer is that both people come out of the process with more clarity, more skill, and a better understanding of themselves and their values.

What Makes the Difference: The Factors That Predict Better Outcomes

Several factors tend to distinguish couples who make meaningful progress from those who do not. Understanding these can help you assess where you are and what might strengthen your own experience of the process.

• Motivation in both partners. Outcomes are better when both people come to therapy with some genuine desire to improve the relationship, even if that desire is mixed with doubt, fear, or grief. Ambivalence in one partner is workable. Complete emotional absence is much harder to move through.
• Willingness to look inward. The couples who make the most progress in therapy are those who can, at least some of the time, ask what role their own patterns play in the dynamic rather than focusing exclusively on what their partner is doing wrong. This does not mean taking undue blame; it means staying curious about your own part.
• Consistency and follow-through. Therapy is not something that happens only in the session. The couples who benefit most practice what they learn between sessions, attempt new behaviors even when they feel awkward, and return the following week to process what happened. Growth requires repetition.
• A strong therapeutic relationship. Research across many forms of therapy identifies the relationship between client and therapist as one of the strongest predictors of outcome. If you do not feel genuinely safe and understood with your therapist, say so, or consider finding someone else. The fit matters, and it helps when clients feel comfortable enough with the therapist to express disagreement as well.
• Realistic expectations about pace. Patterns that have been established over years do not dissolve in a few sessions. Couples who understand that the work is gradual, and who commit to staying in the process long enough for real change to take root, tend to see much better outcomes than those who expect dramatic transformation quickly.

What to Do If You Are Not Sure Whether to Try

Perhaps you are reading this from a place of real uncertainty. You are not sure the relationship is savable. You are not sure it is worth trying. You might be exhausted enough that even the idea of more conversations about the same things feels impossible.

Here is what I want you to know from years of working with Denver couples in exactly this position: uncertainty is not a reason to delay. It is often a reason to begin. Therapy is one of the few contexts where uncertainty can be explored honestly, without pressure to have already decided what you want.

You do not need to arrive knowing whether you want to stay in the marriage. You do not need to have hope in order to show up. You simply need a degree of willingness to tell the truth about your experience and to stay in the room long enough to hear your partner’s.

That is enough to begin. What happens from there tends to become clearer than either person expected.

About BE Therapy

Bozhena Evans, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker and the founder of BE Therapy, a practice in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, serving the Denver metro area and specializing in couples therapy, sex therapy, and Brainspotting for anxiety, deeper emotional distress, and trauma. Bozhena brings warmth, clinical depth, and a deeply relational approach to every session, drawing on the latest research in attachment, neuroscience, and somatic healing to help couples and individuals build more honest, connected, and fulfilling lives. She works with clients in person in the Denver metro area and via telehealth throughout Colorado.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Whether you are feeling hopeful, uncertain, or somewhere in between, you do not have to navigate this alone. BE Therapy offers a free 20-minute consultation for new clients, a genuine conversation to explore what you are experiencing and whether working together makes sense. Reaching out is not a commitment. It is simply the beginning of a clearer picture.

The post Can Couples Therapy Save a Marriage, or Is It Just Delaying the Inevitable? appeared first on Bozhena Evans Therapy.

If you have been exploring therapy options for trauma, anxiety, or deeper emotional wounds, you have likely come across two names that keep appearing: Brainspotting and EMDR. Both are brain-body approaches that go beyond traditional talk therapy. EMDR has decades of research behind it. Brainspotting is newer, with a smaller but growing body of studies and a great deal of clinical experience. Both are used by therapists in Denver and across Colorado to help people process what words alone sometimes cannot reach.

So what is the difference between Brainspotting and EMDR, and how do you know which one is right for you? This post offers a clear, honest comparison of the two approaches, including where they overlap, where they diverge, and why many clients, particularly those seeking nervous system relief without a long runway of preparation, find that Brainspotting feels more natural, more intuitive, and easier to enter, sometimes from the very first session.

What Is EMDR? A Brief Overview

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It was developed by psychologist Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s and has since become one of the most widely researched trauma treatments available. The World Health Organization recommends EMDR for PTSD, and the American Psychological Association conditionally recommends it in its PTSD treatment guideline.

The core mechanism of EMDR involves bilateral stimulation, most commonly through guided eye movements back and forth, though tapping or auditory tones can also be used. While this stimulation is occurring, the client holds a targeted traumatic memory in mind. The theory is that the bilateral stimulation mimics what happens during REM sleep, allowing the brain to reprocess stuck or fragmented memories into a more integrated, less distressing form.

EMDR is a structured protocol. It follows eight distinct phases: history taking, preparation, assessment, desensitization, installation, body scan, closure, and re-evaluation. This structure is one of EMDR’s genuine strengths, as it provides a clear roadmap and a reliable, reproducible process. It is also one of the reasons that, for some clients, EMDR can feel like a significant undertaking before the therapeutic work even begins.

What Is Brainspotting? Understanding the Difference

Brainspotting was developed in 2003 by David Grand, a therapist and EMDR trainer who noticed something striking during a session: when a client’s eyes moved to a particular position in their visual field, they accessed deeper emotional material and began to process it more fluidly. Grand began systematically exploring this observation. His theory is that specific eye positions, what he came to call brainspots, connect to activity in the deeper, subcortical parts of the brain where emotional and traumatic experience is held.

The underlying premise of Brainspotting is captured in its guiding phrase: where you look affects how you feel. By identifying and holding a brainspot, the therapist helps the client access the place where trauma, grief, anxiety, or emotional pain seems to be stored, not through cognitive reprocessing, but through the body and the nervous system. The brain processes what it is ready to process, at its own pace, without the therapist directing the content.

This is the difference between Brainspotting and EMDR that clients most frequently notice: Brainspotting is fundamentally led by the client’s own nervous system. The therapist holds the frame, tracks what is happening, and maintains what David Grand calls dual attunement, staying attuned both to the client’s inner experience and to the therapeutic relationship. The client’s brain does the work, in the direction it naturally wants to move.

Brainspotting trusts the body and the brain to know where to go. The therapist’s role is not to direct the processing, but to create the conditions in which it can happen freely and at the client’s own pace.

What the Research Says About Brainspotting and EMDR

You deserve honesty here. EMDR is the more studied of the two by a wide margin, with decades of clinical trials behind it. Brainspotting is a newer approach, and it is not yet considered “evidence-based” in the same well-studied way as EMDR or CBT.

What we do have is encouraging. One 2017 study followed 76 adults with PTSD who received three sessions of either Brainspotting or EMDR. Symptoms dropped significantly in both groups, with no significant difference between them. It was a small study and the participants were not randomly assigned, so it is a promising early finding rather than the final word. Alongside it sits the day-to-day experience of therapists, myself included, who see how much relief Brainspotting can bring.

EMDR or Brainspotting for Trauma: How the Two Approaches Compare

When people search for information on EMDR or Brainspotting for trauma, they are often looking for a practical answer: which one actually works, and which one will work for me specifically. Both approaches can help with trauma. The more useful question is often about fit, pacing, and what your nervous system is ready for.

Here is a direct comparison across several key dimensions:

• Preparation required. EMDR has a formal preparation phase that typically spans multiple sessions before trauma processing begins. The client learns specific stabilization skills, establishes a sense of emotional safety, and works through a careful assessment of target memories. This preparation is genuinely important and serves a real clinical purpose. For many clients, however, the length of the runway before processing can feel frustrating, particularly when they are in acute distress and seeking relief. Brainspotting requires significantly less structured preparation. In many cases, meaningful processing can begin in the first or second session, making it more accessible for clients who need relief sooner rather than later.
• Degree of structure. EMDR follows a defined eight-phase protocol with specific procedures at each stage. This structure makes it highly reproducible and well suited for research settings, which is part of why it has such a strong evidence base. Brainspotting is more fluid. The therapist works with what the client’s system is presenting in the moment, without a fixed sequence of steps. For many clients, this fluidity feels less clinical and more like a natural unfolding of their own inner experience.
• The role of the therapist. In EMDR, the therapist plays a more active role in directing the session, choosing target memories, initiating bilateral stimulation, and guiding the client through each phase. In Brainspotting, the therapist’s role is more facilitative. Once a brainspot is found and held, the therapist follows the client’s process rather than directing it. Many clients experience this as a profound sense of being accompanied rather than managed.
• Bilateral stimulation versus fixed eye position. EMDR uses alternating bilateral stimulation, moving the attention back and forth across the midline. Brainspotting uses a fixed eye position, held steadily while the client accesses and processes what arises from within. Some clients find the back-and-forth movement of EMDR activating or disorienting. Holding a single point in space tends to feel more grounding and contained.
• Range of applications. EMDR was developed specifically for trauma and PTSD, and its evidence base is strongest in that domain. Brainspotting was also developed in a trauma context, and therapists now use it for a broader range of concerns, including anxiety, performance issues, grief, attachment wounds, and the kind of diffuse emotional distress that does not always have a single identifiable traumatic event at its root.

Why Many Denver Clients Find Brainspotting More Natural and Accessible

In my practice at BE Therapy, just outside Denver in Wheat Ridge, I offer Brainspotting as a primary treatment modality, and what I observe consistently is how quickly clients feel the difference between this and approaches they may have tried before.

The most frequent thing clients say after their first Brainspotting session is some version of, “Wow, I did not expect it to feel like that.” They expected something technical or clinical. What they found was something that felt organic, almost like their body had been waiting for permission to release what it had been holding.

The idea behind Brainspotting is that it works beneath the parts of the brain that tend to get in the way of healing. Talk therapy engages the thinking, analyzing, narrating part of the mind. This is valuable, but traumatic stress does not seem to live only there. It also shows up in the body and in the deeper, more automatic parts of the brain, which do not respond well to insight or explanation alone. They tend to respond to body-based, experiential approaches.

Brainspotting is designed to reach those places. With the eyes resting on one spot, the body begins to do what it knows how to do: discharge, integrate, update, and move through what has been stuck. Clients often report physical sensations during processing, such as warmth, movement, pressure releasing, or a spontaneous sense of calm, none of which the thinking mind would have produced on its own.

A note on nervous system relief: One of the most consistent things clients report after Brainspotting sessions is a felt sense of relief in the body, not just an intellectual understanding of something, but a physical shift. Many clients describe leaving sessions feeling lighter, quieter, or simply more at ease in their own bodies. This is one of the reasons Brainspotting is often a particularly good fit for clients who are carrying anxiety, emotional heaviness, anger, physical tension, or a general sense of being emotionally agitated. It is also why I use it with new moms facing postpartum anxiety.

The Difference Between Brainspotting and EMDR: Who Each Approach Tends to Suit

Neither Brainspotting nor EMDR is the right fit for every person, and a thoughtful clinician will always take the individual into account rather than applying a single method to everyone. That said, there are some general patterns worth naming.

EMDR tends to be a particularly strong fit for clients who have clearly defined traumatic memories with an identifiable onset, who are comfortable with a more structured and protocol-driven approach, who have already developed strong emotional regulation skills and can tolerate the preparation phase, and who respond well to bilateral stimulation and find the alternating movement grounding rather than activating.

Brainspotting tends to be a strong fit for clients who want to begin meaningful processing sooner, without a lengthy preparation phase. It is also well suited for those who experience diffuse anxiety or emotional distress that does not necessarily trace back to a single defined event, those who have found talk therapy helpful to a point but feel they have not been able to reach deeper layers of what they carry, clients who are sensitive to overstimulation and find a calm, held, internally led process more comfortable, and anyone who values a therapy experience that feels intuitive and relational rather than procedural.

Brainspotting is also a useful approach for what might be called the accumulated weight of life experience: the chronic stress, the relational wounds, the grief, the low-grade anxiety that has been present for a long time. In my experience, these respond well to the fluid, body-led nature of Brainspotting, as do more specific traumas. It can also strengthen your relationships, because so much of what happens between partners starts in the nervous system.

For clients who have been trying to think their way through their pain for years, Brainspotting offers something different: a way to feel their way through it, with the support of a trained therapist who helps keep the process safe, and with the intelligence of their own body.

Brainspotting vs. EMDR in Denver: What to Consider When Choosing

If you are in Denver or anywhere in Colorado and trying to decide between Brainspotting and EMDR, a few practical considerations are worth thinking through.

First, consider what you are coming in with. If you have a specific traumatic incident, such as a car accident, an assault, or a clearly defined period of acute trauma, and you are comfortable with a structured process, EMDR is a well-validated choice, and Brainspotting can also be used for healing specific traumas. If you are carrying anxiety, complex relational trauma, grief, or a sense of emotional heaviness that does not have a single clear source, Brainspotting may feel like a more natural way in.

Second, consider your nervous system’s current state. If you are in acute distress and need relief relatively quickly, the shorter onboarding of Brainspotting is a practical advantage. If you have good stabilization skills already and can engage in a lengthier preparation process, that advantage matters less.

Third, consider your relationship to structure. Some people find the clear phases of EMDR reassuring. Others find that kind of procedural framework makes the work feel less personal. Neither response is wrong. They are simply different temperaments responding to different kinds of therapeutic containers.

Finally, consider the therapist. The quality of the therapeutic relationship is one of the most consistent predictors of positive outcomes across all forms of therapy. A skilled, attuned therapist matters at least as much as the method. The modality matters, but the person offering it matters too.

At BE Therapy, I bring specialized training in Brainspotting alongside a deep understanding of somatic and attachment-based approaches. If you are curious whether Brainspotting might be the right fit for what you are carrying, I would be glad to talk with you.

About BE Therapy

Bozhena Evans, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker and the founder of BE Therapy, a practice in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, serving the Denver metro area and specializing in couples therapy, sex therapy, and Brainspotting for anxiety, trauma, and deeper emotional wounds. Bozhena brings warmth, clinical depth, and a deeply relational approach to every session, drawing on the latest research in attachment, neuroscience, and somatic healing to help individuals and couples build more honest, connected, and fulfilling lives. She works with clients in person in the Denver metro area and via telehealth throughout Colorado.

Ready to Experience Brainspotting for Yourself?

If something in this post resonated with you, the next step is simply a conversation. BE Therapy offers a free 20-minute consultation for new clients, a genuine, no-pressure opportunity to talk about what you are carrying and explore whether Brainspotting might be the right fit. You do not need to have it all figured out before reaching out. Curiosity is enough to begin.

The post Brainspotting vs. EMDR: What’s the Difference and Which Is Right for You? appeared first on Bozhena Evans Therapy.

By Bozhena Evans, LCSW · BE Therapy, Wheat Ridge, Colorado (Serving Denver, Arvada, Lakewood and the NW Metro Area) · Sex Therapist Denver

When people first call to ask about sex therapy, there is almost always a pause before the question–a brief hesitation. Sometimes I get the question: “My partner and I need help with physical intimacy.” There is often uncertainty of what sex therapy actually entails, and it is one of the most misunderstood forms of mental health treatment available. This is unfortunate, as we know physical connection is so important in romantic relationships. The gap between what people imagine sex therapy to be and what it actually is keeps many people from seeking help they genuinely need, for issues that are genuinely treatable.

This post is for anyone in Denver, Colorado, or beyond, who has quietly wondered whether sex therapy might help them or their relationship, but has not quite been able to get past the myths long enough to find out. Let us clear the air.

What exactly is sex therapy and how does it work?

Sex therapy is a specialized form of mental health individual and couples counseling that focuses on sexual concerns, intimacy challenges, and the emotional and relational dimensions of a person’s sexual life. A sex therapist is a licensed mental health professional like a licensed clinical social worker, or licensed marriage and family therapist, who has received additional training specifically in human sexuality, sexual dysfunction, and sexual health.

What happens in sex therapy sessions looks, from the outside, like any other form of psychotherapy. You sit with your therapist, you talk, you are asked questions, you explore feelings, patterns, and histories. Sometimes, like with a certified Brainspotting such as myself, you do deeper nervous system or somatic work. For couples, both partners are in the room, and the therapist works with the relationship as the primary client. For individuals, the work centers on that person’s experience, history, and goals around intimacy and sexuality.

What does not happen in sex therapy is equally important to understand. Sex therapy does not involve any physical contact between the therapist and the client. Ever. This is an absolute and non-negotiable ethical boundary in the profession, and any practitioner who suggests otherwise is not practicing legal sex therapy that is currently overseen by licensure boards. There are other resources that are currently illegal where providers are able to model and even serve as surrogates to help individuals with sexual blocks overcome those, however again, those professionals are not sex therapists.

Sex therapy is often talk therapy, however as mentioned, I integrate somatic and deeper nervous system work to help individuals heal emotional wounding and trauma that can block sexual connection and/or sexual pleasure. Much of the work happens in conversation, reflection, honest examination of what has been difficult, avoided, or unnamed.

Does a sex therapist touch you during sessions?

Does sex therapy involve physical touch? This is the question that sits underneath many people’s hesitation, and it deserves a direct answer: no.

No physical touching happens in the sex therapy sessions. Licensed sex therapists do not engage in any physical or sexual contact with clients. The therapy is entirely verbal, relational, or somatic. What may be assigned as therapeutic homework, to be practiced privately between partners outside of sessions, might involve physical exercises, but these are completed in the privacy of the couple’s own home and are not observed, facilitated, or participated in by the therapist unless they are of a non-sexual nature like breathing or muscle relaxing exercises.

One well-known set of exercises that sex therapists frequently assign is called sensate focus, a technique developed by pioneering sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson. Sensate focus involves a structured series of touching exercises that partners practice at home, designed to reduce performance anxiety, increase body awareness and pleasure, and rebuild physical connection without the pressure of sexual performance or achieving a certain outcome like orgasm. The therapist guides the process through conversation, assigns the exercises, and processes the experience in subsequent sessions. The couple does this work together, on their own, in their own time.

If there is any confusion about physical touch in sex therapy, it likely stems from several sources: outdated depictions in popular culture, the existence of separate and controversial practices as mentioned earlier called sexological bodywork and surrogate partner therapy, both of which are distinct from sex therapy and not practiced by most licensed therapists. On rare occasions, a sex therapist will refer to one of these providers for sexual treatment, but the research is limited for benefits of direct physical contact between provider and therapist as these practices are still illegal at this time. Vast cultural and religious discomfort with sex as a topic also leads people to project all manner of assumptions onto the treatment, and unfortunately inhibits many individuals’ comfort level to discuss their sex lives with a stranger–even a skilled professional. That being said, I do find that being a stranger often works in my favor as a professional who can objectively listen to folks’ sexual issues without judgment, with curiosity, and with a warm validating demeanor.

A note on surrogate partner therapy:

Surrogate partner therapy is a separate and distinct practice from sex therapy. It involves a trained surrogate, not the therapist, who works with a client on physical intimacy under the direction of a therapist. It is controversial, is not widely practiced, and is not what most people encounter when they seek out a licensed sex therapist. If you are working with a licensed mental health professional who identifies as a sex therapist, the work is talk-based or somatic-experiencing only and involves no touching by the therapist.

What problems can a sex therapist actually help with?

Sex therapy Colorado clients seek help for a wide range of concerns, some of which people might not immediately think of as within the scope of sex therapy. The field is broader than most people realize.

Among the most common reasons people seek out a sex therapist in Denver:

Low or mismatched desire. One of the most frequent concerns couples bring to sex therapy is a significant difference in when and how often each partner wants to be sexually intimate. This is sometimes called desire discrepancy, and it is extraordinarily common in long-term relationships. It is not a sign that someone is broken or that the relationship is failing. It is a signal that something in the system needs attention, and partners need to understand each other’s desire responses better in order to work through the misalignment.

Performance anxiety. Whether it manifests as difficulty with erection, premature ejaculation, difficulty reaching orgasm, or the more general experience of dreading sexual encounters rather than looking forward to them, performance anxiety is one of the most common and most treatable sexual concerns. Sex therapy approaches this from cognitive, relational, and somatic angles, helping clients understand the cycle of anxiety and avoidance, as well as their nervous systems in order to help interrupt the block.

Intimacy after trauma. Sexual trauma, including childhood sexual abuse, sexual assault, and other experiences, can profoundly affect a person’s relationship to their own body and to physical intimacy. A trauma-informed sex therapist helps clients heal from the trauma and reclaim their sexuality on their own terms, at their own pace, without pressure or performance.

Sexual concerns related to health changes. Menopause, postpartum recovery, cancer treatment, chronic illness, disability, and aging all affect sexual function and intimacy. Sex therapy helps people and couples navigate these changes honestly and with practical tools, rather than grieving in silence or assuming that this part of their lives is simply over.

Exploring identity and orientation. Sex therapy is an affirming space for people who are exploring questions about their sexual orientation, gender identity, relationship structure, or sexuality in general. There is no agenda in sex therapy around what a client’s sexuality should look like. The goal is that whatever it looks like, it feels honest, free, and genuinely theirs.

Exploring polyamory or consensual non-monogamy (CNM), also referred to as ethical non-monogamy (ENM). Polyamory, or the ability/desire to have romantic connection and/or love with more than one person at a time has become more visible in recent years, though still often misunderstood and not legally recognized. Sex therapy or couples therapy with a poly-affirming and knowledgeable therapist is a safe space for individuals and partners to work through issues associated with their multiple relationships that may or may not include sexual-specific issues.

Exploring kinks, fetishes, and non-normative sexual desires. Sexuality is a vast landscape with varied individual sexual preferences and ideas of what turns people on and leads to more sexual fulfillment. There are more normative sexual activities and preferences, while others are less so. A skilled sex therapist can help clients understand their sexual desires and their ability to get those desires met in a safe non-judgmental space.

Compulsive sexual behavior. Some clients come to sex therapy concerned about patterns of sexual behavior they feel they cannot control, whether that involves pornography, affairs, or other behaviors that are causing harm to themselves or their relationships. A sex therapist approaches this with compassion and without moralism, working to understand the function of the behavior and address the underlying needs it is serving.

Sexual pain. Painful sex, which can include conditions like vaginismus, dyspareunia, vulvodynia, and pelvic floor dysfunction, brings many people to sex therapy. A sex therapist often works in coordination with pelvic floor physical therapists and/or gynecologists to address the psychological dimensions of sexual pain, although sometimes the physical dimension as well. The emotional or psychological component, particularly anxiety, avoidance, and the impact on relationship intimacy, is where the therapist’s work is essential.

Is couples therapy or sex therapy better for intimacy problems in a relationship?

Many couples in Denver seek out general couples therapy and find that their concerns are predominantly sexual or intimacy-related. There is significant overlap between couples therapy and sex therapy, and many therapists work fluidly across both. That said, many couples therapists are not fully equipped with the extensive sexual knowledge required to support the variety of clients’ sexual concerns.

General couples therapy addresses the full landscape of the relationship: communication, conflict, trust, family dynamics, parenting, finances, and yes, often intimacy as well. A couples therapist may or may not have specialized training in sexual concerns.

A sex therapist in Denver who also works with couples brings additional depth to the sexual and intimacy dimensions of the relationship. They have specific training in sexual dysfunction, sexual medicine, the physiology of arousal and response, and evidence-based interventions for sexual concerns. If the presenting issue for a couple is primarily about their sexual relationship, working with someone who has this specialized background is often the more direct and effective path.

That said, sex therapists also need a solid understanding of relational and attachment work. Sexual concerns do not exist in a vacuum. They are almost always embedded in the broader relational context: how safe each partner feels, how honestly they communicate, how much resentment has accumulated, how connected or disconnected they feel outside the bedroom. A good sex therapist understands this and holds both the specific sexual concern and the relational system it lives within.

The bedroom is not separate from the relationship. What happens between partners emotionally, their trust, their resentments, their tenderness, lives in the body and in the sexual connection too. Sex therapy generally addresses both.

What actually happens in a sex therapy session — what should I expect?

For anyone wondering what to expect in sex therapy, the first session, often called an intake session, looks much like the beginning of any therapy. Your therapist will ask about what brings you in, your history, your goals, and what you have already tried. For couples, both partners will have the opportunity to share their perspective.

There is no pressure to share anything you are not ready to share. A skilled sex therapist creates a space that is warm, non-judgmental, and genuinely curious, not clinical or detached. Many clients describe their first session as a relief–the experience of talking openly about something that has felt too private, too complicated, or too embarrassing to bring anywhere else.

From there, sex therapy typically involves:

Psychoeducation. A significant part of sex therapy is simply providing accurate information about sexual anatomy, arousal, desire, and response. Many people carry myths, misinformation, or gaps in knowledge that are contributing directly to their distress. Normalizing what is typical and not abnormal is itself therapeutic.

Exploration of history and meaning. Our relationship to our sexuality does not begin in adulthood. Family messages about bodies and sex, early experiences, cultural and religious influences, media/tech, and past relationships all shape how we experience intimacy as adults. Sex therapy creates space to examine these influences with curiosity and compassion rather than shame.

Communication skills. Many sexual concerns are sustained by the inability to talk about them, with a partner, or sometimes even with oneself. Sex therapy builds the vocabulary and the courage for these conversations.

Structured homework. Depending on the concern, a sex therapist may assign specific practices or exercises to be completed between sessions. These are always introduced gradually and are always within the client’s comfort and consent.

Coordination with other providers when needed. For concerns that have a physical component, such as hormonal issues, pelvic floor dysfunction, or medication side effects, a sex therapist often collaborates with physicians, gynecologists, urologists, pelvic floor, occupational, or physical therapists to ensure the client is getting comprehensive care.

How long does sex therapy take to see results?

The length of sex therapy varies considerably depending on the nature and history of the concern, whether the client is an individual or a couple, and how much related emotional territory needs to be addressed alongside the presenting sexual issue.

Some focused concerns, particularly when they are relatively recent and the relationship is otherwise strong, can show significant improvement in eight to sixteen sessions. More complex presentations, particularly those involving trauma, long-standing relationship patterns, or significant medical complexity, typically require more time.

What most clients find is that progress comes in layers. There can be early relief simply from having a space to speak honestly. The deeper work of changing patterns and building new experiences can take more time. There is also the ongoing maintenance work, the practice of communicating about intimacy as a regular part of the relationship rather than a crisis conversation.

Sex therapy in Colorado is not a quick fix, but for the people who do the work, the changes tend to be lasting, because they are rooted in genuine understanding rather than performance.

You do not have to have a diagnosable sexual dysfunction to benefit from sex therapy. You just have to want something better than what you currently have, and be willing to do the honest work of getting there.

How do I find a good sex therapist in Denver?

When searching for a sex therapist in Denver, there are several things worth looking for. First, verify that the therapist is a licensed mental health professional, licensed clinical social worker, a licensed professional counselor, or licensed marriage and family therapist, with licensure in Colorado. Licensure means they are accountable to a professional board and bound by ethical standards.

Second, look or ask about additional training or certification in human sexuality. The American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists, known as AASECT, offers a certification process for sex therapists who have completed specialized training, supervision, and continuing education in the field. AASECT certified sex therapists have lengthy training, however are also more costly. Not all sex therapists are AASECT certified and may still be highly trained and educated by experts in the field while also charging more affordable rates for their services.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, look for a therapist whose approach feels warm, non-judgmental, and genuinely curious. Sex therapy requires a particular quality of safety in the therapeutic relationship. After the initial session, you should feel at ease with your therapist, that this is a person with whom you can be honest, without fear of shame or judgment.

At BE Therapy in Denver, I offer sex therapy for individuals and couples in a space that is informed, affirming, and deeply relational. Whether you are dealing with a specific sexual concern, a loss of intimacy in your relationship, or simply the desire to understand your sexuality more fully, I would be glad to talk and support you on your journey to understanding yourself and/or your partner(s) better.

About BE Therapy. Bozhena Evans is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and the founder of BE Therapy, a Denver-based practice specializing in couples therapy, sex therapy, and brainspotting for anxiety or other emotional wounds or trauma. Bozhena brings warmth, clinical depth, and a deeply relational approach to every session, drawing on the latest research in attachment, neuroscience, and somatic healing to help couples and individuals build more honest, connected, and fulfilling lives. She works with clients in-person in the Denver metro area and via telehealth throughout Colorado and virtual in California.

Ready to take the next step?

If something in this post resonated with you, you do not have to navigate it alone. BE Therapy offers a free 20-minute consultation for new clients, a no-pressure conversation to explore whether working together feels like the right fit. Sex therapy is more accessible, and more effective, than most people expect. The first step is simply reaching out.

The post What Is Sex Therapy, Really? Dispelling the Myths for Denver Couples and Individuals appeared first on Bozhena Evans Therapy.

Everyone warned you about the sleepless nights. The diapers. The way your whole life rearranges itself around a person who weighs less than your grocery bag.

What no one warned you about was the worry.

The kind that has you standing over the crib at 3 a.m., hand hovering, waiting to feel them breathe. The mind that races through every worst-case scenario before you’ve even had coffee. The tight chest, the racing heart, the sense that if you just stay vigilant enough, you can keep everyone safe — and the exhaustion of never, ever being able to put that vigilance down.

If that’s you right now, I want to say something gently and clearly: you are not broken, and you are not a bad mom. You may be experiencing postpartum anxiety — and it is far more common than anyone told you.

The anxiety no one warned you about

We talk a lot about postpartum depression. We talk much less about postpartum anxiety — even though research suggests it’s at least as common, affecting somewhere around 13% to 18% of new mothers, and by some estimates even more. Many moms experience anxiety without ever feeling “depressed” in the way they expected to.

That’s part of what makes it so confusing. You may not feel sad. You may, in fact, look like you’re holding it all together beautifully. Inside, though, the volume is turned all the way up.

Postpartum anxiety can sound like:

• A constant hum of dread, or a feeling that something bad is about to happen
• Racing, looping thoughts you can’t seem to shut off — especially about the baby’s safety
• Scary, intrusive images or “what if” thoughts that horrify you (these are common, and having them does not mean you would ever act on them)
• Checking and re-checking — the monitor, the locks, the car seat, your baby’s breathing
• A pounding heart, tight chest, nausea, or trouble sleeping even when the baby finally sleeps
• Irritability, or feeling like you have to do everything yourself to keep it all from falling apart

None of this means you’re failing. It means your nervous system — flooded with hormones, running on no sleep, and suddenly responsible for keeping a tiny human alive — has gotten stuck in high alert.

Postpartum anxiety vs. postpartum depression: what’s the difference?

They’re related, and they can overlap, but they’re not the same thing. Postpartum depression tends to center on low mood, hopelessness, loss of interest, and difficulty bonding. Postpartum anxiety centers on fear, worry, physical tension, and a mind that won’t slow down.

Here’s the part most people don’t realize: studies have found that many women with postpartum anxiety don’t have postpartum depression at the same time. They’re distinct experiences. That matters, because if you’ve been screened for depression, told “your mood looks fine,” and sent on your way — while you’re still lying awake bracing for catastrophe — your anxiety may simply have been missed.

You deserve support for what you’re actually experiencing.

Why “just talk about it” sometimes isn’t enough

Traditional talk therapy is wonderful, and for many moms it’s exactly what’s needed. But postpartum anxiety often doesn’t live in the thinking, talking part of the brain. It lives in the body — in the racing heart, the clenched jaw, the startle response, the bracing.

You can know, logically, that the baby is fine. And your body can still flood with alarm anyway. That gap — between what you know and what you feel — is the frustrating heart of anxiety. Talking can help you understand it. It doesn’t always reach the place where the alarm is being stored.

That’s where Brainspotting comes in.

What is Brainspotting — and why it’s gentle enough for new motherhood

Brainspotting is a body-based therapy that helps your brain process and release stuck stress, anxiety, and trauma — without requiring you to talk through every painful detail.

The premise is simple and a little surprising: where you look affects how you feel. Certain eye positions seem to connect to where your brain is holding distress. Working together, I help you find one of those points (a “brainspot”) and then simply support you while your own brain and body do the processing. You stay in control the entire time. There’s no reliving, no forcing, no homework to white-knuckle through.

For a new mom, that gentleness is the whole point. You don’t have enough spare capacity to be re-traumatized in the name of healing. Brainspotting tends to feel calming — many people describe it as a relief, like finally setting down something heavy they’d been carrying in their arms.

I’ll be honest with you, because you deserve honesty: Brainspotting is a newer approach, and the research base is still growing. It is not yet considered “evidence-based” in the same well-studied way as therapies like EMDR or CBT. What we do have is encouraging — early studies show reductions in trauma, anxiety, and depression symptoms — alongside a great deal of clinical experience from therapists (myself included) who see how much relief it can bring. I’ll never oversell it. I’ll only ever offer you what I genuinely believe can help.

How Brainspotting can help with postpartum anxiety

When we use Brainspotting for postpartum anxiety, we’re gently working with the part of your nervous system that’s stuck in overdrive. Over time, many clients find they can:

• Quiet the 3 a.m. spiral and actually sleep when there’s a chance to
• Feel the difference between a real alarm and an anxious false alarm
• Loosen the grip of intrusive thoughts so they stop feeling so threatening
• Reconnect with the parts of new motherhood that are supposed to feel tender and good
• Soften the bracing in the body — the clenched shoulders, the held breath

This isn’t about becoming a mom who never worries. Some watchfulness is love. It’s about turning the volume back down to something livable, so worry stops running the show.

What a session actually looks like

You’ll sit comfortably (in person here in Wheat Ridge, or online from your couch while the baby naps). We talk first — no eye contact exercises sprung on you out of nowhere. When you’re ready, I help you notice where in your body you feel the anxiety, and we find the eye position that connects to it. Then you simply notice whatever comes up while I stay right there with you. You can pause anytime. You’re always the one steering.

Many moms tell me they were nervous it would feel strange or intense, and instead found it surprisingly soft.

A word of care

Postpartum anxiety is real, common, and very treatable — you don’t have to earn your way out of it by suffering longer. Please reach out to a professional (me, your OB, your midwife, or your doctor) about what you’re feeling. Brainspotting can also work alongside medication, your OB’s care, or other therapy — it’s not either/or.

And if you’re ever having thoughts of harming yourself or your baby, or the intrusive thoughts feel like they’re taking over, please reach out right away. You can call or text the Postpartum Support International HelpLine at 1-800-944-4773, or call or text 988 anytime. Reaching out is the strong, loving thing to do — for you and for your little one.

You don’t have to white-knuckle through this

If you’re a new mom in Denver, Wheat Ridge, Arvada, or anywhere in Colorado, and you’re tired of bracing through every day, I’d be honored to help you find your footing again.

I offer Brainspotting and therapy for anxiety for new and expecting parents, both in person and via telehealth across Colorado. You can learn what to expect as a new client or reach out for a free consultation whenever you’re ready. No pressure, no rush — just a calmer next step.

You found joy in becoming a parent. Let’s help you find ease in it, too.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Brainspotting safe during pregnancy or while breastfeeding?

Yes. Brainspotting is non-invasive and involves no medication — it simply works with your natural eye positions and nervous system, so there’s nothing to pass to your baby. It’s a gentle option many parents feel comfortable with during pregnancy and postpartum. As always, it’s good to keep your OB or midwife in the loop about all the care you’re receiving.

How is Brainspotting different from EMDR for postpartum anxiety?

Both use eye position to help the brain process distress, but Brainspotting is generally more open and less structured than EMDR’s step-by-step protocol. Many people find it gentler and less activating, which can be a relief when you’re already running on empty. The right fit depends on you — we can talk through it together.

I compare the two in more detail in Brainspotting vs. EMDR: What’s the Difference and Which Is Right for You?

How many sessions will I need?

It varies. Some moms feel a noticeable shift within the first few sessions; others use Brainspotting as ongoing support for a while. After an initial stretch of weekly work, many people move to every other week or monthly “maintenance.” We’ll go at the pace your life and nervous system can handle.

Can I do this online, or do I have to come in?

Both. I see clients in person in Wheat Ridge (just northwest of Denver) and offer secure telehealth throughout Colorado — so you can have a session while the baby naps, without packing the diaper bag.

Do you take insurance?

I accept a limited number of insurance clients (including Aetna, and Kaiser as out-of-network) and also offer private-pay and sliding-scale options. Reach out and we’ll sort out what works best for your family.

The post Brainspotting for Postpartum Anxiety: A Gentler Path for Overwhelmed New Moms appeared first on Bozhena Evans Therapy.

There is a story many couples tell themselves, usually for years before they ever call a therapist: “We are not bad enough yet.” Therapy, in this story, is for couples who are really in trouble, couples on the verge of divorce, couples who have survived infidelity, couples who can barely be in the same room without it turning into a fight. “We are not like that,” the story goes. “We just have some things to work on.”

This narrative doesn’t come without a cost. Relationships can deteriorate with more time spent doing little or nothing to improve emotional and/or physical connection and going on as status quo.

Knowing when to start couples therapy is one of the most important and least discussed questions in relationship health. The answer, for most couples, is earlier than they think.

If you are searching for “couples counseling Denver” or “help for marriage problems in Denver,” this post is for you, wherever you are on the spectrum of relationship distress.

Is Couples Therapy a Last Resort? Why Most Couples Wait Too Long to Get Help

Couples counseling in Denver and beyond has an image problem. It is still widely perceived as something you do when you are out of options, a Hail Mary pass before someone files for divorce. This perception keeps couples out of therapy when they could benefit most: early, when patterns are still flexible, when both people still feel genuine care for each other, when the wounds are not yet deep enough to have left scar tissue.

Research from the Gottman Institute suggests that the average couple waits six years from the onset of relationship problems before seeking help–six years. That is six years of resentment accumulating, six years of emotional withdrawal deepening, six years of the connection that originally brought two people together quietly eroding.

The most effective couples therapy is preventive couples therapy, working on the relationship not when it is in crisis, but when it is simply not as connected, honest, or smooth as you know it could be.

You do not need to be falling apart to deserve support. The couples who get the most out of therapy are often the ones who come before they are desperate, when they still have enough goodwill and connection left to do the work.

Signs You Need Couples Counseling: How to Know When Your Relationship Needs Professional Support

So when is the right time? Here are some of the most important signals that couples counseling in Denver would be a valuable next step, not because things are dire, but because the relationship is asking for attention.

You are having the same fight over and over again. The content changes–money, sex, parenting, household responsibilities–but the feeling is often the same. Someone feels unheard; someone feels attacked. The fight ends without resolution, usually in fight or flight or withdrawal. And then, a few weeks–or even days–later, it happens again. Repeated conflict that never truly resolves is one of the clearest signals that something structural needs to shift, and that is exactly what couples therapy examines and addresses.

You have stopped trying to resolve things at all. Paradoxically, the absence of conflict can be just as concerning as its presence. When couples stop fighting, it is sometimes because they have found genuine peace. More often, it is because one or both partners have emotionally disengaged, given up on the idea that their needs can be heard and met. This emotional withdrawal or shutdown response is a protective survival response from pain, however it has unfavorable emotional and even physical side effects, and of course it does nothing to actually repair emotional connection between partners during conflict–quite the opposite, as more distance ensues.

Physical or emotional intimacy has significantly decreased. This includes sexual intimacy, but it also includes the smaller forms of closeness that sustain a relationship: touching, laughing together, confiding in each other, giving one another compliments or words of appreciation, reaching for each other’s hands… When physical and/or emotional warmth becomes infrequent or feels forced, it is a sign that the distance between you has grown and needs to be intentionally addressed.

There is one topic you cannot talk about. Every couple has difficult conversations, but when there is a topic, such as sex, finances, one partner’s drinking, a family member, a past hurt, that has become completely off-limits, emotional safety–and therefore connection–begins to erode. Avoided topics do not disappear; they grow. Couples therapy creates a container where the unspeakable can finally be spoken.

You feel more like roommates than partners. You coexist, you have a functional relationship, you manage the logistics of your shared life fairly well. That being said, something between you has dimmed, and you miss the inspiration or fire you once felt from the relationship. Maybe your friendship has deteriorated, or maybe the eroticism that used to feel exciting and energizing has waned. To some degree, some of this is expected in long-term relationships. However, couples need to be mindful of not getting too complacent and remember that work and effort are necessary to strengthen the parts of their relationship that need most attention.

One or both of you has said, “I love you, but I’m not sure I’m in love with you.” This sentence, in all its painful variations, is not uncommon for me to hear from couples seeking help for marriage problems in Denver. It does not necessarily mean the relationship is over, but it does mean something important has been lost and needs to be honestly examined.

Marriage Counseling Denver: How Couples Therapy Works During a Crisis, Affair, or Betrayal

Of course, there are also situations where couples come to therapy in the middle of an acute crisis, after an affair has been discovered, a significant betrayal of trust, a blowup that left one or both partners wondering if the relationship can survive, a traumatic event with profound impact, etc. Seeking help for marriage problems in Denver at this stage is still absolutely worth doing.

If you are wondering whether it is already too late, I wrote about that in Can Couples Therapy Save a Marriage, or Is It Just Delaying the Inevitable?

Crisis-stage couples therapy is possible and can lead to genuine healing and transformation. The research on affair recovery, for example, shows that many couples who go through the difficult work of rebuilding after infidelity report deeper honesty and intimacy in the relationship than existed before because the affair, however painful, forced a conversation that had been avoided for years. As Esther Perel, relationship and couples expert, explains in her book The State of Affairs, more connection and even eroticism can be achieved post-infidelity!

But crisis-stage therapy does require more patience and resilience, more willingness to tolerate intense discomfort, and more time. Outcomes are better when at least some degree of care and goodwill remains between the partners, which is why, wherever possible, earlier is better to start therapy.

A useful frame: Think of couples therapy the way you think of physical health. You would not wait until you were having a heart attack to start paying attention to your cardiovascular health. You would make lifestyle changes earlier, see a doctor regularly, address warning signs before they became emergencies. Relationship health works the same way. The earlier the intervention, the more options you have, and the less ground you have to recover.

My Partner Won’t Go to Couples Therapy: What to Do When One Person Refuses Counseling

One of the most common barriers to starting couples counseling in Denver is the reluctance of one partner. Maybe you have been asking for months and your partner keeps saying it is not that bad, or that they do not believe in therapy, or that they will come eventually. Meanwhile, you are carrying the weight of the relationship’s disconnection largely alone.

First: if your partner is genuinely not willing to come, individual therapy is still worth pursuing for yourself and encouraging your resistant partner to do the same. Working on your own resistance, patterns, communication, and attachment style changes the dynamic in the relationship regardless of whether your partner is in the room, and it is not uncommon for a reluctant partner to become more open once they see their partner genuinely engaging in growth.

Second: sometimes reframing the invitation helps. “Going to couples therapy” sounds to many people like “being put on trial.” Some people respond better to: “I want us to have a tune-up with someone who specializes in relationships”, or, simply, “I really miss feeling close to you, and I want help getting back there.” The request coming from longing rather than criticism tends to land differently.

Third: if your partner agrees to come once and then refuses to return, a single session can still shift something. However, it is also true that if a partner isn’t willing to attend couples therapy, it might be a sign that they are unwilling to recognize their own role in the problematic relationship dynamics, and therefore, unwilling to do the actual hard work required by couples therapy. This might be a wake up call to decide whether or not staying in the relationship without growth or greater fulfillment is actually worth it.

Preventive Couples Therapy: The Best Time to See a Relationship Therapist in Denver (Before Things Fall Apart)

Beyond the warning signs listed above, there are life transitions that make couples therapy an especially valuable investment, not because anything is wrong, but because transitions are inherently destabilizing.

Becoming parents. The transition to parenthood is one of the most significant identity and relationship shifts a couple goes through. Research shows that relationship satisfaction drops significantly in the first few years after having a baby, not because the couple falls out of love, but because the demands of new parenthood leave almost no room for the relationship itself. Pre-emptive couples work during pregnancy or the early postpartum period can make an enormous difference in reestablishing connection.

Blending families. Stepfamilies and blended families face a particular set of relational challenges for which most couples are not fully prepared. The research suggests that blended family dynamics are one of the leading reasons for second marriage difficulties. Couples counseling before or early in the blending process can help partners create a shared parenting philosophy and maintain their connection through the complexity.

Navigating major career changes or relocations. Moves, job losses, new careers, and significant income shifts all put stress on relationships in ways that can be invisible until they have already done damage. Addressing the relational impact of these changes early, in a supported environment, prevents the stress from quietly eroding connection.

Returning from deployment or extended absence. Reunification after a significant period apart is its own kind of adjustment, and it is often harder than people expect. Both partners change to some degree during separation, living separate lives. The rhythms of daily life reorganize around absence. Couples therapy during reintegration can help both people navigate the transition without losing each other in it.

Retirement. Retirement brings its own disruption to relationship dynamics when partners find themselves spending a lot more time together, with less autonomy, and sometimes, not enough of a felt sense of purpose in the new phase of life. Partners can have different needs and desires in this chapter, and challenges navigating them. Couples who address this transition intentionally and really plan for it tend to fare significantly better than those who assume it will sort itself out.

Couples therapy is not a sign that your relationship is failing. It is a sign that your relationship matters enough to tend, that you are choosing to be intentional rather than reactive about one of the most important investments of your life.

How to Find a Couples Therapist in Denver: Starting Couples Counseling at BE Therapy

If you have read this far and something has resonated, whether you are in crisis or simply feeling the quiet drift of disconnection, the first step is usually the hardest one: making the call.

At BE Therapy in Denver, I offer a free 20-minute consultation for new clients. This is not a sales conversation. It is a genuine opportunity to talk about what is bringing you in, ask questions about the process, and get a feel for whether working together makes sense. There is no pressure and no commitment required.

What I can tell you from years of work with Denver couples is this: the couples who regret starting therapy are very few, while the couples who regret waiting are many. You do not have to be in crisis to deserve support. You just have to be willing to be vulnerable and reach for something more fulfilling.

That willingness–the fact that you are reading this–looking for answers, wondering if it might be time, is already a beginning. As Esther Perel also eloquently stated, you can begin a new relationship with someone else, or you can begin a new one with your partner!

About BE Therapy

Bozhena Evans, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker and the founder of BE Therapy, a Denver-based practice specializing in couples therapy, sex therapy, and brainspotting for anxiety. Bozhena brings warmth, clinical depth, and a deeply relational approach to every session, drawing on the latest research in attachment, neuroscience, and somatic healing to help couples and individuals build more honest, connected, and fulfilling lives. She works with clients in-person in the Denver metro area and via telehealth throughout Colorado.

Ready to Take the Next Step? Book a Free Couples Therapy Consultation in Denver

You do not have to wait for a crisis. If something in this post resonated, reach out today. BE Therapy offers a free 20-minute consultation for new clients, a no-pressure conversation to explore whether working together feels like the right fit.

The post When to Start Couples Therapy: What Denver Couples Need to Know Before a Crisis Hits appeared first on Bozhena Evans Therapy.

You wake up and reach for your phone before your feet hit the floor. You scroll through emails, Instagram, the news, and somehow, twenty minutes later, you realize you’ve been sucked into a media spiral. Sound familiar?

We are living in the most stimulating era in human history. Our brains, which evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to respond to the natural rhythms of the world, are now bombarded with an endless stream of notifications, headlines, videos, and digital noise — every single day. And quietly, without most of us realizing it, this constant stimulation is changing the way our brains work.

At the center of it all is dopamine.

What Is Dopamine, Really?

Dopamine is often called the “feel-good” chemical, but that’s a bit of an oversimplification. Dopamine isn’t just about pleasure, it’s primarily about anticipation. It’s the neurochemical that drives you toward reward. It’s what makes you click “add to cart,” swipe right, check your phone for the fifteenth time in an hour, or light another cigarette even when you said you wouldn’t.

Dopamine motivates us to seek and move toward a goal. In healthy amounts and in healthy contexts, this is a beautiful thing as it drives creativity, ambition, connection, and curiosity. The problem arises when our brains are flooded with so many fast, easy dopamine hits that slower, deeper sources of satisfaction start to feel boring or difficult to tolerate.

Think of it like this: if you’ve been eating nothing but sugar all day, a plain piece of fruit stops tasting as sweetly.

The Overstimulated Brain

Here’s what’s happening on a neurological level. Every time you get a “like” on a photo, hear a notification ping, or discover something new while scrolling, your brain releases a small burst of dopamine. These hits are fast, frequent, and engineered, especially by social media platforms and app developers who have spent billions of dollars studying exactly how to keep you coming back for more.

Over time, the brain adapts. It begins to crave more stimulation to feel the same level of reward, a process called dopamine desensitization. The baseline for stimulation essentially shifts. What once felt exciting starts to feel less so, and you find yourself needing bigger, faster, more frequent, hits just to feel okay.

This is not a personal failing. This is neuroscience.

Research increasingly supports what many of us feel intuitively: frequent digital stimulation alters dopamine pathways in the brain, fostering dependency and making it harder to feel satisfied with ordinary life. Studies on social media use show changes in the brain’s reward processing that mirror patterns seen in other behavioral addictions.

Are We All a Little ADHD Now?

There’s a fascinating and somewhat uncomfortable conversation happening in psychology and neuroscience right now: ADHD diagnoses and self-diagnoses are rising at a striking rate. While some of this reflects improved awareness and reduced stigma — both genuinely good things — researchers and clinicians are also asking whether chronic overstimulation itself may be contributing to ADHD-like symptoms across the population.

The connection between ADHD and dopamine is well-established. ADHD brains are characterized by altered dopamine signaling, which affects motivation, focus, and the ability to tolerate low-stimulation tasks. But here’s the question worth sitting with: when an entire culture is chronically overstimulated, are we all training our brains to function more like dopamine-depleted systems?

It’s a complicated question without a clean answer. What we do know is this — distractibility, impulsivity, difficulty with sustained attention, and a compulsive need for novelty, are increasingly common experiences, regardless of whether someone has a formal diagnosis. And the world we’ve built is not making it easier.

Self-Soothing vs. Self-Healing

Here’s something important to hold onto: dopamine-seeking behaviors are not moral failures. They are coping strategies. They developed because they worked, at least in the short term. When you’re anxious, overstimulated, or emotionally dysregulated, reaching for your phone or a glass of wine or a cigarette does provide temporary relief.

The problem isn’t that you’re weak. The problem is that these strategies are ephemeral. They address the surface while leaving the underlying need unmet. And over time, they can actually deepen the very discomfort they’re meant to soothe, increasing anxiety, reducing your capacity for stillness, and making it harder to access genuine satisfaction.

This is where the work gets meaningful.

Finding Your Way Back: Mindfulness, Therapy, and the Slower Rewards

If dopamine-seeking is the trap, the path out runs through something that might feel deeply counterintuitive at first: slowing down.

Mindfulness and frameworks that incorporate it, like Brainspotting which I use in my work with patients, is the practice of intentional, present-moment awareness. By staying in the here-and-now and simply noticing with curiosity, the brain is able to recalibrate its relationship with stimulation. When you practice sitting with boredom, or discomfort, or the ordinary texture of a Tuesday afternoon without immediately reaching for a distraction, you are actually training your nervous system to tolerate, eventually appreciate, lower-stimulation states.

This isn’t about deprivation; it’s about expanding your window of what feels satisfying.

Gratitude practices, which are a cornerstone of many mindfulness approaches, are particularly powerful here. Research on gratitude consistently shows that it activates the brain’s reward system, not with a sharp spike, but with something warmer and more sustained. When you genuinely pause to appreciate something in your life, you are teaching your brain that this — the slow, the real, the already-here — is worth paying attention to.

Therapy offers something that no app, no purchase, and no quick hit can replicate: the experience of being truly known and understood. When we do the deeper work of understanding why we reach for dopamine — what unmet needs, unprocessed emotions, or early patterns are driving the seeking — we create the possibility of genuine change rather than just better management.

As a therapist working with clients in the Denver and Wheat Ridge area, I see this pattern regularly and use an approach called Brainspotting to help people practice interoception, the ability to observe their own internal world without judgement. Sometimes people come in feeling vaguely dissatisfied, chronically distracted, unable to settle, not because something is deeply wrong with them, but because they’ve been living at a pace and a stimulation level that their nervous systems were never designed to sustain. Brainspotting helps my patients slow down and focus on what is happening inside of themselves, which can feel uncomfortable at first. Then, gradually, it begins to feel like relief — like a weight has been lifted. The practice of meditation is similar and has been widely acclaimed for its impact on regulating the nervous system and calming the mind.

You Don’t Have to Detox From Life

There’s a trend right now around “dopamine fasting,” the idea that you should strip your life of all pleasurable stimulation in order to reset your brain. I want to offer a gentler, more nuanced perspective.

You don’t need to throw your phone in a lake. You don’t need to give up sex, sugar, and screens forever (why would I ever suggest giving up pleasurable experiences altogether)! What you do need is awareness of when you’re seeking, what you’re seeking, and what it is you actually need in that moment.

Often, beneath the scroll, the shop, the snack, the cigarette, there is something quieter asking for attention: loneliness, anxiety, grief, boredom, a longing for connection or meaning, or even rest. When you can get curious about that quieter signal instead of immediately silencing it with stimulation, something begins to shift.

The richest sources of satisfaction in life — deep relationships, creative work, moments of genuine presence, the slow accumulation of meaning — don’t deliver dopamine the way a notification does. They require patience, tolerance for discomfort, and the willingness to be with what is rather than constantly chasing what’s next.

But they last. And that’s the difference worth chasing.

The post The Dopamine Trap: How Overstimulation Is Rewiring Us — And How to Find Your Way Back appeared first on Bozhena Evans Therapy.

We live in a moment when people are asking harder, braver questions about love. Folks are not just thinking about who they love, but how, and whether the structures handed down to them still fit. Divorce and infidelity rates have stayed high and have even increased in recent years. Monogamy has long been the assumed default, the invisible water we all swim in, but more people are surfacing, looking around, and wondering: is this the only way?

Ethical Non-Monogamy, ENM, sometimes called CNM, or Consensual Non-Monogamy, is one answer to that question, and it is not for everyone. It isn’t necessarily the right one for you, but it is a legitimate, increasingly visible process of finding connection with more than one person. As a therapist, I think it deserves a real conversation — not a whispered one.

What Is ENM, Exactly?

ENM is an umbrella term for any relationship structure in which all partners knowingly and consensually engage in romantic or sexual connections with more than one person. The word ethical is doing heavy lifting there. It distinguishes these arrangements from infidelity or deception. The foundation of ENM is transparency, communication, and active consent from everyone involved.

Within that umbrella, the structures vary enormously. In her excellent book Polysecure, psychotherapist Jessica Fern maps the landscape clearly:

• Polyamory — having multiple loving, romantic relationships simultaneously, with everyone’s knowledge
• Open relationships — a primary partnership that allows for outside sexual (and sometimes romantic) connections
• Relationship anarchy — rejecting hierarchy and labels altogether, allowing each connection to define itself organically
• Solo polyamory — engaging in multiple relationships while prioritizing personal autonomy and not seeking a traditional “primary” partner
• Kitchen table polyamory — a style where all partners in a network are comfortable sitting around the same table together, knowing one another
• Parallel polyamory — multiple relationships that remain more separate, with less overlap between partners

None of these is more evolved or more valid than another. They are simply different architectures, each with their own demands, rewards, and challenges.

The Myth of the Perfect Relationship Structure

Here is something I want to say plainly: there is no perfect relationship structure. Not monogamy. Not polyamory. Not anything in between.

Whatever container you choose for your love life, conflict will find its way in. Jealousy does not disappear in ENM — it often becomes more visible, more demanding of your attention and conversation. Monogamy is not a shield against loneliness, disconnection, or the slow erosion of desire. The structure itself is not the solution to one feeling secure in the relationship.

Esther Perel, whose work I deeply admire, captures this well: we ask more of our romantic relationships today than any previous generation ever has. We want a partner who is our best friend, our co-parent, our intellectual equal, our erotic adventure, our emotional safe harbor. That is an enormous ask, and it strains every kind of relationship, regardless of how many people are in it.

The question, then, is not which structure is better, but rather, which structure fits you best, what you genuinely need, and what you and your partners can honestly sustain. That is a more interesting — and more honest — question.

ENM and Attachment: What Jessica Fern’s Polysecure Teaches Us

One of the most important contributions Jessica Fern makes in Polysecure is bringing attachment theory into the ENM conversation. Attachment theory, originally developed by John Bowlby and later expanded by researchers like Mary Ainsworth, describes the way we bond with caregivers in childhood, and how those early patterns show up in our adult relationships.

Most people are familiar with the four primary styles: secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized (or anxious-avoidant). Fern’s insight is that these styles don’t disappear in ENM — if anything, non-monogamous structures can amplify them, however the most successful non-monogamous couples are more securely attached.

Consider what ENM asks of people: the ability to tolerate a partner’s absence, to manage anxiety when they are with someone else, to communicate needs without collapsing into demand or withdrawing into silence, to trust without constant reassurance. For someone with an anxious attachment style, each of these can feel excruciating. For someone avoidant, the emotional labor of multiple relationships — the ongoing check-ins, the meta-conversations, the scheduling, the vulnerability — can quickly become overwhelming.

This is why Fern argues that secure attachment is the foundation from which ENM functions best. It isn’t the case that you need to be perfectly secure to explore non-monogamy — most of us are carrying some degree of anxious or avoidant patterning — but the more securely you are attached, to yourself and to your partners, the better equipped you are to navigate the genuine complexity ENM brings.

The good news, as Fern points out, is that attachment styles are not fixed. She describes earned secure attachment. which is the process by which adults, often through therapy or deeply reparative relationships, move toward greater security. This means that working on your attachment patterns is not a prerequisite you must complete before entering ENM, but it is work that will serve you profoundly if you are in it or considering it.

What ENM Requires (That Nobody Warns You About)

People sometimes come to ENM with the idea that it will solve something, whether a desire gap, a stagnant relationship, or a longing for novelty. And while ENM can be deeply fulfilling, it rarely solves pre-existing problems. More often, it reveals them and can create further distance in the primary relationship.

ENM requires:

Radical honesty. Not just the absence of lying, but a willingness to say things out loud that feel terrifying, for example, “I feel jealous.” “I feel left out.” “I need more from you.” “I am not okay right now.” Couples who struggle to have hard conversations will find that ENM multiplies the opportunities for difficult conversations exponentially.

Emotional self-sufficiency. In a monogamous relationship, it is easy to outsource emotional regulation to a single partner. ENM asks you to develop a stronger relationship with yourself, to know what you need, to tolerate discomfort, to strengthen your auto-regulation skills (soothing yourself) when your partner is not available.

Time and logistical capacity. Multiple relationships take time. They take calendar space, emotional bandwidth, and energy. This is not a minor consideration. Fern calls this concept “relationship capital,” and it is finite.

Ongoing renegotiation. ENM agreements are not set-and-forget. They evolve. What felt comfortable six months ago may not feel comfortable now. Checking in regularly, not just when something goes wrong, is not optional. It is an inherent piece of the structure itself.

So… Is ENM Right for You?

This is the question I get asked, in various forms, by clients who are curious, confused, or already in the thick of it. And my honest answer is always: it depends.

It depends on your attachment style and your willingness to work on it. It depends on your capacity for honest communication, not your intentions, but your actual current skill level. It depends on whether you are drawn to ENM from a place of genuine desire and curiosity, or from a place of avoidance, escape, or pressure from a partner.

It depends on your values, your lifestyle, your social context, your nervous system, and frankly, your schedule.

What I notice in my work with clients is that the people who thrive in ENM share a few qualities. They tend to have a solid sense of self — they know who they are outside of their relationships. They are willing to feel uncomfortable and stay curious about that discomfort rather than immediately acting on it. They have, or are actively building, the communication skills to navigate conflict without either imploding or shutting down. Most people choose this structure, rather than stumbling into it, but sometimes one partner initiates the re-structuring from monogamy to non-monogamy, even when the other partner is unsure but willing to try. For the unsure partner who is being asked to consider non-monogamy, as long as they are fairly securely attached, it does not hurt, and can even benefit, the relationship/marriage to least explore the possibility of a different structure in favor of growth and meeting more of each other’s needs.

Equally, the people who thrive in monogamy are not simply people who settle or lack imagination. They are people who find genuine depth, meaning, and freedom within a committed dyad, who find that the container of one partnership allows them to go deeper rather than wider. Neither path is lesser, neither path is without its challenges.

A Note on Couples Considering ENM Together

If you and your partner are exploring whether to open your relationship, I want to offer one piece of clinical wisdom: do not open a struggling relationship hoping ENM will help it. It almost never does. What it tends to do is introduce additional complexity into an already fragile system.

The better sequence is to do the relational work first, to address the underlying disconnection, resentment, or communication breakdowns and feel really connected, and then, from a place of genuine security and clarity, to decide together whether ENM is something you both want, and hopefully not just something one of you is tolerating.

Couples therapy, whether you are monogamous or non-monogamous, is a place to have those conversations with support. We can slow down, get honest, and figure out what you want and what helps you stay aligned to your most authentic self, even through some growing pains.

The Takeaway

ENM is not a trend, a phase, or a threat to relationships. It is a legitimate and increasingly common way that people are choosing to love. It is also not for everyone, and that is equally okay.

What matters most is not the label you choose but the intention behind it: Are you choosing this consciously? Are all partners genuinely on board, or at least expressing genuine desire to try to adjust? Are you doing the inner work that any relationship structure demands?

Whether your relationship is monogamous, polyamorous, or somewhere in the vast and nuanced space between, the same things matter: honesty, curiosity, care, and the courage to keep showing up for yourself and for the people you love.

If you are navigating questions about relationship structure, attachment, or what you actually want from love, I work with individuals and couples in the Denver and Wheat Ridge area — and I would be glad to think through it with you.

Bozhena Evans is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and certified Brainspotting therapist based in Wheat Ridge, CO. She specializes in anxiety, couples counseling, sex therapy, and ENM-affirming care. Reach her at BozhenaEvansTherapy@gmail.com or (970) 439-1604.

The post Is ENM Right for Your Relationship? What Therapy and Research Tell Us appeared first on Bozhena Evans Therapy.

By Bozhena Evans, LCSW· Therapist & Relationship Counselor · Denver, CO

You are wrapping up work on a Friday afternoon, and your partner texts: “Babe, I’d like to go out with the guys tonight…” And something in you tightens. Maybe it is loneliness. Maybe it is frustration. Maybe — and this one is harder to admit — it is a flicker of jealousy, or the quiet ache of feeling like you are not the priority.

If you have ever found yourself wondering “why does my husband spend more time with his friends than with me?” — or if your partner has asked that about you — you are not alone. This is one of the most common tensions couples bring into therapy. And it rarely has a simple answer.

What is usually at the heart of it is one of the great ongoing negotiations of any long-term relationship: the tension between autonomy and interdependence. How much space? How much togetherness? How do we each get what we need without the other person feeling abandoned, smothered, or invisible?

Let’s sit with that question together.

Autonomy Versus Interdependence: The Relationship Tightrope

Autonomy versus interdependence is not a problem to be solved — it is a tension to be navigated. And navigating it well might be one of the most important relational skills there is.

Every person enters a relationship with a deeply personal sense of how much closeness they need, how much solitude they prefer, and how much social connection they enjoy outside of the partnership. These needs are shaped by temperament, by family of origin (attachment dynamics), by culture, and by past relationships. They are not arbitrary; they are part of who we are. And they are often different from our partner’s needs.

Interdependence is the beautiful, necessary weaving-together of two lives. Shared meals and meal preferences, activities, inside jokes, the ability to finish one another’s sentences, the knowledge of where your partner keeps their keys and how they like their coffee… These are all interdependent experiences. This is the experience of “we.”

Autonomy is the equally necessary preservation of the I. It is your friendships, your solo pursuits, your capacity to be a whole person outside of the relationship. It is not a threat to love — it is often what keeps love alive. As Esther Perel has written, desire requires distance. We are most drawn to our partners when we see them as fully realized individuals with inner lives that do not entirely belong to us.

The couples who navigate this best are not the ones who want the same amount of togetherness. They are the ones who have learned to talk about it honestly, curiously, and without making the other person wrong for wanting what they want.

“Why Does My Husband Spend More Time with His Friends?” — What Might Really Be Going On

When a partner prioritizes their friends, it can feel like a statement about the relationship–like a ranking of who comes first.

But it is rarely that simple. Here are some of the things that might actually be happening:

Your partner may be filling a different kind of need. Friendships offer something that even the most intimate partnerships cannot always provide — a particular kind of ease, humor, or shared history. A partner who spends time with his friends is not necessarily saying the relationship is lacking. He may simply be tending to a part of himself that friendships nourish differently.

She may have a higher need for autonomy. Some people genuinely require more solitude and social variety to feel like themselves. This is not a character flaw or an indictment of the relationship. It is a temperamental reality. The question is whether it can be held within the relationship without one partner feeling chronically left behind.

There may be something he is not addressing in the relationship. Sometimes frequent time away is avoidance — a way of managing tension or disconnection that has not been named. This is worth exploring, gently and without accusation. 

The dynamic may have shifted. In the early years of a relationship, couples often merge. Everything is shared, every weekend together, every new experience, a first. Over time, especially after children, career stress, or life’s general compression, people begin craving to reclaim the parts of themselves they had set aside. This is healthy. And it can also feel disorienting to the partner who did not expect it.

During such times of disconnection, a more curious, less adversarial conversation, is good medicine. Whether partners can have this conversation on their own without volatile conflict or within a couples therapy setting, depends entirely on each couple and what helps partners feel most comfortable and safe.

When a Partner Prioritizes Friends: How to Talk About It Without Turning It Into a Fight

When a partner prioritizes his friends over shared time, the conversation that follows often goes one of two ways. Either it gets avoided entirely, the resentment building quietly underneath the surface, or it explodes, too charged with hurt to be productive.

There is a third way. It requires slowing down, getting underneath the complaint, and speaking from the actual feeling rather than the accusation.

Instead of: “You are always out with your friends. I feel like I’m not even on your radar.”

Try: “I have been feeling disconnected from you lately, and I miss you. Can we talk about how we are spending our time?”

The first version puts your partner on the defensive immediately with a “You” statement. The second opens a door with an “I [feel]” statement. It names your experience without making your partner the villain of it. This distinction matters enormously.

You are not asking your partner to be less themselves. You are asking to be included in the conversation about how you both get your needs met. That is not too much to ask.

Effective communication around autonomy and time together also means being specific. Not “you never prioritize me” — but “I would love one evening a week that is just ours. Could we protect that?” The latter statement is concrete, negotiable, not blaming, and grounded in what you actually need.

Personal Boundaries, Flexibility, and Finding the Sweet Spot

The sweet spot between togetherness and separateness is not a fixed destination — it is something couples recalibrate again and again over the course of a relationship. Life changes. Needs change. What worked in your thirties may not work in your fifties.

Finding that sweet spot requires both boundaries and flexibility, two things that can feel contradictory but are actually deeply complementary.

Personal boundaries in this context are not walls; they are honest expressions of what you need to feel okay in the relationship. “I need us to have at least one dedicated evening together each week” is a boundary. “I need you to check in if you are going to be out past midnight” is a boundary. These are not demands,  they are information. They tell your partner what helps you feel more calm, secure, and connected.

Flexibility is what you bring to the other side of that. It means recognizing that your partner’s need for time with friends is also legitimate. That you cannot be everything to each other. The goal is not to eliminate space but to make sure there is enough closeness to hold the space without it feeling like distance.

The Denver couples with whom I work often discover that the conflict is less about the actual time apart and more about the absence of acknowledgment. One partner feels invisible not because the other is gone, but because the other leaves without checking in, returns without reconnecting, and doesn’t seem to notice the impact. Small gestures — a text, a welcome home greeting that feels genuine, a “how was your night?” that goes beyond the perfunctory — can change the emotional temperature considerably.

Trust, Security, and the Jealousy We Don’t Like to Admit

Let’s name the thing that often hides underneath the question of time apart: jealousy. It is not always the dramatic, cinematic kind, but the quieter, more festering kind. The kind that wonders whether his friends are more fun than you. Whether she enjoys her solo time so much she would prefer it permanently. Whether the relationship is really as solid as you tell yourself it is.

Jealousy in long-term relationships is almost never actually about the other people involved. It is about trust, and more specifically, about the security you feel in yourself and in the relationship. When that security is strong, a partner’s friendships and outside life feel like enrichment. When it is shaky, they can feel like competition.

Developing trust in a relationship is not a one-time event. It is built through many moments of reliability, follow-through, and emotional honesty. When you say you will be home by ten and you are, trust grows. When you notice your partner seems down and you ask about it, trust grows. When you have the harder conversation rather than avoiding it, trust grows.

Security in oneself is equally important — and perhaps more personal. If your sense of worth is heavily dependent on how much time your partner chooses to spend with you, any absence will feel like a verdict. The work, then, is not only about negotiating time, it is about strengthening your own internal anchor, including your friendships, interests, and sense of self outside of the relationship.

A secure relationship is not one where both people are always together. It is one where both people can be apart — and still feel held.

Developing Trust Over Time: What It Actually Looks Like

Trust is not declared, it is demonstrated. In the context of autonomy versus interdependence, it looks like a few specific things:

Transparency without surveillance looks like a partner who shares where they are going, with whom, and an estimated time of arrival back home, not because they are required to disclose everything, but because they empathically understand why this information builds trust. This is checking in under obligation; this disclosure comes from care.

Consistency between words and actions looks like a partner who says “you are my priority”and actually keeps the plan, versus cancelling plans when something else comes up. The gap between words and actions erodes trust, and we know behavior is often more meaningful than words alone. 

Repairing after disconnection is a crucial element of conflict resolution once conflict is imminent. There will be periods of imbalance, where one partner feels sidelined, when life crowds out connection, and so forth. What matters most is the willingness to notice, to name the issue, and to come back toward each other once both partners are calm and able to discuss the rupture relatively peacefully.

When partners are genuinely able to celebrate each other’s interests and joys – outside of the relationship – respect and gratitude build. The couple’s connection is strengthened from a place of mutual wholeness and security rather than codependence and insecurity. Getting to know our partner’s friends, applauding their self-care, is not self-sacrifice — it is the kind of generosity that creates real closeness.

When the Imbalance Feels Too Big to Navigate Alone

Sometimes the tension around autonomy and togetherness points to something deeper — an underlying disconnection, a mismatch in attachment styles, unresolved resentments, or a relationship that has drifted without either person noticing or acknowledging.

If you are in Denver and find that conversations about time together keep going in circles, or that one of you is chronically lonely while the other feels chronically crowded, couples therapy can help. A skilled couples therapist will help slow the conversation down, facilitate active empathic listening, and help you build new language for expressing your needs and desires.

The goal is not perfect symmetry; it is not a relationship where both people want identical amounts of togetherness and space. The goal is a relationship where both people feel seen, valued, and free to be themselves — together and apart.

You Are Allowed to Need Each Other. And You Are Allowed to Need Space.

Both things are true. The longing for more connection is real, so is the need for a life that breathes beyond the relationship. Neither makes you needy. Neither makes your partner neglectful. These needs make you human.

The invitation is to get curious, rather than defensive, about your own needs, your partner’s needs, and the space in between where something workable, even beautiful, can be built.

If you are navigating this in your own relationship and would like support, I work with couples and individuals in Denver, Colorado on exactly these kinds of questions. Reach out — I would be glad to support you.

The post “Why Does My Husband Spend More Time with His Friends?” Understanding Autonomy Versus Interdependence in Relationships appeared first on Bozhena Evans Therapy.

If you have ever found yourself lying awake at night running through tomorrow’s logistics while your partner sleeps soundly beside you, you already know what I’m describing. The work you are doing isn’t always visible. It doesn’t appear on a shared calendar or earn a line in any chore rotation. It lives, instead, in the part of your mind that never fully powers down.

You are not imagining it. And you are not alone.

What Is Invisible Labor, and Why Does It Weigh So Much?

Invisible labor, sometimes called emotional labor, cognitive labor, or simply the mental load, encompasses all of the thinking, planning, anticipating, and managing that keeps a household and a relationship quietly functioning. It is remembering that your child’s dentist appointment needs to be scheduled before the school year starts. It is noticing that the pantry is running low before anyone else has thought to look. It is tracking the emotional weather of your family, managing the social calendar, and perhaps following up on the things your partner agreed to handle and then forgot.

None of this appears on a chore chart. None of it earns visible credit. And yet it requires a sustained, low-grade attentiveness that is genuinely exhausting to maintain.

Understanding how invisible labor affects relationships requires sitting with one of its most frustrating features: the person doing it often cannot fully articulate why they feel so depleted, while the person not doing it often cannot see what they are not doing. This asymmetry — not a product of malice, but of a genuine gap in perception and awareness — sits at the root of some of the most painful conflicts that couples bring into therapy.

The Real, Patriarchal Weight That Women and Mothers Carry

Where It Gets Complicated

And yet the picture is rarely as simple as one partner doing everything while the other does nothing. This is where the conversation requires more nuance than our frustration often allows.

Perception is not the same as reality. In relationships, two things can be simultaneously true: you are doing a great deal, and so is your partner, and you are both struggling to see each other clearly. This is one of the most common and quietly corrosive patterns in long-term partnerships — two people who are each genuinely working hard, each genuinely tired, and each privately convinced that they are the one carrying more than their fair share. No one is lying, but we are each, by the very nature of consciousness, the foreground of our own experience and may have a skewed sense of reality.

Consider what you hold in your awareness right now. You know every load of laundry you folded this week. You know the mental energy you spent coordinating pickup schedules and rescheduling the appointment that fell through. You know the 2 a.m. worry spiral about your aging parent that no one else witnessed. These experiences are vivid, textured, and real to you, as they should be.

What is harder to hold in your awareness is everything your partner is carrying that you haven’t seen: the hour they spent on the phone resolving a billing dispute you never knew existed, the anxiety about their job that they are quietly managing and haven’t yet found the words to name,  the things they handled last week without asking for acknowledgment. We tend to remember our own contributions in high definition and our partner’s in something closer to standard definition. This is not a character flaw, it is a feature of human cognition and one that requires genuine, deliberate effort to override. How can we learn to both contribute and appreciate each other without keeping score? When can we acknowledge times when there is a legitimate workload disparity and take some accountability without a fight?

How Unfair Division of Labor Hurts Your Relationship — Even When You Still Love Each Other

The damage that an unfair division of labor does to a relationship rarely announces itself as a single rupture. More often, it arrives as a slow and almost imperceptible erosion.

Workload disparity can look like a quiet withdrawal — the decision, made unconsciously over many months, to stop asking for help because asking has begun to feel like more work than simply doing the thing yourself. It looks like a dimming of desire, because it is genuinely difficult to feel attracted to someone you have begun to resent, or toward someone who has, in the daily architecture of your life, come to feel more like a dependent than a partner. It looks like scorekeeping, the accumulation of a mental ledger you never intended to keep, a running tally of who did what and who didn’t, building a case you didn’t imagine you would build at the onset of your romantic relationship. And eventually, it looks like a story that calcifies, the belief that you always have to do everything becomes not just a feeling but an identity, and identity, once formed, is very hard to revise — even when the behavior around it begins to change.

Resentment, as Esther Perel has written so perceptively, is among the most reliable killers of both erotic and emotional intimacy. When the ledger is open, curiosity tends to close. You cannot remain genuinely interested in someone you have already decided to resent, and you cannot be generous with someone you believe is consistently taking more than they give. The arithmetic of fairness, once it moves into the center of a relationship, has a way of touching everything.

Toward Something More Fair — and More Honest

If you are reading this and recognizing yourself, whether as the partner exhausted by invisible labor, or as the partner who suspects they may not be seeing the full picture — here is where I would invite you to begin.

Name what you are each actually doing. Not as a competition or an argument, but as a genuine act of mutual visibility. Sit down together and map it out — the visible tasks and the invisible ones, the logistical labor and the emotional labor, the things that get done and the mental energy required to ensure they get done at all. Put it on the table. Let it be seen.

Listen to understand rather than to respond. When your partner describes what they are carrying, your nervous system may instinctively want to answer with a counter-argument, a correction, or a list of your own contributions. Notice that impulse, and set it aside. The goal of this conversation is not to win the accounting, it is to see and appreciate your partner as you would want to be seen and appreciated yourself.

Recognize that contribution looks different, not necessarily lesser. Some labor is more visible than others. Some labor happens at different times of day, in different emotional registers, in different seasons of a shared life. Before drawing the conclusion that you are doing more, it is worth asking honestly: what am I not seeing?

Have the structural conversation. If there is a genuine, systemic imbalance in your relationship — and for many couples, especially those with young children, there is — it deserves a genuine, structural response. This isn’t just reassurance nor just acknowledgment and a return to the status quo. The answer is a thoughtful redistribution of who carries what and how.

If you find that this conversation is consistently difficult to have, or that you keep having it without anything really shifting, a skilled couples therapist can assist you in getting on the same page.

You Deserve a Relationship in Which You Feel Seen

Here in Denver and across the Front Range, I work with couples who are navigating exactly these patterns — the exhaustion, the resentment, the mutual invisibility, and the tender, persistent wish beneath all of it to feel like a genuine team again.

The unequal distribution of work and resentment in couples is real, and it is worth taking seriously. That said, it is also something that can change if both people are willing to look honestly at the relationship, at the cultural patterns they have inherited, and at the blind spots they each inevitably carry into partnership.

The couples who find their way through this are rarely the ones who manage to divide every task into perfect, equal halves. They are the ones who become genuinely curious and empathic about each other’s experience, who learn to ask, rather than assume, and who choose to see each other with more generosity than the ledger would suggest. They are the ones who stop keeping score long enough to remember why they wanted to share a life in the first place.

A skilled couples therapist can also support you in reconnecting with all of the other joys and beauty in your relationship, outside of all of the practical and logistical tasks involved in managing your life together–what makes your relationship worth fighting for!

If this post resonated with you, I would love to hear from you. I offer couples therapy and relationship counseling in Denver, CO, as well as virtual sessions throughout Colorado. Click to schedule a consultation.

The post How Invisible Labor Affects Relationships — And What to Do About It appeared first on Bozhena Evans Therapy.