Couples Therapy in Rockville Centre, NY
Marta Laurette, psychotherapist, provides couples therapy to help partners build stronger, more resilient, and emotionally connected relationships. Marta Laurette uses the Gottman Method Couples Therapy, which is based on the Sound Relationship House theory. This well-established framework identifies three essential areas that support healthy and satisfying relationships: building intimacy and friendship, managing conflict, and learning how to make life dreams come true while creating shared meaning. When couples address all three areas, they develop a stronger partnership that can weather challenges, support personal growth, and foster joy and connectedness. To learn more, visit the following link: Sound Relationship House.pdf.
This approach emphasizes that emotions play a critical role in effective repair and relationship healing. Marta Laurette works with couples on understanding and expressing their emotions in ways that strengthen connection rather than create distance. Therapy sessions focus on developing new relational skills—behaviors that help partners nurture friendship, communicate effectively, and create a sense of shared life. These skills are practical, teachable, and can be applied both inside and outside the therapy room.
Through structured exercises and guided dialogue, partners learn how to build a deeper friendship and emotional connection. They practice how to repair after conflict, how to self-soothe rather than escalate, and how to make decisions that honor the needs of both individuals. As couples reconnect, they rediscover what they value in their relationship, including shared dreams, rituals of connection, and opportunities for play and joy.
Marta Laurette combines the Gottman Method with psychodynamic therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy to support her couples in a deeper, more comprehensive way. Psychodynamic therapy helps partners understand how early attachment experiences and family patterns shape their current reactions, expectations, and needs. By recognizing these influences, couples gain insight into their emotional responses, which allows for greater compassion toward themselves and one another. Cognitive behavioral therapy complements this work by offering practical strategies to change unhelpful thoughts, regulate emotions, and develop new behaviors that support intimacy, communication, and repair.
The Gottman Method Couples Therapy offers guidance and specific instructions to help partners with learning the following:
• how to listen to your partner with empathy and without your agenda
• how to speak to your partner without blame, criticism and contempt
• how to compromise with honoring your and your partner's core needs
• how to ask questions that help you understand and enter your partner's inner world
• how to regulate emotions
• how to develop interest in and appreciation of your partner
• how to play and have fun with your partner
