Trauma-Informed Emotionally Focused (EFT) Couples Therapy In Bothell and Online Throughout Washington
Couples Therapy for Conflict in Bellevue & the Eastside
For Conflict that Keeps Repeating
Every couple has disagreements. But if you’re here, what's happening between you and your partner probably doesn't feel like a normal disagreement. From the outside, your life in Bellevue or Kirkland or Sammamish looks ideal: good jobs, good schools, a beautiful home you've built together.
But at home, the same fight keeps showing up, sometimes about money, sometimes about the kids, sometimes about something as small as the weekend schedule, and it ends the same way: one of you goes quiet, and the other pushes harder for resolution. Or you both say things you regret, and by the time the kids are in bed you're in separate rooms scrolling your phones, spending the next few days in a careful but tense truce until it happens again.
You’ve tried to fix it. You've had the late-night conversations, tried being more patient, maybe picked up a book about relationships. Maybe you've even done couples therapy before and found that the communication tools helped for a week or two before the same pattern reasserted itself. The effort is real, but the frustration when nothing changes is real too.
What most couples don't realize is that their reactions during these fights, the shutting down, the escalating, the going completely blank at the worst possible moment, are being driven by something that moves faster than any communication skill. Your body has learned to respond to certain kinds of tension in automatic ways, and those responses kick in before you've had a chance to think. That's why knowing what you should say doesn't help when your chest is tight and your partner is staring at you waiting for a response you can't find.
Couples therapy that works with those automatic responses, rather than trying to talk over them, can change what your next argument looks like and what happens after it.
Read more about how I work with couples, including the three-part intake process and what EFT looks like in practice, on my couples therapy page.
How My Approach to Couples Therapy Helps
I use Emotionally Focused Therapy as my primary approach for couples therapy in Bellevue, combined with body-based trauma work and direct coaching from Gottman Method and Relational Life Therapy. We don't just talk about your conflicts, we work through them in the session so your body learns a different way to respond when things get hard at home.
In early sessions, we map the pattern between you: who pursues, who withdraws, where shame shows up, what each of you is afraid of underneath the fight about money or the kids or the in-laws. Then we practice something different, in real time, with me coaching you through it. When one of you starts to shut down, we don't just note it, we pause and work with what's happening in your body right then. When the shame spiral hits, we address it directly instead of letting it hijack the next forty minutes.
You leave having done something new with each other, not just having talked about doing something new. That matters because when the hard conversation comes up on a Tuesday night, your body has a reference point for another way through it.
What changes when couples therapy reaches the root underneath the conflict?
You drive home from a family gathering in Issaquah where your mother-in-law said the thing she always says, and instead of the forty-five-minute fight on 90th Avenue, your partner says "that was hard" and you say "yeah, it was," and that's enough. The evening isn't ruined.
You're walking the trail at Bridle Trails State Park on a Saturday, and the conversation turns to something real, the tension about one of you wanting to step back from the church community, the worry about a child, the resentment about who carries what in the household. You talk about it while you walk, and when you get back to the car, you're closer instead of more distant.
The quarterly review at work doesn't send you home wound tight and ready to snap at the first person who looks at you wrong. Your partner asks how your day was, and instead of "fine," you tell them what's actually going on. And they listen without trying to fix it.
You have the conversation about faith, the one where one of you is questioning everything you were raised with and the other is scared about what that means for your family, your community, your kids. You both say what's true for you. You don't resolve it that night, but you stay connected through the uncertainty instead of letting it push you apart.
Sex becomes something you both want again instead of an obligation, a negotiation, or a source of quiet resentment. Intimacy feels like connection rather than performance.
Who This Couples Therapy Approach Is For
This works for couples in Bellevue where the same conflict keeps replaying regardless of the topic. When your reactions during fights feel bigger than the situation warrants, when one partner shuts down and the other escalates, when you go blank at the exact moments you most need to be present, when chronic pain or health issues are creating tension, withdrawal, or resentment, or when you've tried couples therapy before but the tools don't hold up when emotions run high.
I also work with couples where faith changes, mixed-faith dynamics, or purity culture aftermath affect your intimacy and connection. If one or both of you are questioning what you were raised to believe, those issues often need their own focused work within the couples therapy process. See my page on couples therapy for faith and identity changes here.
This approach to couples therapy will not work well if:
There’s active abuse happening between you: physical, emotional, or verbal
Substance abuse or active addiction is the primary issue
Either partner is unwilling to look at their own role and contributions to the conflict.
Couples Therapy in Bellevue and on the Eastside via Telehealth
I see couples throughout Bellevue and the Eastside through secure, HIPAA-compliant video sessions. Whether you're in Kirkland, Redmond, Woodinville, Mercer Island, Issaquah, Sammamish, Newcastle, or anywhere else on the Eastside, you can access couples therapy without adding another commute to your week. Sessions are available during daytime and evening hours.
For many couples, telehealth works well because you're in your own space, which is where the real conflicts happen anyway.
Serving couples in Bellevue, Kirkland, Redmond, Sammamish, Issaquah, Woodinville, Mercer Island, Newcastle, Bothell, and throughout the Eastside and King County, including Seattle and Tacoma.
Schedule Your First Session
Schedule Your First Session
Questions?
FAQs About Trauma-Informed EFT Couples Therapy for Conflict
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Couples sessions are $350. I don't accept insurance directly, but I can provide a superbill for you to submit to your insurance for possible out-of-network reimbursement. Please see my FAQ page here for more information.
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Most couples therapy focuses on teaching communication skills, how to listen, how to compromise, how to fight fair. Those tools are useful when both people can stay calm enough to use them. But if one of you shuts down the moment conflict starts or the other floods with emotion and can’t stop, the skills don’t stick. This approach works with your nervous system responses first, so that the tools you already know become accessible when the conversation gets hard.
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You don’t need a trauma diagnosis to benefit from this work. If your reactions during fights feel bigger than the situation calls for, if one of you goes blank or the other can’t stop escalating, if the same argument keeps repeating with different content, those are signs that something deeper is getting activated. We figure out what’s driving the pattern together. Many couples discover connections they hadn’t seen before once we start looking at what’s happening in the body during those moments.
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That’s common, and it doesn't mean the other partner sits on the sidelines. When one person's nervous system is running protective interference, the other partner is affected whether they realize it or not. The partner without the history often feels confused, shut out, or like they’re always walking on eggshells. Both of you will learn how this dynamic works between you, and both of you develop new ways of responding.
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Yes. Chronic pain or illness often create a dynamic where one partner feels guilty or burdensome and the other feels helpless or resentful, and nobody talks about it directly. Intimacy changes, activities get dropped, and the relationship quietly reorganizes around the pain. We work with those dynamics directly. Learn more about chronic pain therapy here.
About Ingrid Johnston, LMFT, MDFT
EFT couples therapist in Bellevue
I’ve been working with couples since 2014, specializing in relationships where the conflict runs deeper than what communication tools alone can reach.
I’m trained in Emotionally Focused Therapy, EMDR, somatic therapy, and Pain Reprocessing Therapy, and I hold advanced certification in Medical Family Therapy from Seattle Pacific University.
I'm a member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) and the Washington Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (WAMFT).
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: Washington State License #LF61033631
Get In Touch
Contact Ingrid
Please complete the form, and I will be in touch within 48 business hours.
Office and mailing address:
19803 North Creek Parkway, Suite 205
Bothell, WA 98011
In-person in Bothell & online across Washington