Trauma-Informed Emotionally Focused (EFT) Couples Therapy Online Throughout Washington
Couples Therapy for Conflict in Spokane & Eastern Washington
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. The same fight keeps showing up, sometimes about money, sometimes about the kids, sometimes about something as small as a tone of voice or a misread text, and it ends the same way. One of you goes quiet, and the other pushes harder for resolution. Or you both explode, and then spend the next few days barely speaking while you go through the motions of your Spokane routine, dropping kids at school on the South Hill, making small talk at the Kendall Yards farmers market, acting like everything is fine.
You've tried to fix it. You've had the late-night conversations, tried being more patient, maybe read a book about relationships, maybe even tried couples therapy before. And it helps for a little while, until it doesn't, and you're right back in the same pattern with a different topic. In Spokane, where church and family and social life overlap heavily, there can be an added pressure to handle this on your own, a sense that the conflict is something you should be able to fix with enough effort or faith. 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 my approach to couples therapy here.
How My Approach to Couples Therapy Helps
I use Emotionally Focused Therapy as my primary approach for couples therapy in Eastern Washington, 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?
Your partner brings up the thing about finances while you're cooking dinner at home in Spokane Valley, and instead of the defensive wall going up, you hear what they're actually worried about underneath the frustration. You don't agree on the solution yet, but you're in the conversation together instead of fighting from opposite sides of it.
You're driving to Liberty Lake for a weekend with the kids, and the conversation turns to the tension about church, whether to keep going, which church, what to tell the kids. Six months ago that conversation would've ended in silence for the rest of the drive. Now you can both name what you're afraid of, and that honesty holds you together even when you don't have the answers yet.
The fight that happened on Thursday night doesn't ruin the weekend. By Saturday you're at Riverfront Park, getting coffee and actually talking about what that fight was really about (it wasn’t actually about the dishes).
Extended family gatherings near Cheney or Airway Heights stop being landmines. Your mother says the thing she always says, and instead of the usual blowup on the drive home, your partner reaches for your hand and says "that was a lot." The fight you used to have about your family doesn't happen because the resentment got addressed weeks ago in session.
Intimacy changes from something heavy with expectation to something that feels like it's actually about the two of you. You're present with each other instead of going through the motions or avoiding physical closeness altogether.
Who This Couples Therapy Approach Is For
This works for couples in Spokane and Eastern Washington 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 Spokane and Eastern Washington via Telehealth
I see couples throughout Spokane and Eastern Washington through secure, HIPAA-compliant video sessions. Whether you're on the South Hill, in Spokane Valley, Liberty Lake, Medical Lake, or anywhere else in the Spokane area, you can access specialized couples therapy from home. Telehealth means you can work with someone who has specific training in this kind of couples work.
Serving couples in Spokane and surrounding areas including Spokane Valley, Liberty Lake, Cheney, Airway Heights, Medical Lake, and throughout Eastern Washington.
Schedule Your First Session
Schedule Your First Session
Questions?
FAQs About Trauma-Informed EFT Couples Therapy for Conflict
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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 Spokane
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