Healing that treats
the root cause,
not just the symptoms.

The first session is mostly about listening. Your therapist gets a picture of your relationship's history, what's brought you in now, and what each of you hopes will change. It isn't confrontation-focused. Think intake and direction-setting, not a mediated fight.

Framing it as something you're doing for the relationship, rather than about your partner, tends to land better. For example, "I want us to have tools for this" instead of "you need to fix this." Many couples find it easier once they know the first session is low-pressure.

Yes. Most couples who walk through our door have never done this before and aren't sure it will help. That hesitation is common, and it doesn't predict how therapy will go.

Often, yes. One partner being ready to try is a normal starting point. Early sessions can focus on helping the more hesitant partner feel at ease, rather than requiring full buy-in from day one.

Couples therapy works at any stage. Some couples come in after a rupture. Others come in to strengthen communication before a life transition like a new baby, a move, or blending families. Earlier is generally easier than later.

We are a private-pay practice, so we don't bill insurance directly. If you have PPO insurance, we can provide a superbill you can submit to your plan for possible out-of-network reimbursement.

Session rates range from $125 to $250 depending on the service and clinician, and a sliding scale is available. Couples sessions are $250 for 75 minutes. You'll find the full rate card on our fees page.

It varies with what brought you in, but many couples notice a shift in communication within the first several sessions. Deeper patterns, like trust or long-standing resentment, take longer. Intensives are built for couples who want concentrated progress in a shorter window rather than months of weekly sessions.

Weekly couples therapy is available by telehealth anywhere in California, so where you live in the state isn't a barrier to starting. Couples intensives are the exception and take place in person.

Weekly sessions build skills gradually over time. An intensive compresses that work into a focused multi-day format. It's useful for couples who feel stuck, are in crisis, or don't have a local therapist and want to make concentrated progress in one visit.

It can help many relationships that feel stuck or distant rebuild connection. There's no guaranteed outcome, but starting before either partner has fully checked out gives the work more to build on.

Recurring fights are usually a surface symptom of a deeper, repeating pattern, like a bid for attention that keeps getting missed or an old wound that keeps getting triggered. Therapy focuses on the pattern underneath the argument, not just refereeing the argument itself.

Not necessarily. Some couples come in already considering separation and use therapy either to rebuild or to separate with more clarity and less damage. Both are legitimate outcomes of the work.

Trust after infidelity can be rebuilt, though it's typically slower and more structured than work on general communication. It usually involves processing the betrayal itself and then rebuilding day-to-day trust over time.

Yes. Disconnection often builds quietly through years of being busy, parenting, or drifting into routine, with no single event to point to. That slow drift is one of the most common reasons couples eventually seek therapy.

That's common and workable. Part of the early sessions is finding the shared goal underneath two different-sounding ones. For example, one partner wants "more connection" and the other wants "less conflict." Those aren't actually opposed.

Relationship strain and physical or hormonal health are often tangled together. Chronic exhaustion, mood swings, or unmanaged stress can show up as conflict at home. New Birth looks at both the relationship and the underlying physical picture instead of treating them as unrelated.

It's possible. Thyroid issues, perimenopause, postpartum hormone shifts, and chronic stress (cortisol) can all affect mood, patience, and libido in ways that get misread as relationship problems. Lab testing can help clarify whether that's part of what's going on.

Some adjustment is common. But persistent flatness, anxiety, or feeling disconnected from yourself or your baby is worth taking seriously rather than waiting out. It can be addressed through both emotional support and a look at your postpartum physical health.

There's a well-documented gut-brain connection. Nutrition, blood sugar swings, and inflammation can all influence anxiety, irritability, and stress tolerance, which in turn affects how conflict shows up at home.

Functional medicine at New Birth includes real lab work and therapeutic nutrition and hormone support alongside talk therapy. It's a combined care plan, not a rebranding of standard counseling. See our functional medicine services.

Yes. New Birth offers bilingual care in English and Spanish. Terapia en español.

Faith can be part of the conversation if it's part of your life. Our approach includes spiritual alignment alongside emotional and physical care for couples and families who want it integrated, without requiring it for those who don't.

Yes. New Birth has specific experience with veterans and military families, including the particular strain that deployment, reintegration, and service-related trauma can put on a relationship. Learn about our work with military families.

Yes, with the standard legal exceptions every licensed therapist operates under: risk of serious harm to self or others, or abuse of a child, elder, or dependent adult. Within couples therapy, what's shared is treated as information for the relationship's work, not something one partner can ask to keep hidden from the other. Your therapist will walk you through exactly how that works before you start.

Both. New Birth also offers child therapy for anxiety, emotional regulation, grief, and adjustment (including divorce), plus parent coaching, so the whole family can be supported under one practice. Explore child and family therapy.

An intensive compresses the work of several weeks or months of 75-minute sessions into one concentrated block of two to four days. There are no week-long gaps between conversations for momentum to stall.

The 2-day intensive is 10 to 12 hours, the 3-day is 18 hours, and the 4-day is 24 hours. Every format also includes bodywork and dedicated reconnection time.

Intensives begin at $3,500. Each one packs the equivalent of several months of weekly sessions into a few focused days, along with bodywork and dedicated reconnection time.

The right format depends on what's happening in your relationship, so we walk you through the options and exactly what's included during a free consultation. Book your free consult.

Not better so much as different. Intensives suit couples who want fast, concentrated progress or who are in crisis and can't wait out a weekly pace. Weekly therapy suits couples building skills gradually. Many couples do an intensive first and continue with weekly sessions afterward.

Either can work as a starting point. An intensive gives you a fast, thorough picture of what's going on, while weekly sessions ease in gradually. If you're not sure, a free consultation is a low-pressure way to decide together.

Most couples leave with a concrete plan, and many continue with periodic follow-up or weekly sessions to keep the momentum going. The intensive isn't meant to replace ongoing support. It jump-starts it.

No. Intensives are in person only, at our Mission Valley office, because that's where repair work of this depth has the best outcomes.

Couples on the edge of separating are often exactly who intensives are built for. The concentrated time can surface in a few days what might otherwise take months to reach, whether that leads to rebuilding or to a clearer, more mutual decision.

There's an assessment first. Both weekly couples therapy and intensives begin with the New Birth Assessment for Couples™, our own assessment developed for this work. That way your time together is targeted from the first hour rather than open-ended.

Intensives can often be scheduled in as little as 3 days, compared to about two weeks for a weekly therapy opening.