Dr. Mark Gregory Karris, LMFT · San Diego
Couples Therapy
in San Diego
Help with the arguments, distance, and hurt between you.
You may be arguing more, feeling distant, or trying to recover from something that hurt you both. I help couples talk about what is happening between them and begin working on what needs to change.
I help couples move from disconnection to connection, from despairing hurt to healing and hope. I meet with couples in Mission Valley, San Diego, and online throughout California. Welcoming LGBTQIA+ couples.
What brings couples to therapy
Are you having trouble reaching each other?
Has the connection faded? Has trust been shaken by an affair or another painful betrayal? Do the same conversations keep ending in the same painful place?
Perhaps you are trying to understand what happened and whether your relationship can heal after infidelity, or working through the difficult process of affair recovery and rebuilding trust. Maybe you have grown bored or disappointed over time, longing for something more. Or perhaps your relationship is thriving, and you want to make it even stronger.
When closeness fades
Talk about the feelings and needs that have become difficult to share with each other.
When conflict repeats
Understand the recurring dynamics that turn differences into resentment, criticism, withdrawal, or hostility.
When trust needs care
Work toward greater honesty, emotional safety, and connection after an affair, betrayal, or painful disconnection.
Working with me
Couples therapy
is my specialty.
“Together, we can work toward creating a relationship that feels safer, more supportive, and more deeply connected.”
I love helping couples understand one another and experience a different way of being together.
I have spent countless hours researching and developing my work with couples. Alongside my clinical practice, I have published peer-reviewed articles on relationship dynamics, trauma, shame, compassion, and attachment.
Healthy relationships are the cornerstone of a happy and meaningful life. The sense of belonging and connection we find in relationships is a powerful driving force. I’m here to help you build the confidence to navigate relationships effectively—from mastering communication and emotional skills to understanding the complex dynamics that shape how you and your partner see each other. Many of us struggle with relationships, whether it’s choosing the wrong person, neglecting our own needs, or misreading our partner’s intentions. Yet, relationships are both complex and exciting, offering endless opportunities for growth and deeper intimacy. I love working with clients to explore these dimensions, deepen their understanding of intimacy, and learn how to navigate specific recurring dynamics.
I also have experience working with the LGBTQIA+ community.
Beneath the argument
What happens when a conversation goes wrong?
When emotions run high, knowing what to say is not always enough.
My counseling is experiential and attachment-oriented, with attention to trauma, nervous system regulation, and the emotional dynamics between partners.
When we feel threatened or unsafe, we may attack, defend, or shut down. In those moments, it can be difficult to use the communication skills we understand intellectually.
Our work pays attention to what happens in real time: tone of voice, body language, closeness, distance, and the emotions beneath your reactions. We explore how to move from defense toward collaboration, support, and mutual care.
I want to help you recognize these patterns and learn to respond in ways that make it easier to trust and turn to each other.
My approach to couples therapy
How I draw from different kinds of couples therapy.
Because relationship challenges are often complex, they deserve thoughtful and evidence-based care. I take an integrative approach to couples therapy, with Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) serving as my primary framework. EFT is a research-supported model that helps partners create deeper emotional safety and secure, lasting bonds.
These approaches help me work with both the practical problems you bring in and the feelings that make those problems hard to resolve.
Emotionally Focused Therapy
I have extensive training in EFT, a collaborative, research-supported model that helps partners understand their emotional responses, change painful interaction patterns, and build secure bonds.
Read my personalized approach to Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (PDF) →
What we work toward
- Understand the emotions beneath protective reactions.
- Shift recurring patterns of disconnection.
- Create new experiences of emotional responsiveness.
- Strengthen a secure and lasting bond.
More about Emotionally Focused Therapy
EFT brings together experiential and systemic approaches. It offers a structured process for understanding relationship distress and helping partners engage with each other in new ways.
The work is collaborative and respectful, with attention to both your inner emotional experience and the cycle that develops between you.
An integrative perspective
Transformative Couples Therapy® (TCT)
Certified practitioner in David Mars’ approach.
Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy (PACT)
Completed Stan Tatkin’s 40-hour Level I training.
Relational Life Therapy (RLT)
Completed Level One training in Terry Real’s approach.
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Completed 80 hours of Level One training.
Transformative Couples Therapy
Noticing the glimmers of love, hope, and resiliency between partners in each moment
David Mars’ Transformative Couples Therapy®
I am an approved and certified TCT couples therapist.
TCT pays attention to subtle, often overlooked signals: small gestures, emotions beneath the surface, and the way your body responds in the moment. It is about experiencing connection as well as talking about it.
We slow down moments that usually pass too quickly: a change in your partner’s voice, an urge to pull away, or a gesture of care you might otherwise miss. As you notice those moments, I help you talk about what you feel and practice responding to each other differently. We also pay attention to the affection and care that are already there and how to build on them.
A snapshot of the work
What a different conversation can sound like.
In their eighth session, a husband’s numb withdrawal begins to soften. What once looked like indifference starts to reveal something much more vulnerable. After many sessions of feeling shut down and criticized, he finally shares his deeper fear—that he may never be able to meet his wife’s needs.
“I do want to be close.”
“There’s no point in talking to you. I don’t want to fight.”
As the deeper fear emerges, he begins to share something more vulnerable:
“I do want to be close. I want you to give me a chance. Stop poking me and let me learn how to be there for you.”
“I need reassurance.”
“You just don’t care. You don’t get it.”
Beneath her anger are fear, sadness, and longing. She begins to ask:
“It’s hard to say this, but I need you to hold me and reassure me. Can you?”
In moments like this, several therapeutic perspectives come together. Explore how each approach contributes to the work.
EFT: understanding the pursue–withdraw cycle
From an Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) lens, we understand that the couple has been caught in a painful pursue–withdraw cycle. The husband protects himself by shutting down, while the wife protests the disconnection through criticism and anger. As the deeper emotions beneath those protective reactions are expressed, both partners begin to see each other not as enemies but as people longing for connection.
TCT: noticing the channels of experience
Drawing from Transformative Couples Therapy® (TCT), I also help partners slow down and experience what is happening in the present moment through what TCT calls the channels of experience—such as emotion, bodily sensations, imagery, voice, movement, and energy. By paying attention to these channels, couples become more aware of what is happening inside them and between them in real time. This deeper awareness often allows vulnerability and compassion to emerge naturally. TCT also highlights the subtle “glimmers” of love that still exist in the relationship—small moments of warmth, care, or longing that can be amplified and built upon.
PACT: understanding nervous system responses
Insights from Stan Tatkin’s Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy (PACT) help the couple understand what is happening in their nervous systems. When partners feel threatened, their brains move into fight, flight, or shutdown. Learning to regulate these responses helps the husband remain present instead of withdrawing and allows the wife to soften her protest so she can express her deeper need for reassurance.
IFS: getting curious about protective parts
At the same time, Internal Family Systems (IFS) helps each partner understand the different “parts” of themselves that show up during conflict. The husband recognizes a protective part that withdraws when he feels inadequate, while the wife notices an anxious part that pushes for reassurance when she fears disconnection. As these parts are understood with curiosity and compassion, both partners gain more freedom in how they respond.
RLT: strengthening honesty and accountability
Finally, ideas from Relational Life Therapy (RLT) help partners strengthen their wise adult capacity—the part of them capable of honesty, accountability, and care. This allows each partner not only to express their pain but also to take responsibility for how they impact the relationship and to act in ways that protect the partnership.
As each partner understands more about what is happening for the other, they can begin responding with care instead of repeating the same argument.
Over time, the relationship itself becomes a safe haven and a place of healing, rather than a place where partners repeatedly hurt one another.
Something to work on, together.
I created these handouts to help you make sense of what happens between you and find ways to respond to each other with more care. Take a look and choose one that speaks to what you’re going through. You can read it together, print it, or bring it into a session.
Choose a topic below. Each handout opens as a PDF in a new tab.
Understanding the patterns between you7 handouts
The Dance, Not the Dancers
Notice the cycle you get caught in and begin talking about it without blaming each other.
The Pursuer and the Protector
Understand what happens when one of you pushes for connection and the other pulls away.
The Chasm Isn’t What You Think
Look beneath familiar arguments to the fears about connection and whether you matter.
Beneath the Anger, Under the Silence
Find words for the hurt, fear, or sadness underneath anger and withdrawal.
The Anatomy of a Feeling
Slow down an emotional moment and understand what happened inside you.
How You Learned to Love
Explore how early experiences shaped what you expect from love and how you protect yourself.
When a conversation gets hard5 handouts
When the Alarm Goes Off
Notice the signs of overwhelm in your body and find ways to slow things down.
Stopping the Music
Catch a painful cycle as it starts and practice pausing together.
Coming Out of the Fortress
Let your partner know what is happening when you shut down, and find a way back into the conversation.
The Softening
Share the fear or longing beneath a complaint and ask for what you need more directly.
When the Old Dance Starts Again
Make a plan for the setbacks that happen while you are learning a different way to respond.
Reaching for each other6 handouts
The Question Under Everything
Talk about what “Are you there for me?” means in your relationship.
Wired for Each Other
Make room for the very human need to feel close to someone you love.
The Reach
Practice sharing hurt and asking for comfort in a way your partner can hear.
Catching the Reach
Respond with care when your partner takes the risk of opening up.
Safe Haven, Secure Base
Explore how you can offer each other comfort and encouragement to grow.
Am I Worth Loving?
Talk gently about shame and the fear that you might be too much, or not enough, to be loved.
Caring for your connection day to day5 handouts
Rituals of Us
Create small, regular moments of connection that fit your actual life.
Sharing the Joys
Practice showing up for each other’s good news and everyday joys.
The Language of Touch
Talk about affection, touch, and intimacy with care, consent, and less pressure.
The Story of Us, Retold
Notice what is changing and tell a relationship story that includes your efforts to repair.
Tending the Bond for Life
Keep checking in and caring for your relationship as life changes.
Making room for hurt, stress, and loss5 handouts
Healing the Big Hurts
Begin talking about a serious breach of trust, its impact, and what repair may ask of you.
Raw Spots
Understand the tender places that make some moments hurt more than your partner realizes.
When Old Dragons Visit
Recognize when past trauma shows up between you and talk about the support you need.
When the World Storms In
Face illness, money worries, parenting, and other outside pressures with more teamwork.
Grieving Together
Make room for different ways of grieving and find ways to support each other through loss.
These handouts are for reflection and practice. They can support the work you’re doing together, but they don’t replace therapy.
Get a feel for my work
Ideas you can bring
into your relationship.
Two videos from my book and audiobook, Beyond Fairy Tales, exploring connection, compassion, and the patterns that pull partners apart.
Reflective Empathic Compassion
Approach your partner with curiosity, understand their emotional experience, and respond in ways that help them feel seen, heard, and supported.
The SANE Approach
A practical tool to help couples ease tension, interrupt painful cycles, and deepen their connection.
Read more deeply
Papers and resources for couples and therapists.
My passion for couples therapy extends beyond the therapy room. These papers and resources reflect my work with attachment, compassion, trauma, and relationship repair.
Trauma, shame & compassion
Integrating Emotionally Focused Therapy, Self-Compassion, and Compassion-Focused Therapy to Assist Shame-Prone Couples Who Have Experienced Trauma
Re-storying after infidelity
Religious Couples Re-Storying After Infidelity: Using Narrative Therapy Interventions with a Focus on Attachment
A welcome to couples therapy
Welcome Packet for New Couples: A customizable packet used by couples therapists worldwide to support and prepare new clients.
Conversations about lasting connection
Conversations about couples therapy.
Empowered Relationship · Episode 469
Changing how you respond to each other.
My conversation with Dr. Jessica Higgins about developing new dynamics for a lasting, caring relationship.
The Couples Therapist Couch · Episode 227
Beyond Fairy Tales
Join Shane Birkel and me for a conversation about my book, attachment, and moving from blame toward mutual understanding.
Would you like some help with your relationship?
If you’d like to work together, tell me a little about what has been happening in your relationship. We can talk about what you need and whether my approach seems like a good fit.
Together, we can work toward creating a relationship that feels safer, more supportive, and more deeply connected.
Dr. Mark Gregory Karris, LMFT
Couples Therapy in San Diego