Dating
Different person, same three months, same ending.
For people who keep meeting the same person in a different body. We look at what your system reads as chemistry, and why it so often turns out to be familiarity.
Overview
Chemistry and familiarity feel identical from the inside.
It can feel like you are doing everything right. You are clear about what you want, you have a list, you have had the conversations with friends about standards. And yet at week three something turns, or at week twelve it turns, and afterward the shape of it looks exactly like the last one. It is tempting to conclude that the dating pool is the problem. Sometimes it is. More often something in you is doing selection work you are not aware of.
The mechanism is unromantic. What registers as chemistry, that immediate pull, the sense that this one is different, is often your nervous system recognizing a familiar dynamic rather than a good one. Familiar feels like home even when home was not safe. Steady people can read as boring in that framework, and you can lose years to that mistake before anyone points it out. This work is for anyone dating, at any age, and it is for all orientations and relationship structures.
At a Glance
- Adults and couples, in person in San Diego
- Telehealth Monday through Friday across California
- EMDR certified, Gottman and EFIT Level 1 trained
- Free 15-minute consultation
Individual sessions are $210, or $325 for 90 minutes. Couples sessions are $225, or $345 for 90 minutes.
Full fees and policiesDoes This Sound Familiar?
The specifics, not a symptom list
Open any line to see how I would think about it with you.
The intensity in week one felt like proof.
Rapid intensity is worth being curious about rather than trusting. We look at what specifically triggered it in that person, because it is usually a very particular quality that maps to something older.
The Work
Attachment-focused dating work
Identify your pattern precisely
Not your type, your pattern. What you pursue, what you tolerate, what makes you pull back, and at which point. We build it from your actual relationship history rather than a quiz.
Slow the early phase down
Most of the damage is done in the first six weeks, when intensity outruns information. We set deliberate pacing so you have a chance to notice who someone is before you have decided who they are.
Process the origin, not just the behavior
Rules about pacing help. They do not change what your body wants. When there is history driving the selection, we process it directly, sometimes with EMDR, so that steady stops reading as flat.
The Arc
A shape, not a protocol
Everyone moves differently. This is how this particular work usually unfolds here.
Every significant relationship, how it started, how it ended, and what you told yourself about it at the time. Seen side by side, the pattern is usually obvious within one session and it lands differently than being told about it.
Questions
Answered plainly
Anything not covered here is worth asking on the free 15-minute consult.
Is this couples therapy?
No. This is individual work about how you date, and it is done alone. If you are in a relationship and want to work on it together, couples therapy is the right format and I offer that separately.
Do you work with people who are not in heterosexual relationships?
Yes. I work with clients of all sexual orientations and gender identities, and with people in non-monogamous relationships. The attachment work is the same and the specific context is yours.
Should I stop dating while I do this?
Usually not. Dating gives us live material, and pausing entirely tends to make the work theoretical. We may change how you date rather than whether you date.
I am in my forties and starting over. Is this the same work?
The pattern work is the same and the context is very different, including a shorter tolerance for wasted time and often children in the picture. Both are welcome material.
What if the honest answer is that I am fine and just have not met anyone?
Then I will say so. Not every dating difficulty is a psychological pattern, and part of what you are paying for is somebody who will tell you when the answer is that this is genuinely hard.
Free 15-Minute Consult
Fifteen minutes to find out whether this is the right work.
Tell me what is actually going on. I will tell you honestly how I would approach it and what to expect.
In person in San Diego, and by telehealth across California.