Dr. Marie Kerns PsyD

“I know he’s having an affair” “I think my husband is having an emotional affair with one of his co-workers” “My wife is cheating on me with her phone”

As a couples counselor in Irvine, California, I hear these complaints, or similar ones quite often. Yes, the same phones that make our lives a lot easier, also make it easier to have an affair.

This is a difficult discovery for my clients, and I make it a priority to clarify and affirm them at this time of betrayal. First, we clarify the truth of their perceptions and once clarified, the betrayed partner requires support and affirmation along with skills that empower them.

Couples usually come into counseling with me feeling frustrated and misunderstood by their partner. A betrayal is a total disconnection and involves a reality shift. This reality shift leads to arguing, hurt, and anger. Without counseling, their thoughts eventually shift to dissolving the relationship. Miscommunication about the breach of trust, leads to further issues in their relationship.

Couples Counseling after a betrayal, can help you and your partner have an improved relationship. We will explore the meaning of this transgression, and what led up to it. In my experience the couples that are committed to therapy and each other work through the healing process, and then create a stronger relationship bond than they previously had. Their old relationship destroyed and the new one takes its place. This time built on more openness and truth.

Here are my 3 steps to healing after a betrayal.

1. Accepting the relationship is a lie and allow for time grief and healing.

2. Disclosure of transgressions to enable trust to begin.

3. Discover a new relationship built on a strong foundation.

This process begins when you make that first call. I’m Dr. Kerns and I am an Experienced Couples Counselor. Couples counseling can help to change relationship patterns into dynamic interactions where relationships thrive, even after a betrayal.

Sessions are designed to generate an understanding of the viewpoint of the partner. From this understanding we work together to build the relationship by a blending of the strengths and weaknesses of each partner.

Success is achieved by a consistent working through of issues, each time with the partners taking more responsibility with the tools that they have learned from previous sessions. I have helped many couples heal and discover meaning, and I can help you.

If you need help with this indiscretion in your relationship, please call me

at 949-285-5199.

I am located at: 4199 Campus Drive, Suite #550

Irvine, CA 92612

Many of my couples come into counseling feeling a disconnection from their partner, This disconnection many times revolves around continuous conflicts. This may manifest itself as arguing over a porn addiction, communication issues, affairs, the silent treatment etc.. So, what’s going on? Why all this conflict?

As a therapist, my challenge is to de-escalate the conflict, which includes many negative cycles of interacting. At the same time, I help to facilitate constructing a secure attachment bond. A secure attachment helps to create safety in the relationship. It's where couples really feel their partner is their anchor in the storm of life.

You may wonder what a negative cycle is, and why it leads to continuous conflicts in the relationship. Some negative cycles begin when a couple is transitioning from one phase of life to another. Such as adjusting to parenthood, or one partner getting a promotion at work. Many times a job loss brings new or old problems to the surface.

In any of these circumstances couples begin to blame each other for their problems. The stress of adjustment leads to insecurities. A new way of defining their life and the relationship serves to comfort and contain anxieties if a mutual understanding is developed.

Counseling can help couples redefine their relationship and the adjustment to change. This process gives added meaning to their relationship. Without an agreement on the definition of their life together, misunderstandings can develop and intensify the conflict. This further leads to an increase in stress and anxiety. The change in each partners behavior, due to the misunderstanding, then leads to an increase in stress and anxiety, which manifests into further misunderstanding, This then leadis to anger and frustration. The partners in the couple then begin to wonder why they married their partner.

This cycles continues and can be interrupted through counseling. As stated earlier, a secure attachment helps to create safety in the relationship. When each partner feels the emotional support of their mate, these life challenges are easier to work through, and the conflict is managed by increasing the safety and security in the relationship which in turn softens the communication decreasing defensiveness.

Call me NOW to make an appointment  949-285-5199.

I have helped many couples and I would love to help you.

Dr.Marie Kerns PsyD, LMFT

4199 Campus Drive, Suite 550                                                                                                                                                                                           Irvine CA 92612

949-285-5199

Are you

like many of my of my clients that experience anxiety? They feel hijacked when symptoms begin? The sweaty palms, stuttering speech, unclear thinking and if severe - the panic attack type. With panic you may experience hyperventalization, real brain fog, severe tingling of limbs, and more. So what's going on?

The Anxiety you experience may be a real threat, such as an upcoming exam that your not prepared for, or it may be an imagined threat. Your emotions are overpowering your thoughts. When this happens, your thinking becomes unclear and poor decision making may affect your behavior. It is pure survival, anything to reduce the uncomfortable feeling.

Behavior becomes automatic when anxiety is triggered. Your decisions, based on internal feelings take over. This could result in inadequate decision making and negative consequences. Overtime, if anxiety persists it can lead to depression, or even physical health problems. Here are two types of anxiety existing in complex relationship with each other.

The first is acute anxiety, which generally occurs in response to a real threat and is experienced as time limited. You probably adapt to acute anxiety rather successful, partly because your response or action is based on a clearly defined situation. When the situation is over you are relieved and the anxity is gone.

The second is chronic anxiety, which occurs in response to perceived threats, is not experienced as time limited, and exists in all of us to a different degree. Chronic anxiety can be influenced by many things, but may not be caused by any one of them. Chronic anxiety can be the degree of your sensitivity to real, or perceived changes in your many relationships. Your sensitivities to these may cause an anxiety reaction that stems from, the relational instability that exists in your need for bonding with others. Are you accepted for yourself,? Or do your individual beleifs, if expressed, leave you excluded from sincere bonding with your desired group?

Once triggered, chronic anxiety sets off instinctual responses, actions and reactions that quickly gather momentum and become largely independent of the triggering stimuli. Chronic anxiety is subtle and pervasive and runs like a silent undercurrent guiding all human relationships.

Chronic anxiety may also affects the way you think, and influences how you perceive the circumstances in your life. It can determine your beliefs, organize your behavior, influence your personality and hijacky your emotions. More often than not, you may not be aware that your thinking, feeling and behavior are anxiety driven. Thus, chronic anxiety is a much broader concept than an anxiety disorder, or an episode of acute anxiety symptoms. Even if it never manifest as a disorder or an acute episode, it can definately include these.

Working to lower your level of chronic anxiety can be a self soothing endeavor. Attention to both the internal factors, and the way you function as a part of your family or friends, and other key relationships, is something to be explored in Counseling Sessions.

In our sessions, we will work together, to understand and modify both:

1. Your position in your social group and/or family, and

2. The way your social group and/or family manifests inside of you.

You may call me at 949-285-5199

Dr. Marie Kerns PsyD - Licensed Marriage Family Therapist #50443