CALL (619) 305-2096
COUPLES THERAPY · CORONADO, CA
Couples therapy helps turn conflict into an opportunity for deeper understanding and growth.
Most couples don't arrive in therapy because their relationship is over. They arrive because they love each other and something has gone wrong that they haven't been able to fix on their own. The arguments cycle back to the same place. One person shuts down, the other escalates. The distance grows. The version of this relationship that felt possible at the beginning has started to feel very far away.
Couples therapy is not about assigning blame or refereeing conflict. It's about understanding what's actually happening between two people — the patterns, the underlying needs, the moments where connection breaks down and why — and building a different way of being together.
In-person at 1111 5th St, Coronado · Telehealth statewide · Private pay
FREE CONSULTATION
15 minutes · No obligation
In-person or telehealth
MEANING · HEALING · DIRECTION · PRIVATE PAY · LICENSED CLINICIANS · CORONADO, CA
OUR APPROACH TO COUPLES THERAPY
Our primary framework for couples work is Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), developed by Dr. Sue Johnson and grounded in attachment theory. EFT is one of the most extensively researched approaches to couples therapy, with strong evidence for its effectiveness across a wide range of relationship concerns.
EFT works by identifying the negative interaction cycles that have taken hold in the relationship — the pursuer-withdrawer dynamic, the defensive escalation, the emotional shutdown — and understanding what drives them. Beneath most surface conflict are deeper attachment needs: the need to feel valued, to feel safe, to know you matter to this person. When those needs aren't met or communicated, the cycle takes over.
EFT creates the conditions for partners to access and share those deeper emotional experiences with each other — which changes the dynamic at its root, not just at the surface.
We may also draw on psychodynamic and attachment-based individual perspectives where relevant, and on CBT-informed communication tools when concrete skill-building is part of what's needed.
Repeating conflicts that leave you both feeling misheard and misunderstood.
There's no single right time or reason to come to couples therapy. Some couples come to therapy in acute crisis while others come when things are functional but distant, and they want more than that. Other couples seek therapy proactively, before problems take hold, which is some of the most effective work we do.
Common reasons couples reach out include:
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Communication breakdown — the same arguments, going nowhere
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Emotional disconnection or growing distance
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Trust and betrayal — infidelity, deception, or boundary violations
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Intimacy concerns — physical, emotional, or both
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Parenting disagreements and co-parenting strain
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Military relationship stress: deployment, reintegration, frequent moves, role changes
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Life transitions that have shifted the relationship's balance
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Pre-marital work and establishing a strong relational foundation
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Processing relationship patterns inherited from family of origin
"Most relationship struggles aren’t about one person being right or wrong. They’re about two people caught in patterns that once made sense, but no longer help—and therapy is where those patterns can finally begin to change."
OUR APPROACH
We don't start with a protocol.
We start with you.
At True North Clinical Counseling, our approach to trauma is careful, paced, and deeply relational. We don't move straight to processing. We begin by building the safety and internal resources that make healing possible — because those foundations aren't prerequisites you arrive with, they're something we build together. From there, we work at a pace that is always yours to set.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
CBT helps identify the thought patterns that amplify anxiety — catastrophizing, threat overestimation, all-or-nothing thinking — and builds practical skills to interrupt them. Within a trauma-informed framework, we also trace where those patterns originally came from.
Somatic & Mindfulness-Based
For many people, anxiety lives in the body first. Somatic approaches and mindfulness practices teach you to notice what's happening internally without being swept away by it — building genuine regulatory capacity, not just coping skills.
Attachment-Based Relational Work
Chronic anxiety is often rooted in early relational experiences. Attachment-based therapy addresses those roots — not to revisit the past endlessly, but to understand how it organized the nervous system and to build something genuinely different.
EMDR
Where anxiety is connected to specific traumatic experiences or memories, EMDR helps the brain complete the processing that trauma interrupted — so the memory becomes something that happened, rather than something still happening now.
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COUPLES THERAPY & MILITARY LIFE IN CORONADO
Addressing the relational impact of deployment, relocation, and military stressors.
Military relationships carry stressors that civilian life doesn't. Deployments that stretch for months, reintegration that's more disorienting than expected, PCS moves that uproot families, the emotional labor of the partner who holds everything together at home, the service member who carries things that are hard to bring back into ordinary life.
We work with military couples often, and we do so with the specificity that their reality deserves. The challenges are real. So is the capacity for connection that most military couples have — forged through genuinely hard things.
RESEARCH SHOWS THAT EVIDENCE-BASED COUPLES THERAPY WORKS
Research shows that about 70–75% of couples experience significant improvement in their relationship after therapy.
Even when you both feel stuck, seeking a supportive therapeutic relationship can create enough momentum for profound relational change.
MEET THE PRACTICE OWNER
Dr. Jenny Palmiotto
Psy.D., LMFT #47573 · Founder, True North Clinical Counseling
Dr. Jenny Palmiotto is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with deep expertise in relational, attachment-based, and trauma-informed therapy. With extensive training in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and relational models, she guides clients through meaningful healing by helping them explore core emotional patterns and strengthen connections. She founded True North Clinical Counseling to bring depth-oriented care to the Coronado community — the kind of thoughtful, relational work that addresses the root, not just the symptom.
GETTING STARTED
What to Expect
1
Free Consultation
We offer a free 15-minute consultation to assess your treatment goals and possible next steps. We prioritize both clinical and relational fit.
2
Therapeutic Engagement
Beginning with intake, we provide evidence-based care in an empathetic, safe space as we walk alongside you through healing and growth.
3
Applied Growth Work
Together we integrate practical tools, skills, and reflection so you can generalize new learning and make sustainable changes in everyday life.
Individual therapy in Coronado is available in-person at our private office or via secure telehealth throughout California.
LOCATION
1111 5th St, Suite 2, Coronado
ALSO AVAILABLE
Telehealth Statewide
PAYMENT
Private Pay Only
CORE SERVICES
Trauma Therapy
Depth-oriented, paced trauma treatment for adults navigating PTSD, complex trauma, and adverse history.
EMDR Therapy
One of the most evidence-supported trauma treatments — often reaching what years of talk therapy couldn't.
Depression Therapy
For the flatness beneath the functioning — depth-oriented care for adults who look fine on the outside.
Life Transitions
For adults who've outgrown who they were and aren't yet sure who they're becoming.
