These are the questions we hear most often — from phone calls, first sessions, and the conversations couples have with each other before reaching out. If yours is not here, ask us directly.
It depends on what you’re bringing in. Most couples notice real shifts in 8–12 sessions, but some stay longer — particularly couples working through infidelity, long histories of disconnection, or deeper attachment wounds. In controlled research settings, Johnson (2003) found that 70–73% of couples improve after 12 sessions of EFT, with about 90% showing significant improvement after 15–20. In practice, it usually takes longer — real life is messier than a research protocol — but the trajectory is the same.
We aren’t a 6-session “skills program.” EFT moves at the pace of the relationship, not a curriculum. After the first few sessions we’ll have a much clearer sense of scope, and we’ll tell you what we think.
No. We’re a private-pay practice. Most insurance plans don’t cover couples therapy at all — they require a mental health diagnosis on one partner, which couples work doesn’t fit neatly into. Since couples therapy is all we do, taking insurance was never a practical fit.
We can provide superbills if you want to pursue out-of-network reimbursement through your plan.
Seventy-five minutes, both partners in the room (or on the video call), and your therapist working with what’s actually happening between you — not handing out homework or scripts.
Early on, we spend time understanding the cycle you get caught in — the pattern of reaches and reactions that shows up whenever something matters. Once that’s visible, the work is helping you both step out of it and into something more honest.
Both. Our office is at 3600 S Yosemite St, Suite 1050, in south Denver — easy to reach from Cherry Creek, the DTC, Greenwood Village, Centennial, Englewood, and Highlands Ranch.
We also offer telehealth for couples anywhere in Colorado. Many couples mix the two — in-person when schedules allow, telehealth when one partner is traveling.
This is more common than you’d think. One partner is ready and the other is uncertain, skeptical, or flat-out resistant. That’s not a dealbreaker — it’s often where the work starts.
If your partner won’t come in at all, we also offer EFT-informed individual therapy for relationships, where you work on the dynamic from your side. It’s real work, not a consolation prize.
We are a little less than 2 miles east of the Hampden exit of I‑25. From Cherry Creek or the DTC, about 10–15 minutes. From Greenwood Village or Centennial, 10–15 minutes. From Highlands Ranch, Lone Tree, or Littleton, 15–20 minutes. Free parking is available in the building lot.
The fastest way is to schedule a session online. You can also call us at (303) 682-6900 — you can talk as long as you want, ask whatever you need to ask, no strings attached. Or send us a message and we will get back to you.
In our experience, yes. The emotional work, the breakthroughs, the difficult conversations — they all happen the same way over video. The format matters less than the work itself.
We strongly prefer it. Couples therapy works best when you are reacting to each other in real time — the small expressions, the body language, the moments one of you wants to look away. That is the material we work with. Being together also keeps both of you present and focused. If being in the same room is not possible, we can still conduct the session from separate locations — but we encourage you to try to be together.
It happens. If we lose connection, we reconnect. If the connection is poor enough that it is getting in the way, we will reschedule. If the problem is on our end, there is no charge. If it is on your end, the session fee still applies — it is your responsibility to make sure your technology works before the session.
Yes — couples therapy requires both partners. Our intake process starts with a couples session together, followed by an individual session with each of you. After that, weekly 75-minute couples sessions begin. Both partners need to be willing to show up — though “willing” does not mean “enthusiastic.” Many people walk in uncertain, skeptical, or scared. In infidelity cases, the partner who had the affair sometimes resists coming in because they dread facing what happened. And the injured partner sometimes resists because they are not sure they want to save the relationship. Neither of those is a dealbreaker. We work with where you are.
Sometimes, yes. If one or both partners have fully checked out — made the decision emotionally and are just waiting for logistics — therapy usually can’t un-do that. And if there’s ongoing untreated addiction, active abuse, or an ongoing affair, we can’t do the work until those are addressed first.
But if there’s still something there — some thread of caring, some willingness to try — it is almost never too late. Couples come in after 20 years of the same fight and find their way back to each other. Not always, but often.
The negative cycle is the recurring pattern of disconnection that two people fall into when they try to talk about something difficult. It is not the topic of any individual fight — it is the way each partner reacts to the other, the stories they tell themselves, and the ineffective reaches they make for each other. In Emotionally Focused Therapy, the cycle becomes the actual target of the work, not the topic.
Communication skills assume you already trust your partner to respond to you. When that trust is shaky — when you are not sure your partner sees you, respects you, or has your back — your nervous system overrides the skills the moment a fight starts. The work has to address the underlying attachment insecurity first; the behaviors change once that shifts.
Because the fight is almost never about the small thing. When forgetting to pick up milk turns into a screaming match, the intensity is a signal — your nervous system is reacting to something bigger than milk. Underneath the surface request is usually an attachment question: does what matters to me matter to you? The milk is real. The reason it hurts this much is not about the milk.
What looks like overreacting is almost always a response that makes sense once you understand what it is actually responding to. Your partner is not reacting to the thing you said — they are reacting to what it meant. “You forgot to call” lands as “I do not matter to you.” The reaction matches the meaning, not the event. That gap between what happened and how big the reaction is — that is the negative cycle at work.
No. Both are evidence-based approaches to couples therapy, but they work on different layers. The Gottman Method focuses primarily on communication patterns and conflict-management skills. Emotionally Focused Therapy works on the attachment-level insecurity underneath those patterns — on whether each partner believes the other will respond to them when it matters. Behaviors change in EFT as a result of that shift, not through training.
The Gottmans draw a clear distinction. Stonewalling is a physiological flooding response — the person’s nervous system is overwhelmed and they cannot process language. The silent treatment is intentional withdrawal used to punish or control. They look similar from the outside, but the mechanisms are different. Most of the shutdown we see in couples is flooding, not punishment.
Yes. Research on Emotionally Focused Therapy (Spengler et al. 2024) shows a recovery rate of approximately 70%, with gains that hold at two years. The pattern changes when both partners can see what the flooding is responding to and the story driving it starts to shift — not through behavioral management, but through a genuine change in how each person experiences the other.
If you are open to the process and to the idea that things can get better, it is almost never too late. The only thing that makes therapy genuinely unworkable is if one of you has already decided to end the relationship — not leaning toward the door, not considering leaving, but has actually decided. If you are not sure, you are not sure. That is enough to start.
When a partner refuses therapy, they are almost never saying they do not care. They are usually afraid — of being blamed, of being told everything that is wrong with them, or of admitting something is really wrong. That resistance is not indifference. It is its own kind of fear. If your partner is not ready, call us. We are happy to spend time on the phone with either or both of you and talk honestly about whether therapy can help.
Research shows roughly 70% of couples improve with therapy, and the average person who completes couple therapy is better off than 70-80% of those who do not — whether or not the relationship continues. For Emotionally Focused Therapy specifically, Spengler et al. (2024) found a recovery rate of approximately 70%, with gains that held at two years.
Look for an ICEEFT-certified couples therapist — one certified through the International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy. Certification requires years of supervised training and is the most reliable signal that a therapist actually practices EFT rather than borrowing the language. The ICEEFT directory lets you search for one near you. Jonathan Zalesne, founder of Colorado Center for Couples and Families, is an ICEEFT-certified Therapist and Supervisor — one of approximately 300 people in the United States to hold the Supervisor designation. Our practice does this work in South Denver and statewide via telehealth.
Yes. A large portion of our practice is couples in the aftermath of an affair — recent or years old, discovered or confessed, emotional or physical. Jonathan has worked with well over a thousand couples, a significant share of them through infidelity recovery.
We have a whole dedicated page on how we approach it, including the crisis phase, the meaning-making phase, and rebuilding trust.
It depends on the couple. In a research setting, couples resolved attachment injuries in approximately 13 sessions of EFT (Makinen and Johnson 2006) — but real life is more complicated than a study. Some couples need more time, especially when there has been a pattern of dishonesty or when the structured disclosure process is involved. Our sessions are 75 minutes, which gives us enough time to do real work in each meeting rather than just checking in. The honest answer is that your timeline will be yours, and we will not rush it.
Structured disclosure is a process we use when there has been a pattern of dishonesty, serial affairs, or compulsive sexual behavior. Instead of letting the truth come out in pieces — which research shows causes significantly more damage than a single comprehensive disclosure (Schneider et al. 1998) — we guide the couple through a structured process. The unfaithful partner builds a complete written disclosure with their therapist. The injured partner builds a list of every question they need answered. Those questions are layered onto the disclosure, and in some cases a polygraph examiner verifies the statement. The full disclosure is then read in an extended couples session. The goal is to create a verified, shared foundation of truth — what we call a courtyard of truth — so that real therapy can begin.
Yes — almost everyone in this situation feels it, and it would be unusual not to. Ambivalence isn't a defect in your decision-making. It is two attachment systems pulling on you at the same time: the bond you have built with your partner, and your self-protection. Both are real, and both are operating at full strength right now.
You don't have to know yet. Most couples I see don't, when they walk in — that is precisely why they are reaching out. You can probably find some version of happiness on either path. Both come with hardship and grief. The decision is not which path leads to happiness and which leads to misery; both involve real loss and real possibility. The decision is which loss and which possibility you can actually live with.
Yes. Couples who complete couples therapy after an affair tend to reach the same level of relationship satisfaction as couples who came in without infidelity — they start more distressed, and they finish at the same place. In my experience, the more common outcome among couples who do the work is that they come out stronger than they were before.
Talk as long as you want, ask whatever you need to ask, no strings attached. If we are the right fit, we will tell you. If we are not, we will tell you that too.
