About
Moving from Conflict to Connection
Feeling disconnection in relationships is normal, but not having the tools to repair that disconnection is lethal. Things may seem fine when the waters are calm, but as soon as the waves start crashing are you ready to jump ship? Therapy unlocks the tools to understand, support, engage, and find your way back to connection.
Living a Relational Life
Most couples are not living a relational life, and many people don’t have a clue as to how to be an engaged partner. I will show you the benefits of making the commitment to living relationally. I will teach you the approach, beliefs, skills, strategies, and tools you need to be fully alive and engaged within your relationship.
The Road to Recovery
Helping you create your ideal relationship involves three phases:
- Understanding the harmful patterns in place and exiting them.
- Engaging and communicating with each other in a new productive way.
- Using your new tools to take on old issues and find new levels of intimacy.
Therapy is the Answer
Even healthy and strong relationships take constant effort to keep them that way. Consider seeking out professional help a sign of strength and intelligence. If you knew what to do and how to do it, you wouldn’t need expert help. Therapy works, plain and simple. If you are ready to put in the work, you can build the type of relationship you desire.
The Finished Product
You will know therapy has worked when you have closed the gap from where you are to where you want to be. You see your relationship in a whole new light. Your partner is engaged, supportive, understanding, and you both speak openly and honestly without fear of risking the connection. Your bond will feel safe, your trust will be restored, and your future will be bright.
About Greg Douglas, LPC, LMHC
“I don’t just coach others, I practice what I preach.”
I believe so strongly in the work I do that I use it in my everyday life to keep my relationship strong. Additionally, I have helped hundreds of couples and individuals to build strong relationships over the past decade.
My calling is helping couples and individual men. I truly believe that couples can have the type of relationship that feels safe, trusting, supportive, and connected. As a man, husband, and father in a modern relationship, I feel uniquely qualified to help men live more relational lives and see this as a precursor for overall relational health.
With my education and experience, I understand the difficulties presented in modern relationships and family life. I live the daily experience of trying to juggle it all: being a partner, a father, a friend, while still running a business.
I am a proud husband of 14 years and a loving father to my 12-year-old son and 7-year-old twin daughters. While away from the office, I love spending time with my family, playing sports, reading, and working out.
Brooke Stafford, LMFT, Marriage and Family Therapist at Douglas Counseling
As a therapist, my specialty and passion is working with families and couples. I am also passionate about empowering others to be advocates for themselves focusing on their awareness and self-responsibility throughout the therapeutic process. In this process of self-discovery, I help guide you with Family Systems Theory that recognizes that the Whole is greater than the Sum of its parts. My therapeutic style is specifically influenced by Structural-Strategic Therapy, Motivational Interviewing, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Solution-Focused Therapy.
We as individuals have challenges that affect our relationships. These challenges most often stem from past history, create present experiences, and affect future outcomes. However, the resilience within us along with our resources builds strength. As we strengthen ourselves, we can establish goals to grow and explore life and its many opportunities.
I have practiced in various mental health settings including: community health clinics, non-profit and for-profit organizations, and public schools. I hold a Bachelor’s Degree in Human Development and Child Welfare from Portland State University, and I have received a Master’s degree in Marriage, Couple, and Family Therapy from Lewis and Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling.
When I am not helping couples and families, I am a parent, adoring miniature dachshund owner, and lover of traveling!
Ken Kemp, MA, Marriage and Family Therapist Associate at Douglas Counseling
I enjoy working with both couples and individuals. In couples therapy the dramatic tension of conflict can be alchemized into the poetic beauty of connection.
My approach is a blend of traditional depth psychotherapy along with current empirical models such as Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples (EFT). Both perspectives, classical and modern, are evidence-based and can be highly effective at helping create lasting change and growth. In therapy, I tend to be optimistic, curious, holistic in approach, creative and scientific in outlook, and always searching for some (appropriate) humor to be found.
For motivated couples with a willingness for the hard work of couples therapy, Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) has proven to be highly effective at rebuilding emotional connections. Life is easier when we have someone that has our back. EFT was created from attachment science, which states that we have a basic need for secure attachment figures from cradle to grave. Secure attachment helps us meet the demands of life head-on while providing a base for optimal health, well-being, and resilience. I have found this to be true in my life and in the lives of my many patients.
In individual therapy, I’ll help you to better understand your situation and to work towards both acceptance and change as you move forward. Sometimes that means the past and/or hidden parts of ourselves need a reckoning so that when life presents, new choices can emerge rather than old patterns. I have a deep appreciation and love for both behavioristic and depth psychotherapies. I provide DBT for its practical everyday skills in helping us make better choices in the moment. I also utilize depth and Jungian-based psychotherapy to help my patients discover their own healing paths and what’s most important for them going forward.
Apart from therapy, I have a passion for the dramatic arts, all things outdoors, and for endless journeys into learning and curiosity. I became a psychotherapist later in life as part of my own healing journey forward and hopefully to help others along the way too. I ultimately view psychotherapy as a healing, spiritual practice, and as both an art and a science. I believe the human psyche and the healing energies are far too complex and mysterious to ever be contained or understood by science alone. Literature, myth, poetry, drama, and the fine arts can all help to reveal what it is to be human in ways that are time-tested, healing, and wise.