For couples in NY, FL, CT & VT · Via the Gottman Referral Network
Gottman Method Couples Therapy Online with Travis Atkinson
You can feel the conversation turning before either of you has said what’s wrong. One of you asks a simple question. The other hears criticism in it. A few minutes later, one of you is pushing for an answer while the other explains, defends, or goes quiet. You both know where this ends, and knowing doesn’t stop it.
Afterward, each of you can describe exactly what the other one did. What’s harder to explain is how two capable people keep landing in the same place at home.
By the time you’re arguing about the subject, another conversation is already underway. Do I matter here? Are you hearing me? Can I say this without making things worse? The moment the conversation turns is often where the most important work begins.
You may already know the Gottman language for this. Or you may only know that conversations that used to feel easy now turn tense, flat, or painfully predictable. Recognizing a pattern and changing it are different skills. Helping you change it is where my work begins.
I’m Travis Atkinson, LCSW, LICSW, a Certified Gottman Method Couples Therapist since 2006. I provide therapy online to couples in New York, Florida, Connecticut, and Vermont, and every session is with me.
Book Your First Session✓ 60-minute online session ✓ Private pay ✓ One appointment, not a package
At a glance
Who I work with
Couples caught in recurring conflict, distance, betrayal, or uncertainty about staying together.
How I work
Gottman Method couples therapy, a research-based approach, integrated with Emotionally Focused Therapy and Schema Therapy.
How you begin
One 60-minute joint session in which both of you have room to be heard.
Who do I usually work with?
Gottman Method couples therapy with me is for couples who keep having the same conversation. Many don’t reach me because of one terrible argument. They reach me because the same argument has happened too many times.
One of you reaches harder because the other is pulling away. The other pulls away because being pushed feels impossible to get right. Each retreat lands on the first as proof the conversation doesn’t matter, so the reaching gets harder. One wants it settled tonight, and the other needs it to stop. By morning the fight is over, yet something stays unsettled between you.
For other couples, the fighting has gone quiet. You run a household, coordinate two calendars, perhaps raise children, and show up for the families and colleagues who depend on you. From the outside, you look entirely functional. What’s missing is the friendship, the feeling of being on the same side. Emotional connection and intimacy, physical and otherwise, have quietly gone with it.
Some arrive after an affair, in a second marriage, or when one partner is privately asking whether there’s enough left to repair. ADHD, autism, OCPD, trauma, depression, parenting strain, and the families you each grew up in can all shape the emotional distance between you. Many are professionals, people carrying considerable responsibility at work, who feel unexpectedly powerless in their relationship. Some have already tried couples counseling, but the work stayed general or never reached the pattern underneath the arguments. When that happens, the relationship may need more specialized support, not a verdict on the marriage.
You don’t have to agree on the cause before we meet, or arrive equally optimistic. The first session gives each of you room to describe the relationship as you live it. Nobody has to settle whose explanation is correct before you book.
What happens after you book?
You’re booking one 60-minute joint session, not a four-session package. The first session isn’t only about what has gone wrong. We explore how you met, what first drew you together, how the relationship changed, and what you’ve built together along the way.
Couples sometimes surprise themselves by what comes back as they tell that story: warmth, humor, the friendship that became harder to reach. Sometimes it’s the memory of difficult times they made it through together, and that wider view brings more hope with it. The purpose is a fuller understanding of the whole relationship, not only the problem that brought you in.
1
The joint session
One hour together. At the end, we decide together whether continuing makes sense.
2
The assessment
An individual session with each of you, plus detailed questionnaires.
3
The feedback session
Your strengths, the pattern that keeps catching you, and the treatment plan I’d recommend.
Built on Gottman’s framework, the plan identifies where to begin: managing conflict, repairing friendship and trust, rebuilding intimacy, or creating shared meaning.
✓ 60-minute session ✓ With Travis directly ✓ No package required
What does working with me feel like?
Once the assessment is complete, treatment is active, slowed down, and experiential. We don’t spend the full hour reporting on the week or analyzing arguments that have already ended.
Sooner or later, the familiar pattern appears between you. One of you says something that lands harder than intended. The other corrects, defends, pushes back, or goes quiet.
That isn’t a failed session. It’s the moment we need.
I slow the exchange down before it reaches its usual ending. We explore what each of you heard, what you reacted to, and what you were trying to protect. Then you practice a different response, with support from me in the moment.
What does a Gottman-trained therapist do when the Four Horsemen show up?
Gottman Method couples therapy gives this work its structure, drawn from more than 40 years of John and Julie Gottman’s science of love and Love Lab research. As a Gottman-trained therapist, I watch for the moment criticism, contempt, defensiveness, or stonewalling begins to take over. I also pay attention to physiological flooding, when one or both of you become too overwhelmed to have a productive conversation. We may practice gentle start-ups, taking responsibility without giving up your position, or a repair attempt the other person can receive. Sometimes the work is learning to pause and return to a difficult conversation at an agreed time. Healthy relationships still have conflict, and what sets them apart is how well they repair.
What happens between sessions, from repair to creating shared meaning?
The work between sessions is personalized too. Exercises are selected, adapted, or created to support your relationship, based on what happened in the session and what we’re trying to strengthen next. I don’t hand every couple the same exercises in the same order.
One week may focus on beginning a difficult conversation differently, perhaps about money or parenting. Another may involve noticing bids for connection or updating your love maps of each other’s inner world. A third might focus on rebuilding friendship, repairing after conflict, or exploring the meaning underneath a recurring disagreement, which is where creating shared meaning starts. Gottman relationship-building techniques provide the structure, but the way we use them is specific to the two of you.
You leave with more than insight into what went wrong. A different version of the conversation has happened, with both of you in it, and you have something specific to work on before we meet again.
Why go deeper than communication tools to rebuild emotional connection?
Skills that improve communication help, and a gentler start-up can change a conversation. It can’t always explain why a late reply feels like rejection, or why one partner hears a request as control. Nor does it explain why the withdrawal that protects one of you leaves the other feeling abandoned.
Underneath the words, the questions are older and quieter. A late reply can carry one: do I still matter? Behind a request there may be another: am I being managed? Withdrawal can mean nothing I say is safe here, and pursuit can mean show me this still matters to you.
That’s why my work doesn’t stop with communication techniques, and why my training didn’t stop with one model. The Gottman Method helps us see and change the exchange in your relationship. Emotionally Focused Therapy reaches the attachment fears underneath pursuing, anger, and distance. Schema Therapy helps us explore why a present-day moment can hit an older sensitivity with surprising force. Often that sensitivity was shaped by trauma, or by lessons each of you learned long before you met. I use the three together as one approach, not as separate options. You’ll know what we’re working on and why. Over years of working with couples, I’ve found that deeper understanding can make intimacy possible again. As each of you begins to recognize what the other is protecting, there is more room for closeness.
What does “Certified Gottman Therapist” mean on the Gottman Referral Network?
Therapists listed on the Gottman Referral Network may join after completing Level 2 training. The network is a primary resource for couples worldwide, and its database puts each therapist’s training level on record. Certification goes further. It requires licensed mental health professionals to complete all three clinical training levels and consultation with a Gottman consultant. Then come video examples of the therapist using Gottman interventions with real couples, reviewed by senior professionals.
What does certification add for Gottman-trained therapists?
I completed certification in 2006 and later spent eight years with The Gottman Institute. Certification can’t promise a particular result, and many Gottman-trained therapists, including other GRN members, do excellent work. What certification adds is an outside evaluation by experienced clinicians of how I go about helping couples in the room, not only whether I had received training.
What credentials and training stand behind my work at the Gottman Institute and beyond?
- Certified Gottman Method Couples Therapist since 2006
- Certified Emotionally Focused Couples Therapist and Supervisor
- Advanced Certified Schema Therapist, Supervisor, and Trainer
- Co-developer of Schema Therapy for Couples with Dr. Jeffrey Young
- In practice since 1995; began training with Dr. Jeffrey Young in 1994 and training couples therapists internationally for over 15 years
Book Your First Session
✓ 60-minute session ✓ Every session with Travis ✓ Private pay
Where do you need to be during sessions?
Each of you needs to be in New York, Florida, Connecticut, or Vermont at the time of the session. My New York practice serves mostly Manhattan and Brooklyn. In Florida, I work from Fort Lauderdale, helping couples from Palm Beach to Miami. Connecticut couples join from Greenwich, Stamford, and Fairfield County, and Vermont couples from Burlington to Manchester.
Plenty of couples and families divide the year between Manhattan and Palm Beach, or Greenwich and Stowe. You can continue with the same therapist, provided each partner is in one of those four states during the session. Meeting online can also make therapy easier for busy professionals and families to keep up around work, travel, school, children’s activities, and parenting schedules. Professionals whose calendars rarely cooperate tend to keep online sessions more consistently.
Gottman Method therapy sessions, like most couples therapy sessions, typically last 50 to 90 minutes. Mine run 60 minutes on HIPAA-compliant Zoom, together on one screen or each from your own device. Research on structured couples work by videoconference is encouraging, and online sessions make it easier for many couples to meet consistently.
What do couples ask before booking?
Most questions come down to insurance, a hesitant partner, starting on your own, affairs, and recurring fights. These are the ones I hear most.
Does insurance cover couples counseling with you?
I’m private pay and don’t bill insurance directly. Many clients, especially professionals with out-of-network benefits, seek reimbursement, and if you choose to, I provide the necessary documentation. Reimbursement depends on your plan.
What if one of us is hesitant?
Skepticism is welcome, and seeking professional help together doesn’t mean agreeing on what’s wrong. The assessment doesn’t require either of you to accept the other’s version of the problem. Its structure gives both partners a fair hearing and, over time, a shared understanding of the pattern.
What if my partner isn’t ready for couples therapy?
Some people start on their own. I offer individual therapy in the same four states for someone who wants to work on the relationship while the other isn’t ready yet. Changing your side of the pattern can shift the pattern itself. If they later want to join, we’ll talk about whether couples work with me or a trusted colleague is the better fit.
Can couples therapy help after an affair?
It can. Gottman affair recovery moves through atonement, attunement, and attachment. We begin with accountability, explore the impact of the betrayal, and rebuild safety before expecting renewed emotional intimacy. There’s reason for hope, and the pace depends on what happened, what has been disclosed, and what each partner needs in order to take part honestly.
Is it normal to keep having the same fight?
Yes, and healthy relationships have them too. Research by Drs. John Gottman and Julie Gottman suggests that many recurring conflicts grow from lasting differences in temperament, priorities, money, parenting, or needs. The goal isn’t always to solve the issue permanently. It’s to understand what the issue means to each of you and find a way of talking about it that doesn’t damage the relationship.
What are the Four Horsemen and the Sound Relationship House?
The Four Horsemen are the communication patterns Gottman research identified as most damaging to a relationship:
- Criticism attacks character instead of addressing a specific behavior.
- Contempt treats your spouse with disrespect or superiority, and Gottman research found it a strong predictor of divorce.
- Defensiveness protects yourself through excuses or by playing the victim.
- Stonewalling shuts down and withdraws from the conversation altogether.
Emotional flooding often travels with them, and self-soothing is one of the skills taught in Gottman couples therapy to manage it. The Sound Relationship House is a central framework of the Gottman Method, with nine components held together by trust and commitment. One of them is expressing fondness and admiration: appreciating and respecting each other consistently.
How long does couples therapy take?
Some couples finish in a few months once an acute crisis lifts. Others, especially after an affair or long-standing patterns, work longer to build something sturdier than what broke. Later work often turns to creating shared meaning: rituals, goals, and a sense of what your life together is for. Either way, the aim is a marriage, partnership, or family that runs well without me in it.
Ready to take the first step?
You don’t have to decide today whether the whole relationship can be repaired. You’re choosing one hour of Gottman Method couples therapy. In it, we begin to slow down what happens when the conversation turns, understand what each of you is reacting to, and see whether working together makes sense.
That’s the only decision you’re making today.
Choose a time that works for both of you. You’ll schedule directly with me, not an intake coordinator or support staff, and every session will be with me.
Book Your First Session✓ 60-minute session ✓ With Travis directly ✓ Private pay