Expert-Guided Couples Therapy in New Jersey

When You Both Want This to Work — and You’re Stuck

You’re not in the relationship you thought you’d be in by now. Maybe the same disagreement keeps coming around in slightly different costumes. Maybe the closeness has flattened into something more like roommates. Maybe one of you wants to talk and the other wants quiet, and neither of you knows how to get unstuck.

What you’re looking for isn’t a worksheet or a communication tip you read in a magazine. You’re looking for someone trained to actually see what’s happening between you — and structured enough to help you change it.

That’s what couples therapy at our practice is for. We’re a premium specialty practice for couples and online therapy in New Jersey. Out-of-network by design — we keep our caseloads small enough to do focused, sustained work. The kind that insurance-driven volume practices can’t offer. We’ve been working with NJ couples this way since 2005.

Schedule a 15-Minute Fit Call →

🔒 Confidential  ·  📋 Superbills for OON insurance  ·  💳 HSA/FSA accepted  ·  🗺 In-person + telehealth across NJ

How We Approach Couples Therapy

Couples work with us isn’t a script — it’s a structured space where two people, with a trained clinician, can slow down enough to actually understand what’s been happening between them.

What the first session looks like

A first session runs 45 or 60 minutes, depending on the clinician and what you’ve scheduled. Before that session, you and your partner each fill out a brief intake so your therapist has context — there’s value in each of you having a chance to write things you may not yet have said aloud. Then you come together — in our Maplewood office or via secure video — and tell your story. Your therapist listens to each of you, watches the patterns, and at the end of the session helps you both name what the work might look like going forward.

Who we work with

Couples therapy at our practice is for every kind of couple: married, unmarried, dating, engaged, partnered, blended families, LGBTQ+ couples, multicultural couples, couples with one or both partners in recovery, couples who’ve been together five months or forty years. The framework is the same — what changes is which patterns we’re addressing.

Methods, matched to your relationship

We don’t run one playbook for every couple. Depending on what’s between you, your therapist may draw on:

• Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) — when conflict cycles around disconnection, withdrawal, and feeling unseen
• Attachment-Based and Relational Therapy — when long-standing patterns from earlier relationships are showing up in this one
• Trauma-Informed Therapy — when attachment trauma, infidelity, family-of-origin patterns, or major transitions are part of the picture
• Discernment Counseling (stay or separate) — when one or both partners are unsure whether to stay or separate; structured short-term work to help you decide

What couples typically come to us for

The reasons couples reach out fall into patterns: communication breakdown, recovery after infidelity (see our marriage counseling page for more on this), drift and distance, parenting differences, intimacy loss, major life transitions (career change, relocation, illness, kids leaving home, retirement), considering separation (which often calls for discernment counseling), and preparing for marriage (see our premarital counseling page). If your situation isn’t on the list, the fit call is where we figure out whether we can help.

Our Team of Licensed NJ Clinicians

Couples work at Maplewood Counseling is led by our three senior couples specialists. You’ll meet your matched therapist during your fit call and see their photo, credentials, and approach before scheduling.

Robert Jenkins, LCSW

Senior Couples Specialist

Couples · Communication · Intimacy · Anger · Family Conflict · Infidelity Recovery

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Daphne Berkovits, LMFT

Senior Couples Specialist

Couples · Family Conflict · EFT · Anxiety + Parenting Concerns · Infidelity Recovery

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Debra Feinberg, LCSW

Founder · Senior Couples Specialist

Couples · Couples in Transition · Anxiety · One-Session Evaluations · Infidelity Recovery

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All three clinicians are licensed in New Jersey. For couples work, at least one partner needs to be located in NJ during sessions; the other partner can be elsewhere when scheduling requires it.

Insurance & Fees

We’re a private-pay, out-of-network specialty practice. That’s a deliberate choice — being out-of-network means we focus on the specific clinical work that matters for your relationship, not the modalities or session lengths an insurance company will authorize. We keep our caseloads small enough to do focused, sustained work.

Session rates

90-minute and 2-hour intensives are priced separately — particularly useful for couples in crisis, infidelity recovery, or discernment work — and shared during your fit call.

Out-of-network insurance reimbursement

If your insurance plan includes out-of-network mental health benefits (most PPO plans do — HMO plans usually don’t), you can typically get 50–80% of each session reimbursed by submitting our superbill.

HSA, FSA, and HRA — fully accepted

Couples therapy is a qualified medical expense. Pay with your HSA, FSA, or HRA card and the cost comes out pre-tax — effectively a 22–32% discount depending on your tax bracket. Most underused cost-saver in OON couples therapy.

What Couples Therapy Clients Say

Frequently Asked Questions