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Dr. Rachel D.

DMFT, LMFT

Expert Care for Your Relationship

“Dr. Rachel is knowledgeable and professional. She is helping us make real progress on our relationship challenges and we are stronger as a team because of her guidance”.

- Couples Counseling Client

Therapist Overview

Hello, I’m Dr. Rachel. My clients describe my style as warm, collaborative, direct, and action-oriented. For over 13 years, I’ve used evidence-based techniques to help people make positive changes in their lives, build more fulfilling connections with others, and achieve their most important goals.

My background is unique — unlike the vast majority of couples counselors, I have a specialized doctoral degree in marriage and family therapy (DMFT), which means my primary focus has always been relationships. What does this mean for you? It means I have extensive training and hands-on experience helping people like you fundamentally shift their patterns, heal past wounds, and transform the dynamics of their relationships in powerful ways.

If you want to improve your relationship with your partner, individually work on your relationship patterns, heal and grow after a breakup or divorce, or simply improve your relationship with yourself, I would be honored to work with you.

Here are a few of the ways that I can support you:

Support for Your Relationship

You and your partner can create a healthier, more balanced, and more fulfilling relationship through couples counseling or relationship coaching. Through our sessions, you’ll build new understanding for each other, create a deeper emotional connection, and gain a variety of skills that will help you communicate and manage conflict more effectively for years to come.

Coaching is not just for relationships in distress; it’s for couples who want to grow together and take their good relationships to the next level. I love when couples come in for coaching after noticing an area of growth — I help them take proactive action to prevent small problems from growing more serious.

I often help couples with:

  • Healing and repairing trust after infidelity.
  • Improving communication.
  • Parent coaching.
  • Resolving conflict.
  • Gaining clarity about the future of your relationship (discernment counseling).
  • Assessing and rebalancing the roles and responsibilities.
  • Deepening intimacy.
  • Reigniting the spark.

I have completed levels one and two of Gottman Method training, and I am a trained facilitator in the collaborative process of divorce. I also use solution-focused therapy, narrative therapy, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help couples achieve growth and clarity.

I can provide therapy to couples located in Florida and relationship coaching to couples located across the US and internationally. Learn more about the differences between coaching and therapy and which approach is right for you.

Individual Coaching for Healthy Relationships

Improving your relationships leads to a happier, healthier life overall. If you want to examine your relationship patterns, process a breakup, divorce, or separation, and take action to create positive change, then coaching is a great option.

Individual coaching can also be a great choice if you’re partnered and want to work on challenges that are impacting your relationship. Whether these are individual issues that are stemming from you, or your partner isn’t interested in counseling and you want to work on the relationship unilaterally, I can help.

Support for Families

Family conflict is an extremely common issue, and I work with families to help them coexist more peacefully. I work with parents on parenting coaching, or adult children and their relationships with one another or their parents.

Often, families experience conflict due to communication styles, a life-changing event (such as a job loss), or other changes (such as adolescents going off to college). These challenges are successfully addressed through the coaching process. I meet with different units of the family to address these concerns, whether it’s the entire family, parent-child relationships, siblings, or other relationships.

As a trained facilitator of the collaborative divorce process, I can support you and your former partner in separating peacefully. If you have kids, I can help you establish a new co-parenting relationship that puts the interests of your children first.

When families face more serious issues, such as mental health concerns, I can provide family therapy services to residents of Florida.

Individual Therapy

If you are experiencing the symptoms of a mental health condition such as anxiety or depression, and you are a resident of Florida, then I can serve as your therapist.

We can work together to identify factors that are contributing to your symptoms, process difficult emotions, create self-care strategies that bring you relief, and help you gain and implement tools to address your symptoms. If you are working with other mental health professionals, such as a psychiatrist, I can facilitate communication and collaboration to keep our work in alignment with other components of your treatment plan.

About Me

I received my Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), with a major in psychology, from the University of Miami. I also earned my Master of Science in Education (M.S.Ed), concentrating on marriage and family therapy, from the University of Miami. I obtained my doctorate in marriage and family therapy (DMFT) from Nova Southeastern University. I am a member of Delta Kappa, the International Marriage and Family Therapy Honor Society and a member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapists (AAMFT). I am a Florida-qualified supervisor for marriage and family therapists.

I have a big family I’m close with, and I’m no stranger to family drama or navigating difficult events. I am married with two kids, and we also have a dog named Snickers. We like to go on walks as a family together and visit local museums and gardens.

Thanks for learning a little bit about me. Now I would love to hear about what’s going on with you. I invite you to schedule a free consultation so that we can discuss your situation and your goals for therapy or coaching.

Schedule with Dr. Rachel