Shira Hearn's Blog

Chatbots affirm you 49 percent more often than people do, and that makes you less likely to repair. What the research actually supports for couples, and where to start.

I asked Google's AI about my own practice and it got two things wrong. Here is why that matters when the subject is your marriage, not my office hours.

Premarital counseling has an image problem. It sounds like a formality — something an officiant requires, three sessions, a certificate, a box ticked on the way to the reception. That is not what this is, and if that is all you need, you do not need me. What premarital counseling is actually for is the set of conversations you have not had. Not because you are avoiding them. Because you are in love and busy and organising a party for a hundred people, and because the question

When your marriage is hurting, one hour a week can feel agonizingly slow. You finally open something up, touch something raw, and then the session ends. By the time the next week comes round, life has flooded back in and you are standing in the same spot. That is not a failure of effort. It is a failure of arithmetic. Why my standard session is already double Every session I run is 100 to 110 minutes. That is the mini-intensive, and it is the only standard format I offer, bec

Both psychodynamic therapy and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) take emotion seriously, and both lean hard on the therapeutic relationship as an engine of change. That's about where the similarity ends. They disagree on almost everything else: what's actually broken, where to look for it, and what "working through" a problem even means.

Born in Jerusalem, couples therapist Shira Hearn reflects on Israel’s national anthem “Hatikvah” and the deeper psychology of hope. Drawing from her work at Mt. Hope Christian Counseling Center and the influence of Cameron Lee at Fuller Theological Seminary, this post explores how hope functions as imagination for the future in both relationships and human resilience.

This page used to be a list of proven ways to help couples thrive. I took it down, because I do not believe it, and I would rather have a smaller website than a dishonest one. Here is what is wrong with the phrase. "Proven" is doing something dishonest Nothing on those lists is proven. Communicate openly, express gratitude, make time for each other, keep dreaming together — these are descriptions of couples who are already doing well. They are the symptoms of connection, pres

Every couples therapist's website promises to help you reconnect. Almost none of them say what that actually involves, because what it involves does not photograph well. So here is the unglamorous version. First, the name, because the internet gets it wrong constantly and I would rather be precise about my own trade: it is Emotionally Focused Therapy. Not emotional focus therapy. It comes out of attachment research, and the name matters because the emphasis is on emotion as t

When your partner is angry, it’s easy to assume the anger is the problem. It’s loud, it’s uncomfortable, and it feels personal. But anger is usually a signal, not the root. It shows up when something important feels threatened — connection, safety, feeling valued, feeling understood. So the goal isn’t to shut the anger down. It’s to find out what’s underneath it. 1. Don’t Meet Anger With More Anger (or Logic) When someone is angry, their nervous system is already on high aler

You’re trying to find out what this costs, and every page you’ve opened has given you a range, an “it depends,” and a button. Here’s the number. $180 per session. Sessions run 100 to 110 minutes, which works out to about $100 an hour.

If you are here because your partner asked you to try couples therapy and your first thought was, “This is going to be a spectacular waste of money,” you are not the difficult one in the room. You are having a sensible reaction to an industry that has earned some skepticism. Couples therapy for partners skeptical of counseling, focused on practical change and emotional safety in relationships. Maybe you picture an hour of emotional steam escaping while a therapist nods, says

If you’ve ever tried to “communicate better” and still ended up in the same fight, you already know the hard truth: relationship problems usually aren’t a communication-skills problem. Most couples don’t get stuck because they don’t love each other. They get stuck because, over time, the relationship stops feeling emotionally safe. You stop reaching. You start protecting. One of you pursues harder, the other shuts down more. And the more you repeat that cycle, the more alone

The holidays have a way of turning small tensions into big fights. Family expectations, money stress, packed schedules, and old wounds can escalate quickly. Suddenly, you find yourselves arguing about plans, tone, or traditions. But what you're really fighting for is to feel close, seen, and on the same team. Understanding the Underlying Issues This guide is here to help you slow things down and communicate differently. It’s not about “fixing” your partner or winning an argum

The holidays are supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. For a lot of couples they’re the worst stretch on the calendar — more arguments, more distance, more of that particular loneliness you can only feel standing next to someone. If that’s been your experience, you’re not imagining it, and you’re not doing the holidays wrong. Here’s what’s actually going on. Stress doesn’t create new problems. It makes you worse at the ones you have. There’s a large body of rese

It’s almost Thanksgiving, and your feed is probably full of “gratitude challenges” and “thankfulness lists.” But if you’ve ever stared at that page thinking, “There’s NOTHING to be grateful for in my life... its an absolute mess,”—good. That means you’re not forcing it. Here’s the thing: forced gratitude doesn’t work. Pretending bad things are blessings confuses your brain’s threat system. The amygdala (where you perceive threats in your brain) doesn’t calm down because you s

Therapy has a look, and it is not most of the people I see. The look is a couch in a loft, two people in expensive knitwear, a lot of language about holding space. If that is your world, good — it is somebody's. It is not Jasper County's. Around here the people who end up in my office are more often working a shift, running a farm, teaching, nursing, doing something that involves a truck, and they have a private suspicion that therapy is a thing other people do. That suspicio

I recently re-watched the Israeli film Footnote (Hebrew title: Hearat Shulayim) — an Israeli film that, on the surface, is about a father-son rivalry in the world of Biblical scholarship (you can watch it here for a small rental fee). But beneath that world of books, lectures, and academic prestige lies a story that’s very familiar to couples. It’s about being forgotten, being in the shadow, and trying being really seen in your own relationship. In the film, Eliezer is the fa

You are not stonewalling. I know that is what it gets called, usually by an article your partner sent you. But whatever is happening when you go quiet, it does not feel like a tactic from the inside. It feels like the room has gone very loud and very far away, and the only remaining option is to say nothing until it stops. As far as your body is concerned, you are not punishing anyone. You are saving everyone's life. What is actually happening When conflict gets hot enough, y

The advice you will get is give them space. You will hate this advice. You will be right to. Not because it is wrong exactly, but because of what it asks of you. Space is the specific thing that frightens you most, and you are being told to volunteer for more of it, indefinitely, on faith, while the person you love goes somewhere you cannot follow. So let us start somewhere more useful than that. What their silence is not It is almost never contempt, and it is almost never a

Dear Friend, I want to begin by saying: what you’ve been through matters. Trauma can leave deep marks, not only in the mind but in the body and heart. If you sometimes feel overwhelmed, shut down, or unsure of yourself, that does not mean you’re broken — it means you’ve survived something painful, and your body and emotions have worked hard to protect you. Trauma often teaches us to guard ourselves, to pull away, or to brace for impact. But inside of you is a deep longing to