Services
Marriage and Relationship Therapy in Nashville
Meet in-person or online. We offer the option to meet with your therapist online. Video sessions are held through a HIPPA-protected platform.
If you feel lonely, disconnected, or stuck in your marriage or partnership, you are not alone. Many couples experience periods of stagnation, frustration, or doubt over time. Relationships evolve, and challenges are a natural part of the journey. When communication breaks down or conflicts remain unresolved, having a neutral third party can offer fresh perspectives and effective solutions.
At Music City Psych, we provide expert couples counseling in Nashville, guiding partners toward deeper understanding, empathy, and meaningful connection. Conveniently located near Brentwood, Forest Hills, Music Row, and Sylvan Park, our therapists specialize in evidence-based approaches, including Imago Relationship Therapy (IRT) and Prepare/Enrich premarital & marital counseling. Through this framework, couples learn to view conflicts as opportunities for growth rather than obstacles.
Our goal is to help you:
- Improve communication and foster open, honest dialogue
- Strengthen emotional and physical connection
- Navigate conflicts constructively and build problem-solving skills
- Shift from individual needs to a partnership mindset
- Restore trust and rebuild emotional security
- Develop strategies to handle life transitions together
If you’re seeing signs that it’s time for couples therapy, we can help you reconnect and rediscover your relationship’s strengths. Seeking therapy is an investment in your partnership. With the right tools and support, you and your partner can build a stronger, more fulfilling future together.
Featured Couples Counselors
Hope Spector, LPC-MHSP
Hope combines her certification in Imago Relationship Therapy with a supportive, goal-oriented approach to help couples improve communication, rebuild trust, and deepen their emotional connection. She empowers partners to navigate challenges together and build stronger, more fulfilling relationships.
Rachel Fleischer, LPC-MHSP
Certified in Imago and Prepare/Enrich Premarital & Marital Counseling, Rachel helps individuals navigate relationship challenges even when their partner isn't ready for couples counseling. With a compassionate and collaborative approach, she empowers clients to build self-awareness and navigate relationships in a healthier way.
Your relationship is worth it
Conflict is an inevitable part of any long-term relationship, but what matters is how you and your partner handle it. The key question isn’t whether conflict exists—it’s whether it can become a tool for growth and repair. At Music City Psych, we believe that with the right guidance, couples can transform their struggles into opportunities for deeper connection and understanding.
Common Relationship Struggles:
- Frequent arguments that never seem to reach resolution
- Emotional distance or feeling like roommates rather than partners
- Lost intimacy—whether physical, emotional, or both
- Stress from life transitions, work, or family responsibilities
- A sense of disconnect that makes you question your future together
Many couples believe that these issues will resolve themselves over time, but without intentional effort, they often become worse. Resentment builds, communication weakens, and the connection that once felt effortless starts to fade.
Whether your relationship is suffering from ongoing conflict, passive disconnection, or a mix of both, couples counseling can provide the structured support you need. Therapy can help rebuild communication, trust, and emotional closeness, giving you the tools to reconnect.
You don’t have to navigate this alone. Schedule a session today and take the first step toward a healthier, more fulfilling partnership.
How a relationship counselor can help
Opening up about relationship struggles can feel like a big step. Even when we recognize that real relationships aren’t picture-perfect, it can be difficult to admit that things aren’t going as we hoped. Some partners even hesitate because they’re unsure what their spouse or significant other might reveal in therapy.
That’s exactly why relationship counseling in Nashville can be so transformative. At Music City Psych, couples therapy provides a structured, judgment-free space where both partners can express themselves openly and work toward real solutions.
What to Expect in Couples Therapy:
- A Safe, Neutral Space – Our therapists ensure that each partner feels heard and understood.
- Identifying Relationship Patterns – Therapists observe how you and your partner interact, pinpointing recurring conflicts and communication barriers.
- Constructive Strategies – You’ll learn techniques to navigate tensions in a more productive way, shifting from reactionary responses to intentional communication.
- Personalized Guidance – Each session is tailored to your relationship’s unique needs, offering practical tools that support long-term connection and growth.
- Building Lasting Connection – Beyond resolving immediate concerns, therapy fosters a deeper emotional bond, helping couples rediscover intimacy and trust.
Many couples find that therapy not only resolves current tensions but also equips them with lifelong skills to navigate future challenges together. When couples learn to be present for each other—truly listening and understanding the feelings behind their partner’s actions—empathy deepens, trust strengthens, and relationships thrive. Therapy isn’t about placing blame; it’s about creating healthier dynamics, mutual understanding, and a stronger foundation for the future.
If you and your partner are ready to take the next step toward a more fulfilling relationship, contact Music City Psych today.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it time to go to couples therapy?
By the time people ask this question, there’s a good chance the answer is yes. The beginning of a romantic relationship typically has a “honeymoon period,” where each partner is naturally oriented to see the best in the other one. Most couples begin to consider counseling only after the honeymoon period has ended and patterns of tension or conflict have established themselves in the relationship.
If your relationship is causing you ongoing distress, confusion, or frustration beyond what the two of you can resolve on your own, consider getting a counselor. All intimate partnerships will have conflicts and tensions, and it can be hard to see what the underlying causes are from inside the relationship. Bringing your issues to a neutral third party allows you to begin rediscovering the good in each other, enabling you to develop better communication approaches and interrupt unhealthy patterns going forward.
You can get more help deciding if the time is right by reading our blog post about the signs it’s time for couples counseling.
What are the reasons couples go to therapy?
Many different precipitating events push couples to seek therapy. Common reasons for therapy include loss of trust, strained communication, or just a growing distance between the two partners. There may be a pattern of fighting that causes hurt feelings and growing resentments that aren’t being repaired. Some couples cite specific issues such as financial disagreements, conflicting parenting styles, one or both partners’ job stress, or problems arising from relationships with extended family.
Other times, a couple doesn’t even agree on what brought them to therapy. One partner says the problem in the marriage is X, and the other says it’s Y, and that disagreement itself has become a problem. Regardless, the challenges that initially prompt couples to see a therapist are typically clues to deeper underlying issues. And that’s exactly what your counselor is there for: to help you sort out and address the root causes that keep you caught in unhealthy relationship dynamics.
Is couples counseling only for married couples?
No, couples counseling is appropriate for any couple in a long-term partnership looking to work through their issues and improve the health of the relationship. Some engaged couples also go to couples therapy, giving them the opportunity to build a stronger foundation for their marriage by addressing conflicting priorities or behaviors early on.
What happens in couples counseling?
A typical first session at Music City Psych is an opportunity for couples to talk more calmly about the issues that were responsible for initiating therapy. Your therapist will encourage you to share the positive qualities of your relationship as well as identify where you are stuck. Oftentimes, focusing on the negative aspects of the relationship has made it difficult to see where the strengths are. Identifying what brought you together in the first place helps reorient you to the goal of repair and growth as a couple.
Ongoing sessions utilize Imago Relationships Therapy (IRT) techniques, with exercises designed to provoke mutual insight into each person’s feelings and experiences and what that brings to the relationship. Imago couples counseling facilitates greater connection, safety, and understanding between partners using an intentional dialogue process facilitated by a skilled and experienced counselor. This process helps lessen reactivity as partners learn to be fully engaged, present, and available, allowing them to appreciate and respect each other’s differences.
IRT practices cultivate empathy by helping couples understand what issues from their past subconsciously prompt them to behave in certain ways. By acknowledging the formative experiences that drive each of their reactions and behaviors, partners come to have more compassion for each other and themselves. Each partner is also better able to face their own behaviors for what they are: not simply “who I am” but reactions that are able to evolve as healthier relational connections and attitudes are cultivated. Inside this dynamic framework, couples learn to identify hidden relationship stressors, diminish their reactivity to triggering events, and over time reignite the excitement and romance that brought them together in the first place.
Can I see my couples therapist for individual therapy?
Sometimes clients develop a great relationship with their couples therapist and want to see them for individual therapy as well – or vice versa: they hope their personal therapist can counsel them and their partner together. However, it’s important to the integrity of the therapeutic relationship that your couples therapist only meets with the two of you together.
Why is this? A counselor establishes trust with a couple by acting as a neutral third party to the relationship, with both partners knowing that the counselor is not on either person’s “side.” Part of establishing this trust is that the therapist avoids having side conversations with either partner. That way, the couple knows that what happens in their therapy session with all present is the totality of their relationship with their couples counselor.
Of course, if there happens to be something that you need help discussing with your partner, your relationship therapist will be there to facilitate it in a safe and effective way.
Will my therapist determine who’s at fault in the relationship?
Couples will often initiate therapy with the idea that they will simply pose each relationship problem to the therapist, who will then act as a referee. This common misconception views counseling as a matter of identifying who is right and who is wrong. The actual purpose of relationship therapy is not to determine fault, but to identify more positive forms of communication for both partners to use to meet each other’s needs.
As therapists, we know that the behaviors people engage in are often based on coping mechanisms that have worked well for each of them as individuals. When any two people are navigating an intimate relationship, some of those behaviors are bound to intersect in ways that cause problems. For instance, one partner may feel the need to talk about a source of tension right away, and they will feel anxious until the issue has been discussed and resolved. Meanwhile, the other partner is overwhelmed by the same tension and needs space and time to clear their head before they feel able to talk about it. As a result, each partner is distressed by the behavior of the other, and each feels hurt that their needs seem to be misunderstood or disregarded.
At Music City Psych, we help each partner in a relationship expand their perspective so that they can make changes in the way they think about and react to each other. Therapy aims to be an eye-opening experience for the individual as well as for the relationship as a whole.
What if my partner won’t go to marriage counseling?
It’s true that couples therapy does require buy-in from both partners to work, and you can’t make anyone do anything they aren’t ready to do. If your partner is opposed to counseling, be sure they know that you are seeking therapy for mutual growth, not as a place for assigning blame. If they’re just not ready, you can still find support and growth by going to individual psychotherapy. Individual therapy can help you clarify your values and priorities and allow you to approach a resistant partner or stalled relationship from a more grounded and self-determined place.
Do you serve couples outside the Nashville area?
Yes, we offer both in-person and telehealth counseling options, which allows us to accommodate clients in the Nashville area and throughout the rest of Tennessee. Additionally, David is dual-licensed in Tennessee and New York, while Rachel is licensed to practice in Florida as well. For in-person therapy sessions, our office is located near Belle Meade and Green Hills, with convenient access to The Gulch, Music Row, Hillsboro Village, Brentwood, and downtown Nashville.
