Micki Lavin-Pell
Marriage Therapist and Relationship CoachCreating Relationships That Soar Right From the Start
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Micki Lavin-Pell, MS, MA
Certified Marriage and Family Therapist and Relationship Coach
We all fantasize about what our lives will look like when we find the right one. Yet there is a disconnect between the fantasy and the reality as statistics show. So many of us end up in unhappy and unsatisfying relationships.
This is why I’ve dedicated my life to learning the key tools to creating successful long lasting relationships, to make people excited about looking forward to creating this next phase of their life.
Whether you’ve never been in a relationship yet, are currently in a relationship that you want to make great, or have suffered failed relationships; by working with me you’ll uncover some of the hidden messages that have been holding you back from forging great relationships, so that you can break free and create the kind of relationship you really want.
As a qualified Marriage and Family Therapist and Relationship Coach for more than 15 years, I help people both in my office in Jerusalem and all around the world via Skype. You will encounter the deepest parts of who you are so that you are ready to find and embrace love. I support people, at their own pace, through their deepest fears and traumas so that they can break free and choose a different path.
I use several treatment modalities such as Imago, Psychodynamic psychotherapy, Somatic Experience therapy (Trauma), EMDR (Trauma), Systems theory (for family rebuilding) and Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT).
I work at your pace so that you receive results as efficiently as possible.
I am happily married for 15 years with 4 kids. My husband and I use the same tools I’ll use with you to build a loving, satisfying, deep and meaningful relationship.
- Masters in Nutrition and Public Health (where I gained my prevention focus on creating healthy relationships)
- Masters in Counseling at La Trobe University in Melbourne in 2001
- Certificate in Couples Counseling from Relationships Australia (2001)
- Graduate Diploma in Marriage and Family Therapy (2006)
- EMDR Level I (2010)
- Somatic Experience Therapy (Intermediate Level 3)
- Member of the Israeli Association of Marriage and Family Therapy
- Co-creator of Dating with a Difference, which offers workshops and coaching throughout Israel
Services
Pre-relationship
Being single is an opportunity to focus on learning about the most important parts of who you are…
Dating
Dating is the best opportunity we have to meet that special someone…
Engaged
During this period, people often overemphasize the wedding at the expense of life together…
Married
Challenges often arise when couples get married. This is normal…
Pre-relationship
Being single is an opportunity to focus on learning about the most important parts of who you are. Many people rush into relationships hoping their partner will answer the “Who Am I” question for them. By encountering the best parts of yourself and shedding the unpleasant bits, you have an opportunity for the best chance at creating the most vibrant relationship imaginable.
When I came to work with Micki I was feeling depressed that I would never get married. I was a bridesmaid at so many friend’s weddings and started to believe that it would never happen for me. By working with Micki I realized that I wasn’t giving off the best energy and I also wasn’t really conveying to other’s what I needed from a relationship. I was very confused about my wants and my needs, and Micki helped me to get more clear about this. A year after I finished working with Micki I met and married my husband. It wasn’t easy hanging on to the hope and belief that this would actually happen, but thank G-d I did. Having sessions along the way was helpful as it helped me to really focus myself better.
I chose to work with Micki because I had read many of her articles about love and relationships and a lot of it resonated with me. I never really had a relationship with a woman, I mostly just had hook-ups. Being in my late 20’s I wanted to create a change. I wanted to start a family already and not continue with this pattern of going from woman to woman. By working with Micki I discovered that I had a problem with becoming bored easily and an underlying fear of intimacy which kept me from really getting to know the women I was with. By resolving these issues I was able to establish a long term relationship with a woman I really love and respect.
At the age of 41 I felt that I had hit a brick wall dating-wise. I kept on telling myself, ” I just hadn’t met the right one.” While I met lots of people, I never seemed to be able to move relationships forward. What I discovered was that having been raped in my teenage years, my self-esteem had taken a real hit. I still needed to heal from that experience in order to move forward. By doing Somatic Experience therapy (SE) with Micki I was able to break free from the chains of my rape in order to feel more positively about myself and feel capable of being in a relationship.
Dating Coaching
Dating is the best opportunity we have to meet that special someone. If we jump over this stage too fast, we can miss out on the most growth inspiring experiences we can ever have.
I had been severely abused by my father as a child and was struggling to believe that I was worthy of love. I kept choosing partners who were bad for me. When I came to see Micki I had started dating a man who treated me really well. I continued to test him and treat him badly to see if he would stay. By working with Micki I got to see how I had to handle my own anxiety and not throw it onto my partner. By staying the course I was able to work on my ability to trust both myself and my partner and to be able to develop a loving and healthy relationship.
I have always had a difficult time committing to important things. This fear of commitment has hampered my life. I came to see Micki because I was dating a woman whom I really loved but was scared of committing to because she didn’t fit the cookie cutter mold. After several sessions of Somatic Experience therapy with Micki I was able to let go of some old wounds that had been holding me back and was able to find a new way of moving forward. I have since been able to feel complete about my decision to marry my girlfriend.
I decided to seek out Micki’s help because I was dating aimlessly and not feeling as though I was getting anywhere. I dated women I really liked who dumped me after a few dates. Micki helped me to see that I may have been turning women off by presenting with overconfidence. In other words, because I was so concerned about women liking me, I acted so cool and confident that it was actually “too much” and made women fear they would never be good enough for me. Since this realization, I now have toned things down to the extent that women get to see the real me…which is ideal.
Engagement Coaching
During this period, people often overemphasize the wedding at the expense of creating a vision for how you will enjoy life together. Things can get very stressful and out of hand. The engagement period and early marriage, needs to be the time that you invest in building your emotional relationship. By investing time and energy learning about how to deal with important things now, the rest of your lives will flow much more smoothly.
I came to see Micki because I just started dating a woman that I thought was the most beautiful woman in the world. I was freaked out because I didn’t want to “screw it up.” I had a history of suffering from depression and anxiety. Micki really helped me to hold myself together and see this woman, in a more realistic way so that I wouldn’t put her on a pedestal which would have completely destroyed the relationship. We have now been married for a year and have a baby together. We did some pre-marriage couples work with her so we could learn some tools and skills for how to work together. So grateful we did.
There is nothing worse than realizing you have made a huge mistake in marrying the wrong one. We had fun together when we were dating, but only realized after we had made a huge mistake. We felt like such failures as we tried so hard to keep pushing each other to keep going. It was only by working with Micki that we got to see that who we are as people just wouldn’t work long term as a couple. We are so grateful that we managed to get out of this relationship before complicating things by having children together. We now feel free to live our lives in a way that suits each of us individually. We have also learned what our true needs are so that we will choose partners who are better for us going forward.
We did the Prepare/Enrich workshop with Micki a year after we got married. We than did some couples work with Micki as we had some different ideas about our relationship expectations. Micki was very good at seeing both of our perspectives and not making us feel that she was taking sides. She enabled each of us to see what we needed to do differently to get the relationship in the best place possible.
Marriage Coaching
Challenges often arise when couples get married. This is normal. Often people are so in love, or they want things to work out that they overlook differences. The main thing is to know that the best time to work on differences is at the beginning. The biggest mistake a couple can make is to wait it out. The longer a problem continues, the harder it is to change and the less motivated you may feel to work on it. The best time to get help is from the beginning.
After the happy first years of our marriage, we began to experience a breakdown in communication. I had been sexually abused by a relative when I was a teenager and this held me back from being truly present, emotionally and physically, with my husband. Rather than sharing my feelings with my husband, I withdrew and blamed him for our problems. Our work with Micki enabled me to recognize my difficult feelings and learned how to express myself so that my husband could better understand me. We are now able to deal with challenges head on so that they don’t snow ball and become crises.
We came to Micki because we were not connecting well with one another after only a few years of marriage. I (Man) felt like I was making all of the decisions in our relationship and felt my wife was just coming along for the ride. Working with Micki enabled both of us to recognize the pattern we had developed where I wasn’t allowing my wife to be heard. I previously believed that it was my job to make the decisions and didn’t realize that my wife wanted to be involved, but that I was simply blocking her from doing so. Having turned this dynamic around we are now in such a healthy place.
Recent Blog Posts
Movie Review: “Ask Dr. Ruth”
Documentary, Directed by Ryan White
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When we feel low or in pain, we over focus on what is wrong in our relationship. It's ironic how easy it is to see how others hurt us, but much more difficult for us to see how we are co-contributors of pain. When we feel sad, in order to strengthen our relationships...
Want to Reignite Your Commitment to Love?
With the holiday of Shavuot coming up, being known as the holiday the Jewish people committed to keeping the laws of the Torah (and for some a massive cheesecake fest), it got me thinking about the way many of us commit to romantic relationships. As many of you...
