Michael Longo, LMHC
AASECT Certified
Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Marriage & Family Therapist
Intimate relationships bring joy and pain to each of us. No deep partnership is without disappointments, confusion, and an experience of minor or major betrayals. Yet these predictable challenges invite us to broaden our capacity for understanding and enter new depths of intimacy as we repair and heal. As a Marriage and Family Therapist with a focus on sexuality, I believe that no matter what the difficulty, we can all reshape our relationships to have the kind of deep connections we yearn for.
Over the last 30 years, I have helped couples, families and larger social systems discover new approaches to quickly solve previously insurmountable problems. In addition to my work with couples and families, I have developed and led Family Therapy training and research programs in Massachusetts, Delaware, and Maryland, and assisted public and private healthcare systems to provide more effective, relationship-focused treatment for their clients.
I believe deeply in the human ability to repair and heal, and it’s my experience that when we respond to a relationship challenge by seeking help, we embrace our own important power of growth. My strength-based, brief treatment approach is built on collaboration, curiosity, and humor. All three are key to creating your relational toolkit and deepening your ability to connect to others.
I specialize in working with couples who are experiencing difficulties in intimacy. These disruptions often emerge from pre-existing patterns which undermine communication and sexual expression. Sexual difficulties are often driven by anxiety and shame that interrupt performance, pleasure, or deep closeness. Communication issues are shaped by our experience of attachment; attachment and sexuality are intertwined and form the foundation for deep intimacy. I help couples increase their understanding of both and develop new relationship skills to enhance the communication, sexual expression, and empathy needed for deep intimacy.
Couples and Sexuality
I can help couples to:
create an understanding of how our sexual upbringing, social expectations, and relationship issues can form the root cause for difficulties with desire, erection, penetration or orgasm, or PTSD reactivity.
explore/expand sexual practices with a focus on kink, poly, queer, or hetero interests.
custom design a gentle and supportive repair process to rediscover passion and restore sexual expression.
Couples and Communication
Communication difficulties are often the result of unseen forces that create disillusionment and disconnection. I can help to reveal hidden forces that have led to disruption and conflict, and to restore your relationship and learn how to keep it in good repair by understanding:
how differences are essential to closeness.
where disillusionment comes from.
what our emotional triggers are and how to manage them.
Michael Longo
Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Marriage & Family Therapist
CONTACT INFORMATION
Couples Center of the Pioneer Valley
1 Ashfield Street
Shelburne Falls, MA 01370