About Bob & Karin Matthews

We are partners in life and in helping people who are seeking greater health in their emotional lives and/or their relationships. Who we are and the experience we bring to our work reflect a broad mix of similarities and differences. We share a passion for helping people and a common view of how we are best able to help. We also come from different cultures, have different temperaments, and different appetites for socializing (Karin is more of an extrovert while Bob is more of an introvert). We find that this mix of similarities and differences helps us connect with couples in their own differences.

We both discovered our interest in helping people over the course of previous careers. Bob spent 20 years as a software developer, manager, and entrepreneur, including 13 years at Microsoft. Karin's career as an attorney included practicing in a large law firm as well as corporate work as in-house counsel. We've both personally experienced the impact that a demanding professional career can have on our lives and relationships.

We appreciate how difficult it can be to make a relationship work and how painful it can be when it doesn't. We've each been through a divorce, and we work hard at our own relationship. We understand the tension between maintaining loving connection and working through difficult differences. We are also familiar with the challenges that parenting brings. Our passion for working with couples comes from our belief that many couples experience frustration and pain that could be relieved with the support of couples counseling.

We believe strongly in the value of working two-on-two with couples – a model called co-therapy. Client couples that we've worked with have often remarked on how they found it refreshing and useful to explore their issues with “a real couple.” In exploring our own relationship, we've also found that working with a co-therapy team was tremendously helpful in navigating some of our more difficult differences.

We share a basic orientation in working with couples which is primarily based on a model called Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). EFT is a structured approach to building loving connection between partners which has a strong, research-validated track record of positive results. We have both been certified as EFT therapists by the International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy (ICEEFT).

You can learn more about EFT and our approach to couples counseling in the Couples Counseling area of our website.

In working one-on-one with individuals, we each have our own approach. While our approaches are similar to one another, they reflect our individual styles and perspectives.

You can learn more about Karin's background and approach here.

You can learn more about Bob's background and approach here.