Diminished desire is one of the most common—and misunderstood—concerns in
couples therapy. When partners interpret this shift as a sign of incompatibility or
relationship failure, it can lead to emotional disengagement or unnecessary distress.
Biological reality dictates that desire is not a permanent state. While early attraction is
driven by neurochemical intensity (designed to initiate bonding), long-term partnerships
naturally transition to a system built on:
Habituation—the brain’s natural adaptation to a familiar stimulus—is not a pathology. It
is a normal neurological feature. At Mallory Creek, we help couples move beyond the
myth of “spontaneous desire” by:
Evolutionary psychology provides a powerful lens for understanding the complexities of
human connection. At Mallory Creek, we use these insights to help couples move
beyond the feeling that their relationship is "broken" and toward a clearer understanding
of how biology influences modern partnership.
We face a fundamental mismatch: our mating psychology was shaped by ancient
evolutionary pressures, yet we live in a world that demands sustained, decades-long
intimacy. We help couples navigate:
Understanding these biological patterns does not excuse them—it makes them
addressable. We provide the clinical tools to turn these evolutionary tensions into
opportunities for deeper, more intentional connection.
These are the aspects of a person’s philosophy that underlie his/her distress:
1. The Need for Approval: I need love and approval from significant others and must avoid disapproval at all costs.
2. The Perfectionism Trap: To be worthwhile as a person, I must achieve and succeed at everything without making mistakes.
3. The Blame Game: People who act unfairly or obnoxiously must be blamed, condemned, and punished.
4. Low Frustration Tolerance: Things must go the way I want them to; otherwise, life is completely intolerable.
5. Externalizing Happiness: My unhappiness is caused by things outside my control, leaving me powerless to feel better.
6. Catastrophizing: I must constantly worry about dangerous or unpleasant things, or else they are bound to happen.
7. Avoidance of Hardship: It is easier to avoid life’s difficulties, unpleasantness, and responsibilities than to face them.
8. The Need for Dependency: Everyone needs to depend on someone stronger than themselves to feel secure.
9. Past Determinism: Events in my past dictate my current problems and permanently control my feelings and behaviors now.
10. Over-involvement: I should become deeply upset when other people have problems and feel miserable when they suffer.
11. Intolerance of Pain: I should never have to feel discomfort or pain—I can’t stand them and must avoid them at all costs.
12. The Illusion of Ideal Solutions: Every single problem must have a perfect, ideal solution, and it’s intolerable when one isn’t found.
1. Self-Acceptance: Approval is nice to have, but I can survive, function, and accept myself even without it.
2. Splitting Self from Performance: I’ll strive to achieve as much as I can, but my human worth is entirely separate from my performance.
3. Accepting Human Flaws: Humans are inherently imperfect. People do bad things, but upsetting myself over it won’t change reality.
4. High Frustration Tolerance: It’s deeply disappointing when things don’t go my way, but I can stand it without catastrophizing.
5. Internal Ownership: External factors are out of my control, but my thoughts—not the externals—create my feelings. I can learn to control them.
6. Pragmatic Reality: Worrying about things going wrong won’t stop them from happening; it only ensures I stay miserable right now.
7. Facing Challenges: Avoiding problems only brings short-term relief; tackling them head-on prevents worse outcomes later.
8. Cultivating Independence: Relying on others fosters dependency. It’s okay to seek guidance while learning to trust my own judgment.
9. Present Agency: The past cannot influence me now; my current beliefs do. I can analyze and change those beliefs in the present moment.
10. Emotional Boundaries: I cannot fix other people’s problems or bad feelings by making myself emotionally distressed.
11. Embracing Discomfort: Discomfort is unpleasant, but I can stand it. A life built on constant avoidance becomes far too restrictive.
12. Practical Acceptance: Problems usually have multiple workable solutions. It’s better to act on the best available option than wait for the impossible ideal.
Recent research by Dr. Abrams has shown that people with health problems often use irrational beliefs to evade appropriate self-care. Using a brief measure of personality, Dr. Abrams and his co-workers found that people resistant to new ideas, with less emotional resilience, and less commitment to conscientious behavior often allow their health to deteriorate.
If you have a chronic health problem, it is very much in your interest to be aware that your personal philosophy can lead to a unique type of denial that can endanger your health. Indeed, in his latest study, Dr. Abrams found that people with chronic illnesses like diabetes can be expected to have better outcomes if they are made aware of the irrational components of their thinking.
Note: This text is based on the research findings by Dr. Mike Abrams, and the full content can be found on the Psychology.ws Links Page.
Does your conflict escalate faster than either of you intended? You are not alone. Most
couples enter therapy struggling with a cycle of reactivity that they cannot seem to stop.
At Mallory Creek, we help you understand the why behind the escalation so you can
break the cycle for good.
When your nervous system perceives a threat, it triggers a physiological “fight or flight” response. In this state:
We move beyond simple communication “scripts.” Instead, we focus on:
Stop waiting for arguments to “resolve themselves.”
Build the capacity to manage conflict deliberately and maintain connection, even during difficult moments.
Sexual intimacy is far more than a physical act—it is an emotional and cognitive
experience. At Mallory Creek, we recognize that your beliefs about desirability,
performance, and desire shape your intimacy more than any physiological factor.
Many couples feel that their sexual difficulties are purely physical or a sign of
incompatibility. However, we often find that sexual challenges are maintained by internal
belief systems, including:
We use cognitive-behavioral frameworks to help you identify and challenge the specific
beliefs blocking your connection. Our process is:
Don’t let rigid beliefs define your sexual life. Learn how to navigate your unique patterns and cultivate the connection you desire.
Are you tired of having the same arguments over and over?
Most couples find that they
are stuck discussing the same surface topics—money, chores, or parenting, while the
real issues remain ignored.
At Mallory Creek, we help you stop fighting about the
surface and start addressing the underlying questions that truly matter
Research shows that what you fight about matters far less than how you fight. Your
arguments are rarely about the dishes or the budget; they are about your deepest
relational needs:
When you believe an argument means your relationship is failing, every disagreement
feels catastrophic. We help you move past these rigid belief systems by:
Stop cycling through the same frustrations. Learn how to transform your conflict process and restore your sense of partnership.
For decades, couples therapy has prioritized communication skills like active listening and structured dialogue. While these have value, they are often insufficient because they address behavior without tackling the underlying cognition and emotion.
Why “Communication Scripts” Fail
✓ A partner who believes their spouse is selfish will not change simply by using “I statements”.
✓ Beliefs generate emotional responses, which in turn generate behavior.
✓ Teaching new scripts without addressing these beliefs often leads to temporary compliance or more sophisticated destructive patterns.
Communication as a Symptom, Not a Cause
✓Difficulties are usually symptoms of maladaptive beliefs about the partner, the relationship, and conflict.
✓These beliefs create emotional states that make regulated, collaborative engagement impossible.
✓When therapy ignores these belief structures, learned skills often collapse under stress because the underlying systems were never replaced.
Infidelity is one of the most complex clinical presentations because it causes a comprehensive disruption of the psychological systems that sustain a partnership.
The Attachment Paradox: After discovery, the betrayed partner’s attachment security is profoundly disrupted.
✓The relationship is transformed from a source of safety into a source of threat.
✓The partner is simultaneously the cause of distress and the primary source of comfort, creating a paradox that is difficult to navigate without clinical support.
Predicting Recovery
✓Recovery is not primarily determined by the severity of the betrayal.
✓The quality of the post-disclosure process—including accountability and incremental trust-building—is a more reliable predictor of recovery than the nature of the infidelity itself.
Cognitive-Behavioral Recovery Processes
✓Gradual revision of catastrophic beliefs activated by the discovery.
✓Rebuilding behavioral trust through consistent, verifiable actions.
✓Honest examination of relational conditions preceding the infidelity.
✓Development of a new relational narrative that neither minimizes the event nor forecloses the possibility of change.
One of the most common mistakes therapists make when treating couples in crisis is an inflated, self-important practitioner image. Many assume that a couple struggling with communication breakdown, deception, or infidelity will simply walk in, sit side by side in front of an “all-powerful” stranger, and instantly drop their facades and lies.
Why on earth should anyone bare their soul to a complete stranger?
In reality, they won’t. Instead of coming clean, people often redouble their defenses out of shame, fear, or resentment. Being confronted by an unfamiliar therapist to reveal deep-seated betrayals usually triggers internal resistance while the external deception continues. If you are withholding things from the person closest to you, you certainly aren’t going to do a complete emotional dump in front of a stranger with a couple of degrees.
True progress in couples counseling requires an environment built on absolute trust and confidentiality, moving far beyond the rigid and ineffective expectations of traditional weekly sessions. Recognizing the real psychological barriers couples face is the first step toward achieving a genuinely working and loving relationship.
Note: This is a summary of the text “Approaches to Couples Counseling” from the website psychology.ws, and the full text can be found at the following link: psychology.ws/Links.html#Dr._Abrams_Approach_to_Couples_Counseling.
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