Hi there.
Hi, my name is Miranda Becker (they/them or she/her), a Couples Counselor and registered Associate Marriage & Family Therapist in the state of California (AMFT #131217).
I am employed at Diament Wellness and supervised by Lara Mekhitarian, MA (LMFT #78395), who is a contracted supervisor for Diament Wellness. You can visit the practice’s website here.
I graduated with my Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology from the Wright Institute in 2021. It brings me so much joy to work as a couples therapist, and to be able to witness couples’ changing relationships as they move towards a deeper sense of trust, connection, attunement, and comfort with one another.
As with many others in this profession, I came to the world of therapy through my own healing journey. I was lucky enough to have caring people there for me when I needed it most, and I hope to be able to do the same for others.
Before entering this field, I worked in politics and advocacy. I continue to view mental health and resilience as deeply intertwined with social justice — both because injustice creates trauma, and because our determination to heal can elevate both ourselves and our larger communities.
My previous counseling experience primarily focused on working with LGBTQIA+ clients, and as someone who identifies as queer and gender fluid, it has been a great honor to be able to give back to my community. However, I am excited to connect with couples from many other communities as well.
My specialties
My specialties include:
Couples counseling, including working with LGBTQIA+ couples
Helping partners build attunement, empathy, and connection
Teaching Non-Violent Communication skills to increase understanding of where each person is coming from
Building empowerment by getting in touch with your body, intuition, and true voice
Trauma and abuse, including surviving sexual trauma, narcissistic abuse, childhood events, family dysfunction, religious trauma, and societal oppression
PTSD and CPTSD
Anxiety, panic, and chronic stress
Perfectionism
Self-esteem, self-confidence
Codependency, boundary-setting, and people-pleasing patterns
My approaches
Couples therapy with me is all about building empathy and attunement. That means getting to truly, deeply feel into each other’s experiences and emotions, so you can understand each other in a new and more profound way.
Often, we can become stuck in our perspective that our way is “right” and our partner’s is “wrong,” but we will work together in therapy to soften that approach and bring you closer together. In couples therapy, we have to face that we are often 50% wrong.
I approach couples counseling from a holistic, intuitive perspective. In order to ensure you are getting the best treatment, we will collaborate together to find what works for you. I take a nonjudgmental approach that is based around meeting you where you are and accepting you how you are. I also have a warm sense of humor and enjoy injecting that into our conversations. Even though we do talk about hard things, we can also take some moments to laugh!
Below, you can learn more about the modalities I pull from:
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When working with couples, I pull from Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). Using this modality, we will work together to lean into the vulnerability underneath tough emotions and cultivate compassion for each person’s strategies for trying to get their needs met.
Relationships challenge us because they require taking emotional risks and learning to move from survival to “thrival.” My hope is to help you feel that you’re on each other’s team, and that you can grow to trust each other to be your biggest advocates, supporters, and allies in the various journeys life presents to you.
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Also known as Non-Violent Communication, or Compassionate Communication, this set of tools helps couples learn to attune to one another. This style of speaking and reflective listening helps us truly feel into what our partner is experiencing, in order to find a middle ground when expressing our own needs.
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The body holds so many memories of experiences we’ve been through, even if we’ve consciously pushed those memories to the side. Tapping into the body can help you reconnect with your vitality, intuition, truth, and power.
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We are all multifaceted, often contradictory beings. By acknowledging the complex inner sides of yourself, you can start feeling in charge of your own life and gain a deeper sense of self-compassion and self-acceptance along the way.
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All of my work is grounded in Attachment Theory, which means we will connect your current ways of relating to others back to the dynamics you experienced growing up.
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Our conversations together will also be deeply strengths-based, because it’s always worth reminding you that you have many wonderful qualities — perhaps even more than you knew! We all have ways we adapted in order to survive, and admiring that resiliency is a cornerstone of my work.
How does couples therapy work?
Coming to couples therapy can feel like taking a big risk: it’s a plunge into the unknown, and also into some things we know (but maybe don’t always want to face). It’s a place to explore, dive deep, process, and — most importantly — form a safe, healing way of relating to others.
While you go on this journey, I hope you can see me as a Fellow Traveler walking the path alongside you. I can’t do the work for you, but I can remind you that you’re not alone.
When working with me, ideally you will feel you have someone in your corner, who accepts you as you are, sees you with full compassion, and can really empathetically connect with you, no matter what you’re going through.
Over time, I will guide you to tenderly notice, honor, and accept your full range of emotions for what they are, including the difficult ones we often turn away from. All sides of you are valid and worthwhile, and they have a story to share. In learning to deeply listen to these stories, you can heal those sides of you that have remained trapped in pain from the past.