Relationship Therapy in Washington, DC

Psychoanalytic therapy treats relationship conflict by identifying the pattern that keeps regenerating it, rather than adjudicating the latest argument. I am a licensed clinical psychologist and board-certified psychoanalyst in Washington, DC, and I have worked with couples for over fifty years. Sessions are held online by secure video.

Couples rarely have many arguments. They usually have one, with an inexhaustible supply of subjects. The dishes, the money, the mother-in-law, the phone — the surface changes and the shape underneath does not, which is why resolving any particular instance brings such short-lived relief.

Something similar happens outside marriage: the same difficulty with authority in every job, the same disappointment in every friendship, the same distance appearing at the same point in every relationship. When the cast changes and the plot does not, the plot is coming from somewhere.

I work with relationship difficulty in individual therapy and in couples therapy.

“Couples rarely have many arguments. They have one, with many subjects.”

Common reasons people call

The same argument, endlessly, in different costumes
Distance, or living as roommates
After an affair — by either partner
Deciding whether to stay together
Sexual difficulty or mismatch in desire
Conflict with an adult child or a parent
The same trouble repeating across relationships

The problem

When resolving the argument does not stop the arguing

Most couples are competent negotiators about everything except each other. They can settle a dispute at work in an afternoon and then spend eleven years on the same sixty seconds of a conversation from 2015. The problem is not communication skill, whatever the surface suggests.

What is being repeated is usually older than the relationship. Each person arrives with expectations laid down long before they met — about what happens when you need someone, what it costs to be angry, whether being known is safe. Those expectations then organise the marriage without ever being stated, and each partner experiences the result as the other person's doing.

This is why fair adjudication fails. Deciding who is right about the dishes settles the dishes. It leaves entirely intact the arrangement in which one person pursues and the other withdraws, and that arrangement will find its next subject by the weekend.

The method

How psychoanalytic therapy treats relationship conflicts

The work is to make the pattern visible while it is happening rather than after. In couples sessions this is direct: the argument tends to appear in the room within a few weeks, and we stop it mid-move and look at what each person was expecting, feeling and defending against. That is a different experience from recounting it afterwards, when both accounts have already been tidied.

Individually, the work is the same and the angle is different. We look at your half of the pattern — what you reliably do when you feel unseen, what you cannot say and why, whose voice you are actually answering. This changes relationships even when the other person never attends a session, because a pattern requires two participants to run.

I do not take sides, and I do not hand out communication scripts. Both are less useful than they appear. What tends to help is each person seeing their own contribution clearly enough that it stops being automatic.

Which treatment fits

Which treatment fits relationship difficulty

This work is done together or alone, and the right choice is not always obvious. We decide it in the free consultation.

Couples therapy

Ninety minutes with both people present, when the trouble lives between you rather than inside one of you.

Psychoanalytic psychotherapy

Once or twice a week at a fixed time. Where most people begin, and enough for a great many difficulties.

Psychoanalysis

Three to five sessions a week. The more thorough instrument, for difficulties that have returned after previous treatment.

Expected results

What this work can and cannot promise

I cannot promise that a relationship will survive, and I would not want a clinician who did. What treatment can offer is clarity about what is actually happening between you.

The pattern becomes visible

Both people start recognising the move as it begins, which is usually the first real change.

Arguments lose their charge

Disagreement stops escalating automatically into the old territory.

You are heard differently

What each person was defending against becomes speakable, which alters what the other one hears.

Clearer decisions

Whether you stay or part, the decision is made on accurate grounds rather than exhaustion.

Two honest caveats. Joint work is not appropriate where there is ongoing intimate partner violence — that needs individual safety and separate help first, and if you are in danger the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233. And where one partner has privately decided to leave, couples sessions can do harm by prolonging a decision already made; I would rather know that at the start, in confidence, than discover it in month six.

Your therapist

About Dr. John J. Hartman

Dr. John J. Hartman, licensed psychologist offering online therapy for relationship conflicts in Washington, DC

I have practiced psychotherapy and psychoanalysis for over fifty years, and have spent much of that time teaching it — at UCLA, Michigan, and the University of South Florida, where I am currently Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry. As a Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst at the Florida Psychoanalytic Center, I am one of the analysts responsible for training other analysts.

A.B. Harvard College, magna cum laude with highest honors, Social Relations
Ph.D. University of Michigan, Clinical Psychology
Certificate Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute
FABP Board-certified psychoanalyst, American Board of Psychoanalysis
Training & Supervising Analyst Florida Psychoanalytic Center
Licensed Washington, DC (PSY200001229) · Florida · Michigan
PsyPact Telehealth authorized in participating PSYPACT jurisdictions, including Maryland and Virginia

Full credentials and appointments · scholarship and publications

Fees

What treatment costs

Individual sessions are $325 for 50 minutes; couples sessions are $475 for 90 minutes. The first 15-minute consultation is free and carries no obligation, and a sliding scale is available — ask whether you may be eligible.

Payment by cash, check, Venmo, Zelle, or wire. I do not bill insurance, but if your plan covers out-of-network mental health care you may be able to submit my bills to your insurer for reimbursement. Office hours are Monday to Friday, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, by arrangement. Full fees and insurance details.

Common questions

Questions about therapy for relationship conflicts

Can I come alone if my partner will not?

Yes, and it is more useful than people expect. A repeating pattern needs both participants to keep running, so changing your half genuinely alters the whole. It is not a substitute for joint work where joint work is possible, but it is far better than waiting for someone who is not coming.

Is this couples therapy or individual therapy?

Either. If the trouble lives between you, ninety-minute couples sessions are usually the right instrument. If it repeats across every relationship you have had, individual work reaches it more directly. We decide at the consultation, and it can change — plenty of people begin individually and bring their partner in later.

What if we are deciding whether to stay together?

That is a legitimate reason to come, and a common one. My aim is not to keep a marriage together at all costs; it is to help you both see what is actually happening, so that whichever way it goes, the decision is made with accurate information rather than out of exhaustion.

Can I see you if I do not live in Washington, DC?

Yes. All sessions are online by secure video. I am licensed in Washington, DC, Florida and Michigan, and through PsyPact I can treat residents of participating PSYPACT jurisdictions, including Maryland and Virginia. For couples, both partners generally need to be in a state where I am authorised to practise.

Find out what the argument is really about.

The first 15-minute consultation is free and carries no obligation. Online sessions only, for residents of Washington, DC, Florida and Michigan, and — through PsyPact — participating PSYPACT jurisdictions including Maryland and Virginia.

Call (813) 787-2048 Prefer to write first? Email Dr. Hartman

Online Therapy for Relationship Conflicts in Washington, DC