Beth Collins

Meet Beth.

Hi, I'm Beth Collins.

You're probably here because something in your relationship has stopped working — and you've tried to fix it on your own long enough to know you need more than good intentions and another difficult conversation.

Maybe you and your partner are caught in a cycle that neither of you wanted and neither of you knows how to break. Maybe something happened — a betrayal, a rupture, years of slow disconnection — and the person you love now feels like a stranger, or a threat, or both. Maybe you've been told by someone that your relationship is too far gone for therapy to help.

I don't believe that. And I've spent over 25 years building the clinical skills to prove it.

I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Certified Trauma Therapist, and one of a small number of therapists in the Fredericksburg area with advanced post-graduate training specifically in the most complex and painful relational work there is — high conflict couples, narcissistic relationship dynamics, and affair recovery. I also co-founded two practices — We Thrive Together and Thrive Counseling for Healing and Connection — where I provide couples therapy, intensives, workshops, and clinical supervision to a team of talented therapists.

This is not general practice work. It is specialized, deeply trained, and built around the conviction that relationships — even the most fractured ones — have the capacity to heal.

Who I Work With

I've built my practice around the couples that a lot of therapists find difficult. And honestly — I enjoy it.

Not because I like watching people suffer. But because the couples who are most stuck, most defended, most certain that nothing is ever going to change — those couples are also usually the ones with the most fight in them. The stubbornness that makes them hard to work with in a conventional therapy room is the same stubbornness that kept them showing up for each other even when it was painful. That's not a personality flaw. That's grit. That's tenacity. That's two people who haven't given up even when they probably should have by someone else's measure.

I know how to work with that. I find it genuinely compelling. And I think those couples deserve a therapist who sees their defenses not as obstacles but as information — as the story of how they learned to survive, and what it's going to take to help them do something more than that.

That said — you don't have to be in crisis to work with me. Some couples come in because everything has fallen apart. Some come in because something is quietly off and they want to fix it before it gets worse. Some come in because they love each other and just cannot seem to stop having the same stupid argument about who does the dishes.

All of it is welcome here.

I work specifically with:

High Conflict Couples Couples where the conflict has become chronic, intense, or seemingly irresolvable — and where standard couples therapy approaches have failed or aren't enough. I hold specialized EFT training for highly conflicted couples, which means I know how to work with the level of reactivity and pain in the room without the session becoming another battleground. If you've been told your relationship is too high conflict for therapy — that is exactly why you should reach out.

Couples Navigating Narcissistic Relationship Patterns Some of the most painful and most misunderstood relational dynamics I work with involve narcissistic or high-control patterns — one partner walking on eggshells, accountability that flows only one direction, a gradual loss of trust in your own perceptions. I hold advanced training in Relational Life Therapy — developed specifically for these dynamics — and I work with both the partner experiencing harm and the partner who is willing to look honestly at their own behavior. This work requires a therapist who is direct, fair, and not afraid of what they see. I am that therapist.

Couples Healing from Affair and Betrayal Infidelity is not just a relationship problem. It is a trauma. Healing from it requires more than good intentions and a promise — it requires a structured, trauma-informed process with a therapist who has specific training for this work. I have completed training in AIRM — Affair Recovery through Emotionally Focused Therapy — and Broken Bonds Attachment Injury Resolution through EFT, and I am currently completing my certification as a Couples Infidelity Repair Specialist. Very few therapists in this area hold this combination of credentials. If you are navigating the aftermath of betrayal — whether the discovery was recent or years ago — this is specialized work and you deserve a specialist.

Couples Who Just Want to Communicate Better Not every couple that walks through the door is in crisis. Some are just stuck — not in pain exactly, but not as close as they want to be. Something has gotten flat. The connection is there but the ease isn't. You love each other and you keep missing each other and you're not sure why.

Maybe the same conversation keeps going sideways in a way that neither of you intended. Maybe one of you shuts down and the other one pushes and you've both stopped knowing how to get back to each other after. Maybe life has just gotten loud — kids, work, obligations — and the two of you have quietly moved to the back of your own priority list.

This is some of my favorite work. There's no emergency — just two people who want to understand each other better and build something more intentional. EFT is beautifully suited for exactly this because it gets underneath the communication patterns to the emotional needs driving them — which means the changes that come out of therapy tend to stick in a way that communication scripts and conflict resolution exercises alone never quite do.

You don't have to be falling apart to deserve good couples therapy. You just have to want more than what you currently have. And wanting more — before things fall apart — is honestly one of the smartest things a couple can do

My Approach

I am an attachment-based, trauma-informed EFT therapist. That means I work from the understanding that beneath every conflict — every argument about money, every moment of emotional withdrawal, every cycle of pursuit and shutdown — is a deeper longing for safety and connection. My job is to help couples slow down enough to find that longing, name it, and reach for each other from that place instead of from fear or self-protection.

My sessions are directive and structured — I don't just hold space and wait. I track the cycle, I name what I see, I move toward the emotional core of what's happening between you. Clients often describe working with me as feeling both challenging and deeply safe — which is exactly what this work requires.

I also bring my Certified Trauma Therapist training and EMDR into couples work when appropriate — because I understand that what looks like a relationship problem is often a trauma response, and that treating it as anything less doesn't get to the root.

I approach every couple from a non-pathologizing lens. I am not looking for who is the problem. I am looking for the pattern — because the pattern is always the problem, and patterns can change.

Training and Credentials

I hold a Master's degree in Social Work from the University of Maryland and have over 25 years of clinical experience working with individuals, couples, and families navigating trauma, relational distress, and significant life transitions.

My couples therapy specialized training includes:

• EFT Core Skills and Externship Training

• AIRM — Affair Recovery through Emotionally Focused Therapy

• Broken Bonds — Attachment Injury Resolution through Emotionally Focused Therapy

• Currently completing certification as a Couples Infidelity Repair Specialist

• EFT with Highly Conflicted Couples

• Hold Me Tight Workshop Facilitation

• Support Facilitation for EFT Externship Training

• Relational Life Therapy (RLT) — Working with Narcissism in Relationships

• Certified Trauma Therapist (CTT)

• Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

I am also a Licensed Clinical Supervisor and co-founder of two practices — We Thrive Together, which focuses on relational therapy, intensives, groups, and workshops, and Thrive Counseling for Healing and Connection, which provides insurance-based individual therapy across the lifespan.

A Little About Me

My education and training are the foundation of everything I do — and they only tell part of the story.

The rest of it is life. Hard relationships. A blended family — the beautiful mess of it, the parts that humbled me, the parts that taught me more than any training ever could. Sitting in my own discomfort and having to do something with it other than defend myself or disappear.

I'm not perfect at this stuff. I've made the same kinds of relational mistakes my clients make. I've been the one shutting down and the one pursuing and the one convinced I was right when I was mostly just scared.

What that means in the therapy room is that I'm not sitting across from you as someone who has it figured out. I'm sitting across from you as someone who understands why this is hard — and who also knows it's possible to do it differently, because I've had to learn how to do it differently myself.

I still find this work fascinating after 25 years. I still get genuinely invested in the couples I work with. And I still believe — even when they don't — that something can shift.

Sessions and Availability

I offer in-person couples therapy in Fredericksburg, Virginia and secure online sessions for couples across Virginia. I also offer couples intensives for those who want to do concentrated work over one or two days rather than weekly sessions.

I see couples navigating:

• Relational stressors and difficulty communicating

• High conflict and chronic disconnection

• Narcissistic and high-control relationship dynamics

• Affair recovery and betrayal trauma

All participants in online sessions must be physically located in Virginia at the time of the session due to licensure requirements.

If something here resonates — if you recognize your relationship in what you've read — reach out.

You don't need to have it all figured out before you contact us. Just tell us a little about what you're navigating and we'll help you understand whether I am the right fit and what the next step looks like. Our team responds within one business day.

Schedule a Consultation with Beth