Building Stronger Bonds Through Experienced Marriage Therapy Guidance

For over two decades, I have helped couples and individuals heal, grow, and rediscover fulfilling connection.

Welcome to Better Relationships

I am a Licensed Couple and Family Therapist (LMFT 36314) in private practice in Newport Beach, California. I earned my master’s degree from Pepperdine University and have been licensed since 2000. My approach is psychodynamic psychotherapy, and I work exclusively with adult individuals and couples.

Basically, I help clients realize the problem-solving capacities they already have and teach them how to apply these to daily life. During this learning, and throughout the psychotherapy process, people gain a better understanding of themselves and how they can resolve their problems. They learn what steps they can take to improve their situation. When problems and solutions are clear, the work that has to be done during and after psychotherapy seems more manageable.

Problems that bring us into psychotherapy usually involve a relationship, either the one we have with ourselves or with someone else. These relationships normally have a pattern, one that gets “baked in” during the first five or so years of life. We then use this pattern throughout our lives in all of our relationships. Usually this is a good thing. We can get along with each other, adjusting to each other’s patterns of living and relating.

When our patterns clash or we begin to struggle with how we feel about ourselves, something about our pattern no longer works. Our thinking, feelings, and behavior begin to change. Life doesn’t seem to get any better. For example, we keep fighting the same fight at home or at work, or we pick the same type of partner over and over and get the same results. Emotional pain can set it.

Psychotherapy would first deal with your presenting problem, such as those shown in the “Do I Need Psychotherapy? ” section. Once your situation is stabilized, you can begin to learn how to modify your thoughts, feelings, and behavior and improve your situation. You can also learn why things go wrong, what your emotional “triggers” are, and what you can do to improve your circumstances.

In couple psychotherapy, for example, partners realize how each other’s behavior and emotional patterns from childhood can lead to problems in their adult relationship—or how the “there and then” affects the “here and now.” When this happens, they begin to understand why certain situations or comments or behaviors trigger emotional reactions.

The couple realizes why they keep fighting about the same issues if this is what they do. Partners gain a deeper understanding of each other and learn to communicate and behave so that problems get resolved faster with less emotional pain. This helps deepen and enrich their intimacy and sense of connection.

My focus is helping people heal emotional pain they may have and teaching them how to rebuild and/or repair their relationships with others and with themselves. Along the way, they often gain a broader perspective and a deeper self-understanding.

Please call me at 949-760-7171 or text 949-244-8572 or email me at jimswaniger@gmail.com with any questions or comments or to schedule a session.

Our Services

a man sitting on a couch talking to a woman

Individual Psychotherapy

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Couple Therapy

Personal Mission Statement

Emphatically sharing in the personal and spiritual concerns of individuals in the community, I am committed to assisting others to achieve satisfying and productive interpersonal relationships, based on their needs, values, and lifestyles. This commitment is founded on my belief that satisfying relationships are essential to all human endeavor and is supported by my wisdom, insight, and strength of character.

What got you to this point is your own story.

“Building Better Relationships: A Guidebook for Men”
– James Swaniger, M.A., Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
#LMFT 36314, Author

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