When people begin relationship therapy, they may expect the therapist to take a position: save the relationship, end it, forgive the betrayal or decide who is right. Laura Bass takes a different approach. The Charlotte and Tryon North Carolina psychotherapist treats counseling as a structured place where clients can slow down, understand what is happening and make more considered decisions.

For Bass, relationship therapy is not a vote for staying or leaving. Oftentimes the work helps a couple reconnect. Sometimes it helps people establish healthier boundaries or separate with greater care. Her focus is not on forcing a particular outcome, but on helping individuals and couples move forward with greater honesty, awareness and clarity. One of her clients who had been married three times realised that he was “the common denominator”.

Looking beyond the subject of the argument

Many couples argue repeatedly about money, parenting, intimacy, time, household responsibilities or extended family. The subject matters, but the pattern surrounding it may reveal even more.

One partner might pursue a conversation because distance feels frightening. The other may withdraw because the intensity feels overwhelming. The more one pursues, the more the other retreats, leaving both people unheard and defensive.

Bass helps clients examine these cycles without automatically reducing either partner to being “the problem”. Therapy may explore what happens immediately before a conflict, what each person fears or assumes, and how tone, timing and earlier experiences shape the exchange. Understanding a pattern does not excuse harmful behavior.  It can, however, show where different responses and clearer boundaries are possible.

Her approach also recognizes that improved communication cannot solve every relationship difficulty. Therapy may help distinguish a manageable disagreement from a deeper issue involving trust, compatibility, safety or willingness to change.

Supporting clients after infidelity

Infidelity is one of Bass’s principal areas of relationship work. A betrayal can disrupt a person’s sense of reality as well as trust in a partner. The injured partner may move between anger, grief, devastation, and confusion. The partner who was unfaithful may experience shame, defensiveness, fear or uncertainty about what to disclose. Both may feel pressure to decide immediately whether the relationship can survive.

Counselling can create room to slow that pressure down. Initial work may centre on emotional safety, stabilising daily life, clarifying boundaries and identifying what information is necessary for informed choices. If both partners want to explore repair, later conversations may address accountability, the circumstances in which secrecy developed and what rebuilding trust would require.

Bass does not present reconciliation as a guaranteed or universally correct result. Nor does she treat separation as a therapeutic failure. This measured position is important because the emotional effects of betrayal can be substantial. The American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy has discussed the serious impact that chronic infidelity may have on spouses and partners.

Where coercion, intimidation or violence is present, standard couples counselling  is inappropriate. Safety assessment and specialist support must come first.

Is couples therapy always about keeping a couple together?

No. Couples therapy can support repair, but preserving the relationship is not the therapist’s decision. Understanding how devastating the effects of a divorce can be for the couple and family, Bass works hard to preserve the marriage if at all possible.  However, Bass’s approach respects the choices of the adults involved.

Some couples use therapy to determine whether meaningful change is possible. Others need help discussing separation, co-parenting or the practical and emotional consequences of ending a relationship. Therapy can support a clearer process without promising reconciliation, restored trust or any other outcome.

Clarity may mean recognizing what each person can change, what remains outside their control and which boundaries are no longer negotiable. That can be valuable work even when the eventual outcome differs from what one or both partners initially hoped.

Can one partner attend relationship counseling alone?

Relationship concerns can also be explored in individual therapy. Someone may seek support because a partner is unwilling to attend, because they are still deciding what they want or because they need a private setting in which to understand their own reactions. 

Individual counselling cannot create mutual change on behalf of an absent partner. It can help a person recognise recurring patterns, strengthen boundaries and make more deliberate choices. Whether an individual therapist later works with the couple together depends on clinical judgement, informed consent and the practitioner’s policies. Prospective clients should ask about these boundaries from the outset.

Laura Bass’s approach to psychotherapy

Bass offers teletherapy to clients in Charlotte NC and Tryon NC  (where she also offers in person sessions)  for individuals and couples, including adults and  teenagers 18 and older. Her style is integrative, interactive and compassionate and conversational. 

Rather than assuming that a single method or predetermined answer will suit everyone, she considers the individual alongside the presenting concern. Relationship strain may intersect with grief, anxiety, low mood, self-esteem, family history or a significant life transition. Exploring those connections can help clients understand why a present-day interaction carries so much emotional weight.

Bass’s work includes relationship strain, communication difficulties, recurring conflict and infidelity. Her role is not to hand down a judgment about the future of a relationship. It is to help clients listen more closely to themselves and one another, understand the patterns influencing their choices and consider what comes next with greater awareness.

Choosing a relationship therapist

Fit matters in psychotherapy. The American Psychological Association advises prospective clients to ask about a practitioner’s credentials, experience and approach. For relationship work, people may also want to ask how a therapist handles confidentiality, individual disclosures, safety concerns and uncertainty about whether to remain together.

A suitable therapist should have verifiable credentials and relevant experience, explain the process clearly and avoid guaranteeing results. An initial conversation should make space for questions. Prospective clients are not only assessing whether a therapist understands the concern; they are also considering whether they will be able to speak honestly in that person’s presence.

Relationship therapy cannot make a painful choice painless. In Bass’s work, its value lies in creating enough space for clients to see their situation more clearly and approach their next decision with greater intention.

About Laura Bass

Laura Bass has provided in person psychotherapy for thirty  years  in Charlotte, North Carolina.  During the pandemic in 2020, she started working virtually and spent more time in the foothills of NC.  She began working in person part-time at the Healing Cottage in Tryon NC area when it opened  in April 2025 and works virtually with clients in the Charlotte area.  She does individual, couple and family therapy with clients 18 and older.   Her integrative, interactive approach enhances and elevates traditional psychotherapy and respects client autonomy. Her practice supports people navigating relationship strain, communication difficulties, infidelity, grief, low mood and significant life transitions.  Bass has experience in private-practice, residential and hospital settings. Learn more about her approach and relationship counselling services at Laura Bass Counseling.

Amelia Hart, a psychology graduate from the University of Hertfordshire, has a keen interest in the fields of mental health, wellness, and lifestyle.