Couples Counseling
Rebuild your connection from a place of safety and clarity.
Culturally responsive couples therapy to heal emotional disconnection, repair trust, and navigate relational stress.
Somewhere along the way the ease you used to feel with your partner turned into cycles of conflict, defensive walls, or a lonely disconnection. Even when you love each other deeply, family obligations, external stressors, and old relationship blueprints can make it hard to truly hear one another. Couples counseling provides a neutral, structured space to step out of reactive cycles and rebuild a secure attachment bond.
What we address, together:
Communication Breakdown
Moving past repetitive arguments and learning to express core emotional needs safely.
Navigating Life Transitions
Staying connected as a team through major lifestyle changes, family shifts, or career stress.
Interlocking Triggers
Understanding how each partner's past experiences or family of origin patterns show up in your current relationship dynamics.
Intimacy & Trust Repair
Restoring deep emotional intimacy and addressing vulnerability blocks after trust has been strained.
Therapeutic Approach
Our work together will utilize an attachment-focused framework to look at the invisible patterns operating beneath your communication struggles. By identifying what causes both partners to pull away or protect themselves, we pave a sustainable path back toward authentic warmth and mutual support.
Meet Your Provider
Dr. Shalandra Hollins (she/her)
PhD, LMFT, BC-TMH
I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist dedicated to helping individuals, couples, and families break cycles, process intergenerational trauma, and step into true alignment. My clinical approach integrates attachment-based, humanistic, and somatic/nervous system regulation frameworks, ensuring our work is deeply personalized, trauma-informed, and culturally responsive.
Whether you are navigating high-functioning burnout, healing family of origin wounds, or trying to understand why your body still feels stuck in survival mode, I provide an intentional space for you to slow down, exhale, integrate your experiences, and reclaim your emotional well-being.
Dr. Shalandra Hollins (she/her)
PhD, LMFT, BC-TMH
Frequently Asked Questions
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Serene Life Counseling & Wellness is currently in-network with BCBS, Aetna, Cigna, and United Healthcare.
Learn more about using out of network benefits on our expanded FAQ page on our website.
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All sessions are conducted via a HIPAA-compliant telehealth platform securely online.
You must be physically located within the state of North Carolina at the time of your appointment to meet licensing regulations.
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We require 24 hour notice for cancellations or modifications.
Sessions missed or canceled with less than 24 hours' notice will incur the full session fee.
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Standard sessions are 50 minutes.
We typically recommend starting with weekly sessions to build a consistent rhythm for nervous system regulation, which can later shift to bi-weekly as you meet your goals.
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Therapy focuses on mental health diagnoses and relationship dynamics using evidence-based clinical modalities such as Emotionally Focused Therapy, EMDR, attachment-based theory and humanistic frameworks.
Integrative healing and Reiki focus purely on somatic grounding and energetic alignment without clinical diagnosis or traditional psychological intervention.