
Richard Rein, Ph.D.
Transform your relationship to newfound levels of happiness.
Did you know that conflicts among couples are rarely about the issues, but instead how they talk about the issues? It’s true. The problem isn’t the problem, but discussing it is. During more than 30 years in the counseling field, Dr. Richard Rein, Ph.D., has seen how communication difficulties have threatened otherwise happy relationships. In counseling sessions for struggling married and unwed couples, he teaches new skills to improve communication, restore friendship, and rebuild your emotional connection.
Background & Qualifications
Dr. Rein is the founder of Relationship Resources and co-founder of the Center for Integrative Counseling and Wellness. He is a licensed psychologist, certified Gottman Method couple’s therapist, and marriage counseling expert. Throughout his career, he has provided research-driven, specialized care for couples. He focuses most of his efforts on the detection of repetitive patterns that create unresolved problems in marriages, as outlined in his books, All In The Dialogue and The Divorce Prevention Handbook: A Practical Guide for Saving Marriages.
With Dr. Rein’s guidance, couples relearn how to communicate in sessions, receiving feedback and guidance as they proceed. If previous conversations escalated or even stopped occurring, new ways of communicating will restore friendship and rebuild your emotional connection. His approach is based on the science of communication and has been shared with hundreds of couples and taught to many other couples’ therapists.
What differentiates Dr. Rein’s approach from others is its emphasis on the detection of intricate subtleties that create communication setbacks. Subtleties such as some couples’ inability to filter their words in discussion, or spotting those who can’t “decelerate” a runaway conversation, or eyeing the need for two people to create a culture of trust together. This careful approach has been successful in improving and saving troubled relationships.
Many therapists do marriage counseling, but very few are trained in it, and even fewer exclusively see couples in their practice. In addition to his writing about marriage counseling, Dr. Rein trained with Dr. John Gottman, the top marriage counselor, and researcher in the country. Through that unique training and his own independent study, Dr. Rein has developed a refined approach that helps couples find renewed happiness and connection in their relationships.
Dr. Rein earned a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Southern Illinois University in 1985, following a B.A. with high honors in psychology from the University of Florida. Dr. Rein continued his studies and received a graduate certificate in Organizational Consulting Psychology as well as a graduate certificate in Professional Executive Coaching from the William James College in Newton, Massachusetts.
Testimonials
I often think about how you helped us through our troubled time and just want to thank you again. Our relationship has grown better and better by the years because of our meetings with you, learning to communicate, and of course staying out of trouble on my end. Last year I took our whole family on safari and I surprised her with renewing our vows in the Kalahari Desert at sunset. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me and you helped open my eyes to what I really had, because at the end of the day, she really wasn’t the cause. I sincerely want you to know that I doubt we would still be together without your help. Just so you know, anyone I talk to who has relationship issues, you’re the number I give them. Not sure if you see any of them, but for their sake, I hope so.
Dr. Rein is a very special couples therapist. He is highly skilled and patient-guided. He helped us to finally communicate effectively, which was very much like learning a new and better language. We highly recommend Dr. Rein. He offers couples insightful observations and suggestions in a very positive and productive environment.
I just wanted to say that I enjoy the blogs that you’ve been sending and let you know that we are so grateful for your help. The “marathon sessions” were the best! That may have been more than a year ago, maybe two, but our relationship is still benefiting from the things you taught us. Now, when one of us gets upset about something, it’s not a world-ending downward-spiraling catastrophe (and that’s a relief in itself!), but instead, we can get ourselves out of it and even laugh together! It’s been great and we say all the time that we’re so thankful for you.
We are so lucky to have found Dr. Rein at the beginning of our marriage to set us on a course for happiness and success. My wife and I got married, had our daughter, and bought a house all in the same year after only dating for a year. When my wife first suggested counseling, I was skeptical and saw it as a sign of weakness and failure on my part, but Dr. Rein’s methods have taught us how to effectively communicate and work through difficult issues that we would not have otherwise been able to handle productively. We have learned to value and appreciate each other’s differences and how to avoid escalating disagreements that would lead into full blown arguments. I truly feel that these sessions have been invaluable for our marriage and well-being.
When my husband and I started seeing Dr. Rein, we thought our relationship might not work because our personalities were too different. We had been seeing another marriage counselor for over 6 months and that just wasn’t working. Looking back, our first marriage counselor felt more like a referee. My husband and I would discuss our fights and she’d let us know which one of us was being reasonable and which one was being unreasonable; then we’d discuss our different upbringings to determine why each of us felt the way we felt. Those methods never moved us forward. Dr. Rein never felt like a referee; he felt like a coach. If my husband felt unappreciated, it was taken as a fact; it wasn’t debated. The goal was to understand how I could express my appreciation because what I was saying or doing wasn’t working. If I felt hurt by something my husband said, it was taken as a fact; it wasn’t debated or determined to be an unreasonable feeling. The goal was to help my husband understand why I felt hurt and to help him communicate his feelings in a way that wasn’t hurtful to me. After working with Dr. Rein our personalities haven’t changed but our communication has and that has made all the difference. My husband and I still have disagreements, but we know how to keep them from escalating to relationship-harming blowouts. We are much more capable of expressing our wants and needs while still expressing how much we truly care for each other. I feel like we have “us” back. We have found our friendship again; we have fun all the time and enjoy each other again. I am so incredibly grateful for Dr. Rein’s help in saving our relationship.