K. Kerstin Gutierrez(She/Her/Hers)

In my current therapy and coaching practice I work with adults who wish to move forward in relationships: couples, marriages in all life’s stages, career and parenting. And, most importantly, relationship to one's Self. In particular, my focus is twofold: helping women and men develop relational skills to address challenges in their current life stage such as adjustment to work, to retirement, to late-age new marriages or relationships, and challenges of grief and loss of partners and family members.

Additionally, and uniquely, my practice focus includes addressing the challenges to relationships posed by ADHD (Adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and other age-related changes. Underdiagnosed and often overlooked in treatment are the many ways that ADHD impacts late-stage relationships, especially after the structures of work-and-family-life have been replaced by retirement-related changes in life (whether financial, social or familial). Many couples in retirement experience profound emotional confusion and difficulties during retirement due to the increased time spent with one another without the external structures of work and family life; and often this time reveals underlying relationship and coping problems that seem overpowering to one or both partners.

Retirement is a potentially life-altering change to long-term relationship; such changes are often confusing and dismissed as unimportant or self-generated. The goals, health issues, and needs of the couple may be altered in retirement, presenting challenges to both partners regarding how to meet the needs of each partner as well as both together.