Yael & Paula

Our Story

Yael Bat-Shimon, LMHC, Certified Imago Therapist & Dr. Paula Smith, Advanced Imago Clinician and Workshop Presenter are a married couple specializing in helping LGBTQ couples create safe, healing, non-binary, love-filled partnerships in deeply perceptive, precise and appropriately playful ways. We live in a culture that tells us that marriage and intimate relationships should come naturally. We believe this leads many LGBTQ couples to terminate their relationships unnecessarily. Yael and Paula recognize how misleading this myth is for couples seeking viable tools to create long-lasting marriages and committed partnerships. It is crucial for LGBTQ couples to understand that their principle function is to help keep each other safe; otherwise, the meaning of their partnership is trivialized and this lessens the likelihood of creating a strong, interdependent relationship. For over a decade, Yael and Paula have been teaching LGBTQ couples how to understand each other deeply and accurately, using a positive, strength-based, psychobiological, relational methodology-Imago relationship therapy. They bring to this work their combined 40+ years of experience in 12-step recovery as well as their experience as an in*******al, interfaith couple. Black and white, Jewish and pluralist, Yael and Paula draw on their own deeply meaningful, often painful journey towards embracing and celebrating each other’s differences to help couples do the same. Rather than bore you with advice and insights or tell you what to avoid in your intimate relationships, Yael and Paula help you think about and experience relationships in a whole new way, where you are empowered to value differences, deepen intimacy, discover purpose and pass on a legacy of respectful relating to your children.