Hello and welcome,
LOVING WELL ISN'T A GIVEN
and you're here for a reason. Some couples share a bed, a calendar, and a life but still feel like strangers. Others love each other deeply and still can't get through a week without the same fight finding its way back. I'm Paula, and I help you see the patterns underneath your struggles clearly enough to decide, for yourself, what to do about them. I use the Crucible® Approach to offer direct, depth-oriented relationship, individual, and family consultation for people who are done tolerating the status quo and ready to grow into something more.​
Paula Pate, LCMFT - Wichita, KS & Virtual
Most relationship advice tells you how to communicate better, fight less, and offer safety to your partner. That's not what happens here.
This is consulting for people who want more than peace without intimacy — who want depth, honesty, and real connection, even when it's uncomfortable. Growth in relationships doesn't come from smoothing things over. It comes from going through the friction: the moments you want to pull away, defend yourself, or get your partner to change first. Those moments are the crucible where the best in you — and in your relationship — actually gets forged.
Whether you're working on your marriage, your partnership, or your own capacity to stay solid and connected under pressure, the work is the same: to differentiate. To become someone who can tolerate closeness without losing yourself, and tolerate difference without losing the relationship.
REAL INTIMACY Isn't Comfortable.
THAT'S THE POINT.
My SERVICES.
WE ARE A Great Fit If...
-
You want to understand the pattern, not just quiet the conflict.
​
-
You can hear something uncomfortable about yourself without it undoing you.
​
-
You're willing to be responsible for your own decisions — not told what to do.
​
-
You're ready to tolerate some discomfort now in exchange for something more solid later.
About MY JOURNEY
I trained directly with Dr. David Schnarch for a number of years before his passing, and I continue advanced Crucible® Therapy and CNT education today. My clinical foundation is in systemic thinking — meaning I see your difficulties not as an isolated set of symptoms, but in the context of the relationships that shape you.
RECOMMENDED Books by David Schnarch, Ph.D
I've provided the Amazon link to these books and the books on the Resources page for your convenience while encouraging you to shop the books at your local bookstore.
Passionate Marriage
Dr. Schnarch reframes marriage itself as a "people-growing machine" — a process built to push both partners toward differentiation, not just closeness. It's where the Crucible® Approach gets its name, and where you'll find his fullest treatment of how intimacy, sexual desire, and personal growth are really the same process seen from different angles.
Intimacy & Desire
If mismatched desire feels like proof something's wrong with you or your relationship, this book argues the opposite: desire discrepancies are normal, even predictable. Dr. Schnarch explains why there's always a higher-desire and lower-desire partner, and how working through that dynamic becomes a real path to growth.
Brain Talk
The neuroscience companion to Dr. Schnarch's work. It introduces "mind mapping" — how we unconsciously build models of what others are thinking and feeling — and what happens when that mapping gets distorted by trauma. It's the scientific backbone behind Crucible Neurobiological Therapy (CNT).