Narrative Couples Group — Spring 2026
A Small, Closed Therapeutic Group for New and Expectant Parents
Something shifts when you become a parent, or when you're about to. Maybe you can't quite name it yet. Maybe you're both trying really hard and somehow still missing each other. That gap makes sense. And it tends to get bigger if nobody looks at it directly.
That's where therapy can help.
What Is This Group, and Is It Right for Us?
This is a small, closed couples group for new and expectant parents who want to do real work together. Not a class. Not a workshop. A therapeutic container where three couples meet for eight sessions, learn alongside each other, and take turns being witnessed in a format called a reflecting team.
A reflecting team is exactly what it sounds like. One couple is at the center while the others listen, not to fix, not to advise, but to witness. Then the listeners reflect back what they heard. Research in group therapy consistently shows that being witnessed by peers who share your experience — what Shulman (2019) calls universality — is one of the most healing elements of group work. You're not just working on your own relationship. You're watching other people navigate the same terrain, and something about that makes the whole thing more possible.
Between reflecting circle sessions, we slow down together to explore what attachment actually means in this season of life, what co-regulation looks like when you're both depleted, and what repair looks like when you've both said things you didn't mean.
What I've noticed in this format is that the witnessing piece does something individual therapy can't quite replicate. When one couple reflects what they heard in another couple's story, it almost always lands differently than when I do it. There's a kind of understanding that passes between people who are in the same chapter of life.
What Are the Details?
Format: Virtual, closed cohort
Dates: May 16 – July 3, 2026
Sessions: 8 weekly sessions
Length: 90 minutes per session
Group Size: 3 couples maximum
Cost: $130 per couple per session
Payment options: Per session, or two-payment split: $260 at enrollment and $260 before session five
What Will We Actually Explore Together?
Each session alternates between reflecting team work and psychoeducation. We draw from resources like Hold Me Tight by Sue Johnson, Polysecure by Jessica Fern, and Why Won't You Apologize by Harriet Lerner, reading together in session rather than assigning homework, so no one has to prepare in advance.
The arc of the eight sessions moves through:
Opening and establishing trust within the group
Each couple's time at the center of the reflecting team
Attachment cycles and nervous system co-regulation
Integration and repair
A closing session with intentional ritual to mark what's been built
Narrative therapy grounds much of our work in the group. As Degges-White and Davis (2019) note, narrative approaches help people externalize problem-saturated stories and find new meaning through the act of telling. In a group setting, those life stories become shared. Afuape (2011) describes narrative practice as a therapy of resistance, one that helps people co-construct new stories that sustain preferred identities. For couples doing the relational work of redefining what family looks like, that framing fits.
Is This Group a Good Fit for Us?
This group is a good fit if you and your partner:
Have been together for at least a year
Are navigating new parenthood or preparing for it
Are motivated to do real work together, not just vent
Don't have a history of intimate partner violence
Can stay present in a group setting, even when things get emotionally activated
Are not currently working with another couples therapist
This group is not the right fit for couples in active crisis or high-conflict escalation. If that's where you are, individual couples therapy is a better starting point. I'm happy to talk through that with you.
How Does Enrollment Work?
Spots are limited to three couples. To apply, reach out to schedule a free 30-minute conjoint screening call. We'll use that time to talk about what you're hoping to work on, answer any questions you have about the format, and make sure this group is the right fit for where you both are right now.
If it's a yes, I'll send you an enrollment agreement and payment information to confirm your spot.
No refunds after session two. If I ever need to cancel a session, it will be rescheduled or added to the end of the cohort.
About Your Facilitator
I'm Jasmine McMeeking, an LMFT and REAT in California specializing in couples therapy and expressive arts. I work with new and expectant parents, queer couples, and people navigating major life transitions who are ready to stop performing and start building relationships that actually fit them.
My approach is relational, emotionally focused, and arts-focused. I've been trained in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT) and expressive arts, and this group brings both of those together in a format I genuinely believe in.
FAQs
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Feeling disconnected from your partner after having a baby is a one common experience of new parenthood. The arrival of a child fundamentally reorganizes the relational system between partners. Lieberman and Van Horn (2008) describe how early parenting experiences activate each parent's own attachment history, often in ways that are invisible until the stress of new parenthood makes them impossible to ignore. Sleep deprivation, role shift, physical depletion, and identity disruption all compound simultaneously. What looks like distance is often two people reaching for connection using strategies that no longer work in this new phase of life.
The disconnection is not a sign that something is broken. It is a signal that the relationship needs tending, and that the old ways of tending it may need to be rebuilt for the people you are now.
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In individual couples therapy, the work happens between you, your partner, and the therapist. In couples group therapy, you are part of a small community of couples who witness each other and reflect back what they hear. The therapeutic mechanism is different: instead of one therapist holding the space, the group holds it together.
The reflecting circle format used in this group draws on the power of universality in group work, which is the experience of realizing that other people are navigating the same terrain as you (Lane & Lane, 2020). Research consistently shows that this kind of peer witnessing produces a different quality of insight than what happens in a dyadic therapeutic relationship alone. You're not just working on your relationship. You're also learning from watching others work on theirs.
Group therapy also tends to be more accessible in cost per session, making sustained engagement more feasible for families navigating the financial transition of early parenthood.
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Yes! Virtual couples therapy is effective, and for new and expectant parents, it often removes barriers that would otherwise make therapy inaccessible. You don't need childcare. You don't need to commute. You can show up from your couch after the baby is down.
The research base for video-delivered psychotherapy has expanded significantly since 2020. Therapeutic alliance, meaning the quality of the relationship between clients and therapist, is consistently strong in virtual formats. For group therapy specifically, the virtual container can actually reduce some of the performance anxiety that comes with being in a room together with strangers, allowing couples to arrive more openly from the start.
This group is fully virtual and is designed with the specific logistics of new parenthood in mind.
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In the first session of this group, the primary work is establishing safety and trust within the small cohort. You will not be at the center of the reflecting circle yet. The opening session focuses on getting to know the format, understanding how the reflecting circle works, and beginning to build the relational container that makes the deeper work possible in later sessions.
Expect to share a little about what brought you to the group and what you're hoping for. Expect to listen. Expect to leave with a clearer sense of how the group will work and who you'll be in the room with.
Nothing will be required of you before you're ready. The arc of the eight sessions is designed to build gradually: trust first, then depth.
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The transition to parenthood is one of the periods in which couples therapy tends to have the highest impact per session. Research on the perinatal period consistently identifies the first year postpartum as a high-risk time for relationship satisfaction, with many couples reporting significant increases in conflict and decreases in closeness even when they describe themselves as happy overall (Doherty & Harris, 2012).
The grief and exhaustion of this transition are real. So is the love. Couples therapy doesn't fix the exhaustion, but it gives you a place to understand what's happening between you, rebuild your capacity to reach for each other, and practice repair before the distance becomes the default.
For couples who are motivated and not in active crisis, a structured therapeutic container (especially one that also offers the witnessing of a small community) can shift the relational trajectory in ways that feel lasting.
Ready to Find Out If This Group Is Right for You?
Jasmine McMeeking (she/her), LMFT, REAT is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Registered Expressive Arts Therapist specializing in couples therapy, relational healing, and expressive arts supervision for licensed clinicians. Jasmine works with queer partnerships, interracial couples, and non-traditional relationship structures navigating major life transitions — and with therapists who are ready to bring more of the whole person into their clinical work.
At Stanza Family Therapy, Jae offers individual and couples therapy grounded in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT) and expressive arts approaches, alongside REAT supervision for licensed therapists integrating creative modalities into their practice.
Jasmine's work is liberation-focused and built on the belief that healing happens through genuine human connection.
Works Cited
Afuape, T. (2011). Power, resistance and liberation in therapy with survivors of trauma. Routledge.
Degges-White, S., & Davis, N. L. (Eds.). (2019). Integrating the expressive arts into counseling practice (2nd ed.). Springer.
Doherty, W. J., & Harris, S. M. (2017). Helping couples on the brink of divorce: Discernment counseling for troubled relationships. American Psychological Association.
Lane, W. D., & Lane, D. E. (2018). Trauma narrative treatment. Bear's Place Publishing.
Lieberman, A. F., & Van Horn, P. (2008). Psychotherapy with infants and young children: Repairing the effects of stress and trauma on early attachment. Guilford Press.