Dr. Marcus Reid

I am a couples therapist in Chicago. I have been married for twenty-eight years and in practice for twenty-five. I hold a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, with specialized training in emotionally focused therapy and the Gottman method for couples work. My practice is dedicated to Black couples and African-diaspora couples, with most of my clients in midlife and longer-term marriages.

The work of long marriage is rarely discussed with depth in mainstream couples-therapy writing, and almost never discussed with depth for the specific experience of Black and African-diaspora couples. The research on couples therapy is heavily based on white, middle-class samples, and the cultural specifics that shape our partnerships are often absent from the literature. I have built my practice in the gap — taking the empirically supported techniques that work and applying them with the cultural attentiveness our partnerships require.

My typical couple has been married twelve to thirty years and has reached a point where the patterns that served them earlier no longer serve them. The kids are older or out of the house. The careers are established. The two adults are looking at each other across a longer history than they had imagined they would, and the marriage is either going to be renewed for the next twenty years or it is going to be slowly dismantled. I help couples figure out which of those two paths they actually want and how to walk the one they choose.

The approach is structured. The first two sessions are assessment sessions — we meet together as a couple, then I meet briefly with each partner individually, and we set explicit goals together. The clinical work that follows is grounded in emotionally focused therapy, which focuses on the attachment dynamics in the couple, the cycles of interaction that keep the couple stuck, and the specific work of breaking those cycles. We also incorporate Gottman-method work on the four horsemen — criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling — which are the empirically identified communication patterns that predict divorce.

I am not the right therapist for couples in active domestic violence situations. For those couples, individual safety work has to precede any couples therapy, and I will refer to colleagues who specialize in domestic-violence-aware clinical work. I am also not the right therapist for couples where one partner is in active untreated substance abuse — the substance work has to come first. I am the right therapist for couples who are stuck, who are tired of the same fights, who have come to the honest place of knowing they need help, and who are willing to do the work.

Sessions are eighty minutes. We meet weekly for the first two months and biweekly after that. Most couples I work with are in active therapy for nine to eighteen months. I see couples in person at my office in Chicago and via video for couples elsewhere in Illinois and the surrounding states where I hold practice authorization.

I do not take insurance directly. My rate is two hundred dollars per session. I provide superbills that most couples can submit for out-of-network reimbursement. I keep a small sliding-scale list for couples who would otherwise not be able to afford care.

If you are considering couples work, write to me together as a couple, or have one partner write with the other partner's knowledge. I read every note. I respond within a week. If we are a match, we set up a consultation call where both partners are present before any clinical work begins. The starting point is your shared willingness to do this work. The rest we will figure out together.