One method. Two practitioners.
A boutique practice built entirely around couples — and around one framework, developed in-house, delivered by both of us.
A couples-only practice.
BME Therapy Associates is not a general mental health practice that also sees couples. Couples are the whole of what we do, and the FERNS Method is the framework every session is built on.
We are Brian and Emily Jones, a husband and wife team. The practice is built around one belief: that the most important investment you can make is in the foundation of your relationship — whether that foundation is being laid before a wedding or rebuilt after something broke.
Brian brings fifteen years of clinical work with couples at every stage, from the early years through crisis and recovery. Out of that work came the FERNS Method, a framework for identifying the unmet needs running a relationship from the background. Emily is trained in that same method and delivers it as coaching, bringing warmth and structure shaped by a background in wedding planning and international travel.
What that produces is a practice that is both rigorous and human — where couples are challenged and cared for in roughly equal measure. It is deliberately small. There are no associates and no waiting room. The two of us know every couple we work with.
What you will be able to do.
This is what the work is building toward — not a promise about your relationship, but a description of what couples can do by the time they are finished.
Say what you need, out loud
Instead of hinting and hoping it lands, keeping a private tally, or holding it until it comes out sideways at the worst possible moment.
Understand why they do that
The thing your partner does that has never made any sense starts to make sense. Not as an excuse for it — as an explanation you can actually work with.
Name the pattern while it is happening
You end up with shared language for what the two of you do. That means you can point at it in the moment instead of relitigating the whole argument from the beginning every time.
Do it without us in the room
On an ordinary Tuesday, with no session that week and nobody moderating. That is the actual finish line, and it is the one we are working toward from the first session.
One method. Two practitioners.
Both trained in the FERNS Method, both working from the same framework. What separates them is scope of practice — a licensing distinction, not a difference in the work.
Brian delivers the method as licensed couples therapy, which means it can address mental health concerns, trauma, and crisis. Because therapy is regulated by state licensing boards, he can only work with couples physically located in a state where he holds licensure.
Therapy for couples in Delaware and Massachusetts.Emily delivers the same FERNS Method as relationship coaching — the same five components, the same structure. Coaching is goal-oriented rather than clinical: it does not diagnose or treat mental health conditions, which is also why it carries no state restriction.
Coaching for couples nationwide.Not sure which fits? That is what the free consultation is for. See fees and availability
Five barriers between you and what you need.
These are not steps to work through in order. They are the things standing in the way — and any one of them can be why a conversation goes sideways.
Feelings & Fears
The emotional surface — what we feel, and what we are afraid to admit underneath it.
Expectations
The unspoken rules we carry — inherited, never agreed to, quietly building resentment.
Reactivity
The automatic responses that take over before we can think clearly.
Needs
The destination. Every other component is a barrier pointing here.
Sensitivities
The tender places — past wounds that shape how we interpret the present.
Meet us for fifteen minutes.
A free consultation is the fastest way to know whether we are the right fit. No commitment either way.
Free 15-minute call · Confidential · No commitment