Beyond affairs, violations in intimate relationships are often the result of more common and seemingly small and innocuous betrayals. And when one or both members of the couple have a trauma history, it can significantly impact their ability to work through betrayals of all kinds. This session will explore how to apply complex PTSD interventions in couples' treatment to help partners work through the initial shock of a betrayal, minimize blame and shame, heal the root trauma, and regain trust in the relationship. In this session, you’ll learn:
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A badly broken marriage—in which both spouses show high levels of anger and disdain, and low levels of patience, good will, or hope—doesn't seem to hold promise for clinical salvation, especially if one or both partners may not even really want things to get better. It’s possible, however, to turn things around! In this session, we'll explore how to engage reluctant partners in therapy without making them feel trapped in an unhappy future. Although we'll focus on four major types of “last chance couples,” the approach applies to couples at any level of distress. Through video as well as role-play demonstrations, you'll learn how to:
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Childhood trauma leaves survivors with a fundamental mistrust in the safety of relationships. As adults, they develop defences against vulnerability, commitment, and emotion—either shutting down or getting stuck in mutually escalating conflicts with their partner. This session will demonstrate two very different styles of intervention with these clients. One will emphasize challenging the couple’s ability to be emotionally authentic; the other will focus on the importance of somatic communication in helping couples connect. You’ll discover how to:
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Do you avoid seeing couples? Have you started dreading your next appointment with a couple? Or love working with couples and are interested in new tools, techniques, and frameworks for treating their issues effectively? The principles and practical interventions of Imago Relationship Therapy can help. In this session, you’ll be introduced to a new way of viewing couples who come to you for help with communicating their needs and frustrations, ending their power struggles, and revitalizing their devitalized marriages. You’ll explore ways to:
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Emotionally Focused Therapy: A Step-by-Step Approach to Harnessing the Power of Emotion
Even as advances in attachment science have led to an increasing appreciation of the centrality of emotions in human relationships, we still find ourselves often intimidated by the raw power of our clients’ emotions.
Primary developer of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) and best-selling author of, Hold Me Tight, Dr. Sue Johnson, shows you how the EFT method illustrates the new science of love and bonding and helps you become more attuned with your client’s emotions that often flare up in session.
Emotionally focused therapy (EFT) harnesses the new science of love and relationships. Watch now and be guided step-by-step through the process of helping clients tap into their deepest emotional reserves as a positive force for shaping growth and transformation.
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Many people define intercourse as penetration, disregarding all other aspects of sexual connection such as foreplay or afterplay. The pressure for penetrative intercourse, however, can contribute to power struggles and unhappiness for many couples. What if we reframed intercourse as outercourse—sex play without penetration? This session will help therapists work with couples and individuals for whom intercourse is not a desired erotic experience. You’ll discover how to help couples:
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The data is clear: most of us will author more than one love story in our lifetime. We talk a lot about the skills and paradigms needed to create an intimate relationship, but we don’t talk nearly enough about the skills and paradigms needed to end an intimate relationship. Learning relational metaskills can help clients approach endings—and new beginnings—with more integrity and relational self-awareness, reducing collateral damage to both self and others. In this session, discover an integrative approach for helping clients better understand the thoughts, feelings, and common issues that arise during a breakup as well as how to integrate the loss and prepare to begin dating again. You’ll explore:
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Influential therapist Esther Perel is the author of the bestsellers Mating in Captivity and The State of Affairs, and host of the popular podcasts “Where Should We Begin” and “How’s Work?” Her TED Talks have garnered more than 20 million views, and she’s been named one of Oprah Winfrey’s SuperSoul 100 visionaries.
Now Perel’s turning her laser-sharp focus to how these last years have laid bare the importance of being able to reevaluate our goals and loosen the rigidity we’ve been told will hold our work, families, communities, and our very lives together. Adaptability—knowing how to sway when the heavy winds of an unforeseeable change pick up—has become the order of the day.
How many of us grew up being told to stand straight, hold our heads high, and plow forward in this life with courage and determination? It’s the American way. Know your goal, set your intention, don’t deviate, and all will work out in the end. But what happens when the world itself wobbles? What becomes of our plans, and the carefully structured realities we often rely on to justify our existence? What becomes of us?
In this recording, Perel will take us on a journey of exploring how learning to absorb unexpected changes and unforeseen possibilities can be its own grounding force—one that’s better suited to the newly shaken world we and our clients now call home.
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