Testimonial:  "Thanks for an insightful & thought/change provoking presentation."Workshop Participant May 2011

Inviting each partner out of the fusion

This workshop covers the central dilemmas to conducting couple therapy including:

• engaging clients in a goal focused therapy;
• drawing out the process from the content of complaints;
• dealing with power issues;
• avoiding side taking; and
• expanding the therapy lens to the previous generations.

This will be a hands-on workshop that balances presentation of theory with essential skills for the therapist.

While many of the fundamental therapy techniques are essential for, and transferable to, couple counselling, there are additional challenges facing a therapist when working with a couple whose relationship is in crisis.

The intensity generated by two emotionally charged and reactive partners is high and often greater than that generated by an individual client or even that of a family where children can act as a deflector of anxiety and tension.

One of the most essential skills for a couple therapist is the ability to manage their own anxiety while staying connected to each individual amidst the couple's intense and often painful struggle.

Additionally, frameworks for understanding the complexity of intimacy and attachment bonds and the systemic nature of intimate relationships, along with skills for eliciting and intervening in the process of entrenched and unhelpful interactional patterns are essential.

This workshop is designed for experienced mental health professionals and counsellors who wish to expand their skills, knowledge and confidence in working with couples.

It is a hands on workshop that balances the presentation of theory with an opportunity to discuss and workshop essential skills.

Program:

• Essential theoretical concepts for making sense of couple difficulties and maintaining a systems view.
• Moving from an individual to a couple focus - getting beyond individual pathology and personality traits. Common traps for the therapist.
• Engaging clients in a goal focussed and collaborative therapy - commitment and client responsibility - creating the climate essential for couple work - role and responsibility of the therapist.
• The first session and beyond - what is the essential information to gather? - drawing out the process from the content of complaints - maintaining a relational view and keeping the momentum.
• Hypothesising - knowing where to focus - balancing client need to explain content and events while holding a focus on the process of interactions.
• Change interventions - key skills - when and how. Giving useful feedback, constructing process questions, managing intensity and client reactivity, inviting each partner into self focus while staying connected to each other.
• Avoiding common traps and pitfalls. Triangles in the therapy room and staying out of them - managing yourself as a couple therapist - understanding the subtle nature of anxiety in the couple therapy system and its potential impact on the therapy.

Note that we now offer a continuation to this course (Part 2) for those who wish to further explore this topic. In order to attend the more advanced course you must have attended this fundamentals course first.

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