This course is facilitated by Carol Becker, PhD with monthly guest presenters.
Days: One Wednesday evening per month from November 2023 to May 2024; Time: 6:45pm to 9:35pm Eastern Time Location: Live on Zoom to allow us to invite guest speakers from near and far.
Overview of Couple Therapy Course
2023
- November 1, 2023, Corky Becker : From Diatribe to Dialogue
- December 6, 2023, Rebecca Harvey: Summoning Ourselves to Intimacy: Affirmative LGBTQ+ Couples Therapy
2024
- January 3, 2024, Mona Barbera: It’s All in the System: How Internal Family Systems Helps Couples
- February 1, 2024, Roger Lake : Working with Couples When Addiction Is Present
- March 6, 2024, Katherine Waddell: How To Get Unstuck: Creating Autonomous Goals and Motivation in Couple Therapy
- April 2, 2024 Michelle Joy: The Developmental Enneagram for Couples
- May 1, 2024, Sarah Sammon: Relational Empowerment: Establishing a Foundation to Address Gender and Power
Location
The course will be held live on Zoom.
Statement of Need
Doing couple therapy well is a complex task that requires ongoing learning and practicing of new skills. This couple therapy training will include expanding participants frame to work with a wide range of couples who are struggling with relational skills due to problems related to our larger social contexts that impact just relationships due to marginalization of sexual, gender and other critical identities.
About Our Couple Therapy Training
The tenth year (2023-2024) year of this couple therapy course will provide participants with the opportunity to learn from lecture, observation, and dialogue with seven senior couple therapists about the complex task of doing couple therapy well. Couple therapy is energizing, challenging, and rewarding work. Whether you are a veteran of the work or just starting to work with couples, this course will enhance your skills, thinking and practice through the unusual opportunity to see expert couple therapists interview couples in different contexts, with different foci. The learning will also support individual work with people who bring in relational dilemmas.
Invited guest faculty will present critical ideas that are foundational to their approach, do a live interview with a role play couple, and answer questions from participants. Course members will be encouraged to note opportunities for learning and questions that arise as they watch the moment to moment unfolding of the role play interviews. After the demonstration interview there will be a discussion, facilitated by Carol Becker, PhD. Participants will learn by seeing and reflecting on the similarities and differences in the approaches presented, which will enrich their own approach to couple work. Some class members will have the opportunity to learn experientially by playing the role of a member of a demonstration couple. Each evening will include opportunities for participants to connect and discuss reflections and skills learned in small groups.
Carol Becker, PhD
Carol Becker PhD, (AKA, Corky) From 1989-2015 she was a founding member of the Public Conversations Project, whose mission was to apply family therapy ideas and approaches to work with divisive public issues like abortion. Applying ideas from PCP Corky focused her practice and teaching on working with high conflict couples and families. Currently, she teaches and supervises family therapy to Child Psychology Interns at Cambridge Health Alliance. She teaches in the Intensive Program in Family Systems Therapy at Therapy Training Boston and directs the Masters Series in Couple Therapy Training. Corky was a founding member of The Kosovar Family Professional Education Collaborative, 2000- 2006, designed to establish family therapy as a central part of the post war rebuilding of the mental health system to local mental health professionals after the 1999 bombing of Kosova. For 25 years she consulted to the Interpersonal Skills Exercise on dialogic skills for the Project on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. She co-developed a family therapy training program on the ground in China, followed by monthly zoom meetings. This online training included Child Psychiatrists from all over China from 2021-2023.
“It has been such a pleasure to be a part of the Master Series. The presentations have been outstanding and invigorating. And even on Zoom, the role plays have been helpful in demonstrating theory while also conveying the emotional power of the work. I have also appreciated getting to know the members of the group. Thank you for an excellent year.”
Ellen Safier, LCSW, Adjunct Faculty at Center for Psychoanalytic Studies, Houston, TX
Outline for Each Meeting of the Course ~ 6:45 pm to 9:35 pm, Boston time
Break Out Discussion- 6:45 to 7 pm. Participants meet in groups of three for 15 minutes to discuss a question/topic/clinical dilemma related to the evening’s presentation.
Speaker Introduction-7 to 7:05 pm
Guest presenter will talk about critical ideas and practices that they use in working with couples – 7:05 pm to 7:45 pm (40 min)
Break: 7:45 to 8 pm
Guest presenter will do a live demonstration of couple therapy with a role play couple showing how they practice the ideas they presented – 8 pm to 8:40 pm (40 min)
Carol Becker will debrief the role players’ experience of the interview, asking about their experience in their role, to name what the presenter did in the session to help them shift. She will identify key interventions that were demonstrated. -8:40 to 8:55 pm (15 min)
Participants break out in small groups to discuss what they learned and questions they have about the role play demonstration- 8:55 to 9:10 pm (15 min)
Carol will facilitate a discussion about what participants are learning and questions they have for the speaker. – 9:10 pm to 9:35 pm (25 min)
Learning Objectives for the Course
- Describe two interviewing skills learned in each evening of the course.
- Compare interviewing skills demonstrated by senior couple therapists and discern when to use what approaches.
- List four techniques for preventing or working with conflict.
- Explain three different approaches for increasing connection and empathy in couples.
- Identify two similarities among the approaches to couple therapy presented.
- Identify two differences among the approaches to couple therapy presented.
- List two concepts related to working with each of these dilemmas: problematic communication including high conflict, working effectively with queer couples, using IFS in couple therapy, working with addiction in couple therapy, using the Developmental Model with couples, the Enneagram as a tool for couple therapy, and addressing relational empowerment related to gender and power in couple therapy
Detailed Description of Each Class
November 1, 2023 with Michele Scheinkman,LCSW
Description
In this program Corky will teach ideas and practices to working with couples in conflict. These include notions about how to help couples transform conflict about opposing views to shift into appreciation of difference. This is accomplished by helping clients learn ideas and skills related to the value and practice of listening. Clinicians will learn to structure a difficult conversation about differences to facilitate this process.
The ideas presented will provide the couple therapist ideas about what a dialogue looks like, how to distinguish it from diatribe, how to shift from argument to understanding, how to facilitate the emergence of empathy and create a basis for better problem solving. Corky will teach and demonstrate an exercise to practice with couples that uses a Narrative therapy frame and originated with Michael White (White, 2009).
Carol Becker PhD, (AKA, Corky) From 1989-2015 she was a founding member of the Public Conversations Project, whose mission was to apply family therapy ideas and approaches to work with divisive public issues like abortion. Applying ideas from PCP Corky focused her practice and teaching on working with high conflict couples and families. Currently, she teaches and supervises family therapy to Child Psychology Interns at Cambridge Health Alliance. She teaches in the Intensive Program in Family Systems Therapy at Therapy Training Boston and directs the Masters Series in Couple Therapy Training. Corky was a founding member of The Kosovar Family Professional Education Collaborative, 2000- 2006, designed to establish family therapy as a central part of the post war rebuilding of the mental health system to local mental health professionals after the 1999 bombing of Kosova. For 25 years she consulted to the Interpersonal Skills Exercise on dialogic skills for the Project on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. She co-developed a family therapy training program on the ground in China, followed by monthly zoom meetings. This online training included Child Psychiatrists from all over China from 2021-2023
Learning Objectives
Attendees will learn to:
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Identify and contrast differences between poor communication, i.e. debate, and constructive conversation, i.e. dialogue.
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Define two practices to use to stop destructive cycles of argument.
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Use principles of structure, agreements, and shared purposes to coach couples to listen to understand rather than debate
December 6, 2023 with Rebecca Harvey, Ph.D; LCSW
Description
The relative health of any couple is developed and maintained within the pattern of their relational process. For LGBTQ+ couples, relational process happens within a context of ubiquitous oppression and cultural volatility. Heterosexism, transphobia, racism, sexism, xenophobia, classism, and religious bias intersect in unique ways and with differing effect so that even two people very much in love can have very different experiences of being LGBTQ+.
Intersectional patterns of domination replicated from society are filtered into relational processes. We develop relational strategies in response to our cultural and familial experiences allowing us to maneuver through our embodied experiences of domination, oppression and/or privilege and control. Some learn evasive maneuvers while others learn attack strategies. Some prioritize individuality to the detriment of relationships while others learn the reverse and minimize individual growth by consistently yielding to a partner. In our most difficult moments, we replicate in our intimate relationships those very social conditions which cause us harm– even when at our core we value something different and even when it disconnects us from what or who we cherish.
Intimacy requires intersectional justice. Clinical work which ignores this will encourage LGBTQ+ couples (in fact all couples!) to accommodate themselves to relational expectations created in the image of social structures which, by definition, seek control and domination—not collaboration and intimacy. Rebecca’s clinical work uses concepts and methods from Systems theory, Relational Life Theory, Somatic Theory and Black feminist critique. She will describe and demonstrate practices which summon the best of ourselves and our clients as they partner to decrease domination and center the practice of relationality.
Rebecca Harvey, PhD, is a Professor of Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT) at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU). She is the co-editor of the 2nd edition of the Handbook of LGBTQ Affirmative Couple and Family Therapy; and co-author of the book “Nurturing Queer Youth: Family Therapy Transformed”. She has published and presented nationally and internationally and has been proudly queering family therapy theory, practice, and training for over two decades. She maintains a private practice in New Haven CT. Rebecca is longtime member, clinical fellow and approved supervisor of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. Her scholarly interests include:
- Affirmative therapy for LGBTQIA+ couples and families
- The effect of power (heteronormativity, white supremacy, classism, etc) and intersectionality on couple dynamics
- Supervision and training of clinicians, especially the development of the “self” of the therapist.
Learning Objectives
Attendees will learn to:
- Define intersectionality and understand how to utilize it in Affirmative Couple Therapy.
- Acknowledges and assesses the unique intersectional experiences of their clients.
- Explore intersectional adaptations and track how those adaptations influence the relational process of a couple.
- Apply theoretical concepts and methods from Relational Life Theory, Somatic theory and Black feminist critique designed to lessen domination and increase intimacy.
Description
Internal Family Systems Therapy sees people as having defensive parts called protectors and vulnerable parts called exiles that get in the way of their Self, the ground of who they are, being available for them to show up as their best in relationships. This model posits that couples’ problems persist when protectors take over and Self is no longer available to be curious, compassionate, creative, calm, clear, courageous, connected and confident. Self, the greatest problem solver, is always there, fully formed and available, but often hidden by hard working, well-intentioned protective parts of people. In IFS couple therapy, the clinician and the partners create a safe space so that people can relate to protective parts with respect, acknowledgement and appreciation. We help people access Self energy so they can heal their own young, hurt exiles driving the protective system, in the presence of their partner. This Self-exile connection, compassionately witnessed by the partner, brings more Self energy into the couple system which then allows couples to find their own unique solutions.
Mona Barbera is a psychologist in private practice in Rhode Island, where she offers Internal Family Systems couples therapy and individual therapy. She is an Assistant Trainer for the Internal Family Systems Institute, a certified advanced Imago Relationship Therapist, and past board member and committee chairperson of the New England Association for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. She is the author of the award-winning IFS relationship book, Bring Yourself to Love: How Couples Can Turn Disconnection into Intimacy.
Learning Objectives
1)Identify protectors and apply IFS approaches of curiosity and acknowledgment to them.
2)Explain why suggestions, coaching, and teaching are not used in IFS couples therapy.
3) Describe why it is important for partners to find exiles, witness their experiences and their sad beliefs, and form experiential relationships with them.
February 7, 2024 with Roger Lake
Description
The focus of this presentation is on the project of interviewing and intervening with couples who present with enough evidence of active addiction that the therapist needs to bring it forward in the initial session. We have been calling addiction a disease (as opposed to a moral disorder) for the last fifty years or so. Addiction has reached pandemic proportions frequently in human history as the inclination to seek altered states is both a feature and a bug for our kind. Sometimes couples present in which one partner has requested therapy for their partner’s addiction and both see that as an issue. In other couples, addiction turns out to be the agenda when couple members are asked “what brings you here?”
We will learn about the context of and culture of addiction treatment. Roger will discuss the importance of couple therapists understanding the developmental course of addiction in the family/couple life cycle. He will share ideas from Stephanie Brown’s developmental model of treating people in recovery which is grounded in attachment theory and helps to engage relational resources and practices in the treatment.
Given the likelihood that emotional dysregulation shows up with these couples, Roger will share ways to manage affect. Leaning into concepts from Mona Fishbane’s work about the intersection of interpersonal neurobiology and couple therapy, Roger will discuss ways neural pathways are disrupted when addiction changes the brain. He will discuss the acute effects of addiction via intoxication and increasingly, over time, the body’s attempts to cope. He will discuss the profound attachment problems addiction inflicts on couples, disorganizing attachment patterns of repair and accountability, which inhibits hope. This is where couple therapists can be most useful. Emphasis will be on the therapist’s role of keeping hope alive by nurturing each partner’s commitment to change.
Roger Lake, MFT was a Naval officer from 1968 though 1973. He then worked in drug treatment programs as a community worker prior to becoming a Marriage and Family therapist in California in 1982. After several years in community and medical settings, he spent most of his career in a group oriented private practice in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco. Having entered the addiction counseling field in the mid-70‘s, he continued to work with individual and family problems in that domain, including the clinical focus on “adult children of alcoholics” that emerged in the 1980’s. Working with this set of issues has led to an ongoing interest in Men and Masculinity and a historical perspective of thinking about gender in psychotherapy. Roger is a past president of the Association of Family Therapists of Northern California, and a clinical member of the American Family Therapy Academy, where he co- leads the Men’s Institute. Roger is a founding member of the Council on Contemporary Families. He regards social justice as an important framework in psychotherapy. His work has been mostly with people struggling with addictions to alcohol and stimulants from the professional class.
Learning Objectives
1)Define three ways addiction impacts couple functioning
2)Describe three strategies to help couples regain connection while supporting recovery.
March 6, 2024, Katherine Waddell, LMFT
Description
Katherine will be teaching about the Developmental Model of Couple Therapy whose basic premise compares adulthood development of relationships to childhood procession through typical developmental stages. She will describe reasons why many couples get stuck in treatment and what to do about it using concepts related to developmental growth and differentiation. The importance of clarifying each member of a couple’s developmental challenges will be discussed. She will define Symbiotic vs. Autonomous Goals; the use of the acronym TEAM; and explain how and when the model suggests doing deeper work with each member of a couple. Participants will learn the use of a particular tool to begin to focus clients on autonomous goals. Katherine will describe ways to create opportunities in session to harness growth that will be lasting including do’s and don’ts when working with clients to refine their autonomous goals. These skills will help therapists identify and develop differentiated, growth-driven goals that will create enduring and lasting change within a system.
Katherine Waddell is co-Founder and Co-Director of the Couples Center of the Pioneer Valley. She is on Teaching Faculty and a Teaching Assistant at the Couples Institute with master couples therapists Dr. Ellyn Bader and Dr. Peter Pearson. She has presented on and taught Couples Therapy and the Developmental Model of Couples Therapy in numerous contexts, live and online, since 2010. Currently she co-teaches monthly with Dr. Bader in her International Level 1 Course, and regularly provides quarterly Special Training Calls, and monthly Q and A calls to the international Developmental Model training community. Katherine has co-created and taught Advanced Skills in Couples Therapy to American and Romanian Conference audiences. She maintains a practice in Western Massachusetts specializing in Intensives, Discernment Counseling, training therapists in her Center, and regularly facilitates ongoing Consultation Groups for advanced practitioners in couple therapy, using the Developmental Model in particular.
Learning Objectives
Attendees will learn to:
1) Define symbiotic vs differentiated/autonomous goals, describing how to use these concepts to support clients increased internal motivation.
2) Describe how to use the “Big Picture Goals of Therapy” intervention to support the process of couple therapy.
April 2, 2024 with Michelle Joy, MFT
Description
Michelle will help participants learn to use of the the Enneagram to support a deeper level of work with couples. The Ennegram is an ancient personality typing system that categorizes personalities into nine types based on their primary motivation. Knowing one’s type is a portal for self-awareness to discover new ways to harness one’s skills while increasing emotional wellness and relational capacities. Michelle’s approach combines methods from the Developmental Model of couple therapy with the Enneagram to help couples transform their relationship in areas they didn’t think was possible. You will learn how each Enneagram type leads the couple to do a “dance” together, causing them to get stuck repeating the same habits over and over.
Different interventions work for different people. Integrating the Enneagram system into couples’ work is a powerful way to discern what interventions to use. When you know someone’s Enneagram type, you can more quickly reveal blind spots and appropriate course of action. The use of the Enneagram can establish rapport more quickly by letting couples know that you understand them. The demonstration will show how to help a couple with two different Enneagram Types, with the predictable differences in needs, perspectives, and desires, to improve communication and conflict resolution. In preparation for this evening, course participants will be encouraged to take a test to learn about their own Enneagram type.
Michelle Joy is a licensed marriage and family therapist, a certified Enneagram teacher and founder of her approach, “The Developmental Enneagram for Couples.” For almost 2 decades, she has been specializing in helping couples transform their relationships by “marrying” The Enneagram with developmental methods – a most potent combination. She is a leading expert on the topic and has been hired by world-renowned relationship experts as well as by Facebook and Google to learn how to use the Enneagram to transform relationships. She has been a chosen speaker at International Enneagram conferences, podcasts, and sought after for her knowledge and expertise on the topic.
Learning Objectives
Attendees will learn to:
1)Identify one way each Enneagram type impedes healthy communication and development in couple relationships
2)Describe one way to help each Enneagram type with healthy communication and development in couple relationships
May 1, 2024 withSarah Sammon, Ph.D, LMFT
Description
This evening will focus on defining the constructs of individual and relational empowerment as well as ideas about individual and relational engagement as they relate to doing couple therapy. Sarah will help participants identify client markers or behaviors that inhibit just relationships. Sarah’ research focuses on a theory of what moment-to-moment specific clinical practices therapists use to elicit the desired behavior change. She will identify ways to intervene to enhance relational empowerment and increase engagement in couple relationships. The material will focus on clinical practice related to gendered power in couple relationships. Sociocultural influences often lead to gender and power inequalities that limit one’s sense of empowerment and diminish an overall relational orientation. After identifying patterns that inhibit relationships, clinicians will learn to emphasize these dynamics and intentionally choose therapeutic interventions that aim to generate equitable relational orientations (from “I” to a “We”) within the couple system.
Sarah K. Samman, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the masters and doctoral Couple and Family Therapy Programs at Alliant International University. She earned her master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Lewis & Clark College and her post-master’s certificate in Medical Family Therapy and doctoral degree in Marital and Family Therapy from Loma Linda University. She has presented at national and international conferences on issues of internationalism and interculturalism, spirituality, and gender and power in couple and family relationships. Dr. Samman utilizes a bio-psycho-socio-spiritual approach to therapy based on a strong interdisciplinary background and a deep commitment to diversity issues and interpersonal and social justice. She is licensed as a Marriage and Family Therapist and is an AAMFT Approved Supervisor.
Learning Objectives
- Explain ways to enhance clients’ capacities to demonstrate individual empowerment and engagement.
- Describe how to relationally empower less powerful partners -commonly women- in a couple system and how to relationally engage powerful partners -commonly men- in a couple system.
- Demonstrate how to intervene in processes that directly and negatively impact a relational orientation in couple relationships.
Target Audience
This course is designed for helping professionals interested in the principles and practices of couple therapy, including, but not limited to, social workers, psychologists, mental health counselors and marriage & family therapists. The program serves the needs of beginning and intermediate clinicians with little to a moderate amount of formal couple therapy training who are or would like to work with couples and families. We also prepare advanced practitioners who take the course to deepen their knowledge, enhancing capacities for supervision, teaching, training, and administrative roles.
Cost
- Registration: The cost for individual registration $775. Early registration available until for individuals is $750.
- September 14, 2023 is the early registration deadline. Payment plans are available.
- CEUs: additional cost of $40 for CEUs for the professions who are eligible and people who would like to access those. CEU infomation below.
- Black Therapists Rock, National Assn. of Black Counselors, NEAFAST Members and anyone else may contact us for an equity rate of $700
- Please note: you must register for the course as a whole. Attendance at individual sessions of the course is not allowed to maintain the integrity of the learning group. Contact us for more information.
Testimonials from Past Participants
“It has been such a pleasure to be a part of the Master Series. The presentations have been outstanding and invigorating. And even on Zoom, the role plays have been helpful in demonstrating theory while also conveying the emotional power of the work. I have also appreciated getting to know the members of the group. Thank you for an excellent year.”
Ellen Safier, LCSW, Adjunct Faculty at Center for Psychoanalytic Studies, Houston, TX
“I want to echo others’ in extending my gratitude and appreciation for such a wonderful class this year! I have to say it was one of the best Zoom classroom experiences I’ve had, and I credit your skillful design—the blending of large and small group experiences as well as an outstanding lineup of guest teachers and courageous role-players.”
Anonymous Participant
“Thank you for creating this invaluable learning space. And to my colleagues and fellow participants—it was lovely to learn with and from you.”
Joanna M. Poole, MA, LMHC, private practice
“Thank you for another great year of this unique and wonderful class. Each class this year has been outstanding. Have also really enjoyed sticking with the same small group for each class. A small change, but it made a big difference.”
Heidi Krueger, LICSW, retired
“It was fun! Great 2021-22 series! Can’t wait to see the topics that the speakers for next series 2022-23 plan on bringing to us.”
Chuck Weinstein, LMHC, CPRP, CPS, private practice
Additional Information
Participants MUST attend 100% of the program to earn the 18 CEUs approved for eligible professions.
- Therapy Training Boston is approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 6707 for Mental Health Counselors. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Therapy Training Boston is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
- This application is certified for 18 Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist Continuing Education hours for re-licensure by the New England Association for Family and Systemic Therapy (NEAFAST) authorization number PC- 041523 on behalf of the Massachusetts Board of Registration of Allied Mental Health & Human Services Professions.
- This activity is approved for 18 Social Work Continuing Education hours for re-licensure by the The National Association of Social Workers Massachusetts Chapter (NASW-MA) authorization number D 91296-3 on behalf of the Board of Registration of Allied Mental Health & Human Services Professions.
- This activity is certified for 18 Licensed Psychologists Continuing Education hours for re-licensure by Amego, Inc. (DBA Amego Prepare) on behalf of the American Psychological Association.
- Read detailed information about CEUs.
No refunds are available for cancellations by participants regardless of the reason or time frame. If participants cancel 30 days or more prior to the event beginning, they may apply the fee to a future program. Workshops may be cancelled by Therapy Training Boston if minimum enrollment requirements are not met or in the case of other unexpected circumstances. If this occurs, a full refund will be provided.
This course will provide important information for clinicians who are at an introductory or intermediate level of knowledge about working with couples. Advanced practitioners are welcome to attend to deepen their knowledge of the subject for practice, supervision, teaching, and administrative roles.
Target Audience: This offering is relevant to all helping professionals including but not limited to social workers, mental health counselors, psychologists, marriage & family therapists.
Commercial support and conflicts of interest: There is no commercial support for this program.