A414 Customizing Couples Therapy: A New Treatment Model

Couples often struggle with too many painful issues and too little time. Learn a new model for organizing couples therapy that helps clients design their own treatment plan to focus on making changes in the here and now, healing wounds from the past, or visiting the dynamics of their family of origin. This model helps couples invest in their own treatment, learn how to collaborate respectfully, and tolerate living with unresolved issues while working on one aspect of their relationship at a time. You'll leave this course knowing an approach that helps couples deal quickly and effectively with a range of typical issues, including communication, conflict, sexuality, parenting, infidelity, and family of origin difficulties.

Meet The Instructor

David Treadway, Ph.D., the director of the Treadway Training Institute, has been giving workshops and trainings for 30 years. He's the author of Intimacy, Change, and Other Therapeutic Mysteries: Stories of Clinicians and Clients and Dead Reckoning: A Therapist Confronts His Own Grief. He's appeared on Good Morning America and 20/20, and has hosted his own public radio program on family communications.

Course Contents

Session one: Description of the common pitfalls of most approaches to couples therapy • Introduction to the client-centered treatment-planning method • Description of the four main approaches clients are offered • Problem-solving/skill-building • Amends and forgiveness • Family of origin • Conjoint, individually-centered couples therapy

Session two: Complete description of the problem-solving/skill-building approach • Case examples • Discussion

Session three: Complete description of the amends and forgiveness approach to dealing with the marital history • Complete description of family-of-origin approach • Case examples • Discussion

Session four: Complete description of the conjoint, individually-centered couples method • Integrating the four approaches • Adapting one's response to unusual situations • Self-compassion • Compassion for others • What forgiveness is and isn't • Research support for the benefits of forgiveness • Forgiveness letters • Rituals of letting go and moving on • The complexity of compassion: The inclusion of hate and forgiving; of forgiving and not forgiving; of forgetting and remembering; of letting go and holding on • Using trauma as a gift for developing compassion and skills to deal with others who are suffering

Learning Objectives

1. Describe techniques that help couples contract for a customized approach to therapy.

2. Present methods that help couples assess their treatment priorities without blame.

3. Outline strategies to address resistance and motivate couples to do therapeutic homework.

4. Identify 3 specific therapeutic strategies and protocols applicable to 3 typical couples' issues.