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NP0038: Who’s Afraid of Couples Therapy?
Welcome to our “Who’s Afraid of Couples Therapy?” This exciting series, back by popular demand, is based on our November/December 2011 issue on this topic and will explore the challenges of couples work.
What are the most effective strategies in working with couples? How can therapists structure therapy—particularly in the early sessions—so that couples leave with a sense of hope, rather than frustration? Can working with individuals who have serious issues in their relationships actually be detrimental to them? Find out the answers to these questions and much more. In this first session with expert couples therapists Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson, the creators of the Developmental Model of Couples Therapy, you’ll find out why clinicians often avoid working with couples and how you can better prepare yourself for couples therapy work.
How can therapists most effectively work with emotion in the consulting room—particularly when it comes to couples therapy? Learn with internationally known couples therapist Hedy Schleifer how to help create a nourishing connection between partners, define a role as therapist-as-guide, and much more. Schleifer, who’s pioneered the training of Imago Relationship therapists internationally, will go into how to use this theory in practice and how to best work with emotions.
What happens when partners in couples therapy have two different agendas in mind? Hear from expert William Doherty on this little spoken about topic. Learn how Discernment Counseling, an approach that helps couples clarify their feelings about the next step in their relationship, can help both clients and therapists.
Is it possible to rebuild trust and intimacy in a couple’s relationship after a partner has had an affair? How can therapists help? Hear from Esther Perel, author of the international bestseller Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence, on how to help couples after an infidelity and the role that cultural perspectives have in this emotional situation.
Explore this classic dynamic of couples therapy—an angry woman and a withdrawn man—that’s often confusing for therapists, with couples therapist Jette Simon. Learn more about what’s behind the feelings of anger and the behavior of withdrawing, and how clinicians can more effectively work with shame and fear of disconnection.
Hear an unconventional perspective on couples therapy from David Schnarch, who believes that the best way to help couples is to challenge partners to change their individual behaviors and attitudes. Schnarch’s direct, upfront approach to helping clients will illustrate a different viewpoint on effective couples therapy.
Join Marty Klein, a marriage and family therapist and certified sex therapist, us for a candid discussion about the assumptions that both clients and therapists often share that can get in the way of improving couples’ sexual relationships.
Discover with Kathryn Rheem how to respond effectively when clients express strong feelings in session. Based on Emotionally Focused Therapy, you’ll explore attunement and how to use your own emotions to help clients move beyond attachment injuries.
After the session, please let us know what you think. If you ever have any technical questions or issues, please feel free to email support@psychotherapynetworker.org.
Whole Psychiatry: Alternatives to Conventional Psychopharmacology with Robert Hedaya
Meds: Myths and Realities: NP0035 – Session 4
Is psychopharmacology is a 'go-to' in your practice? Join Robert Hedaya as he discusses how to treat the bodily systems that underlay many mental health issues while avoiding medication. After the session, please let us know what you think. If you ever have any technical questions or issues, please feel free to email support@psychotherapynetworker.org.Tough Customers: Is It Them or Us?
By Rich Simon As therapists, many of us practice in two different worlds. In the first, we see polite, well-behaved, articulate clients with solid values. They engage fully in therapy, talk cogently about their problems, listen attentively to our responses, make reasonably good-faith efforts to follow our suggestions, and sooner or later get better. No wonder we genuinely like these people! Does This Kid Need Medication? with Ron Taffel
Meds: Myths and Realities: NP0035 – Session 3
Do you feel like you could be a more effective therapist with your younger clients? Do you find it hard to determine when interventions--psychological and pharmacological--might be needed? Join Ron Taffel and learn to identify key diagnostic signs that indicate medications could be helpful when dealing with depression, anxiety, AD/HD, and affective disorders. After the session, please let us know what you think. If you ever have any technical questions or issues, please feel free to email support@psychotherapynetworker.org.
 NP0008 The Great Attachment DebateThis blog focuses on discussion regarding the course NP0008 The Great Attachment Debate. NP0008, Attachment, Session 1, Alan SroufeIs Attachment Theory important to clinical practice today? Over the next few weeks, the Great Attachment Debate will present a variety of viewpoints from leading experts on the scientific foundations of Attachment Theory to answer this relevant question about its implications. In this first session, you’ll learn the fundamentals of Attachment Theory—John Bowlby’s influence, the connection between attachment style and psychopathology, and why Attachment Theory is important to clinical practice—with leading researcher Alan Sroufe. After each session, please take a few minutes to engage in the Comment Board, an important part of our learning experience and to create a community of learning between participants. Please feel free to comment about what you’ve learned in the session, to ask any questions you may have of the presenter or your peers, or to share any relevant experiences. We invite you to include your name and hometown along with your comment. If you ever have any technical questions, contact support@psychotherapynetworker.org. Comments  |
© 2013 Psychotherapy Networker
Thank you
I greatly enjoyed the first session. You mentioned that psychology texts recognize the importance of both genes and the environment, but often neglect the role of past development and/or attachment. Our cultural blind spot around the concept of attachment astounds me on a daily basis. Obviously, the sweeping influence of behaviourism during the last half of the 20th century had a huge impact on this. But do you have any other thoughts? Why are we so uncomfortable with this topic and why do we so often avoid talking about it?
Wendy Belter
Certainly, there are some people who are uncomfortable with aspects of attachment theory because it provokes examination of the parenting we received or that we provide to our children. But I think part of the problem also is that attachment security is a nuanced and complex concept. It is easier to say that a gene causes something or X proportion is due to genes and Y is due to environment and Z is due to the interaction. But attachment security plays its role in a more complex way across time. Development is complicated and textbooks aim to be simple.
please include the art work. Psychologists who utilize art therapy will be interested. Thank you
I just don't have the kind of permission I need to post these drawings. But if you email me I will work something out with you (srouf001@umn.edu)
Alan
Could you also comment on twin infant development and relationship development. Does unique relationship of twins impact secure attachment development?
There is not an answer to this question that is always correct. With babies in the first months of life crying is not “intentional”; that is babies are not crying with a specific goal in mind. When you are cold, you shiver; when babies are overly aroused (for whatever reason), they cry. Thus, you cannot spoil a young baby. This is likely why Ainsworth found that when parents promptly responded to infant cries these babies cried LESS by the end of the first year (and were more likely to be securely attached). They did not learn to be crybabies. Rather, they learned over time that parents would respond to their signals. As their signaling capacities expanded (for example, being able to reach up their arms when they wanted to be picked up), they no longer were reliant on the more primitive signal. So, in general, in the first year of life it is best to treat crying as a signal (even before the infant knows that it is) and respond to it. Letting young infants cry a lot without response is related to anxious attachment.
Is it then never OK to let a child cry? Consider the following situation: Your 18-month-old, who has been sleeping through the night with no problems, becomes ill. For a period the baby is awakening (or being awakened) for medical treatment during the night. The illness fades, but now the child has a habit of waking and crying at that same time. Reassurance has not worked. Likely if you let this child cry a couple of nights, the problem will disappear.
On your second question I have little information.
The comment about other attachments offering opportunities to moderate the effects of insecure attachment supported what I ask my clients. I work with adults with trauma histories and this often takes place at the hands of caregivers. I always search for other attachment experiences they have had e.g. with at teacher, coach, friend, neighbor, other relative. I ask them to identify relationships where they felt they mattered to that person.
One example stands out. A client from long ago identified her grandmother and had a warm childhood memory of hitchhiking with her when the grandmother was drunk. What was important to my client was that this relative had somehow conveyed to her that she mattered and was worthy and she did this in spite the obvious problems that the grandmother had in her life.
I am sure that many therapists look for these attachments. I am glad the research supports this practice.
Thanks for the interesting talk.
I am interested in what is known about the affect of multiple care givers particularly early in life . For example a situation when the mother as primary caregiver goes back to work and there is a live in nanny or au pair providing regular care to the infant or a grandmother who lives in or nearby.
This interest was touched on by Kevin Johnson above.
Thanks again.
I hope we can hear more about how to move from an anxious to more secure attachment ... and what a relationship between 2 anxious people would look like (pros and cons and how to grow together into secure).
Alan
We're sorry to hear about your technical issues. Please email support@psychotherapynetworker.org and they'll help gain access so you can make sure to see the rest of the session!
There is a chapter on this topic in my book, "The Development of the Person"
Alan
Great presentation! As a Psychologist from Argentina I notice how our clinical background is by far more influenced by the Attachment Theories. Why Donald Winnicott and his important contributions about this topics wasn't even mentioned? Thank You! Ana Mirta Luchtan.