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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Explore this classic dynamic of couples therapy—an angry woman and a withdrawn man—that’s often confusing for therapists, with couples therapist Jette Simon.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! 
| The Bridge - Page 2 |
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Saturday morning came, and with it a sense of anticipation and purpose. I went down to the college where the families were being cared for. When I got there, I was surprised—and a bit disappointed—at how many volunteers were there already. We received little direction, except for the information that the families had been together Thursday and Friday, offering whatever support they could to each other. We were told to greet them when they came in, sit down with them if they so requested, and see how they were doing. A few exhausted, numb-looking families trickled in that morning, but they gave us clear signals to back off. They avoided eye contact, kept their heads down, and only asked for directions to the new meeting room, to join the other families. For most of the morning, the mental health volunteers outnumbered the family members. At 3 o'clock, the head police officer running the bridge-response operation came in and made an announcement to the families. "Okay, here's the deal," he began. "In ten minutes, we're boarding two buses, and we're taking you to the site of the bridge." There was a little gasp and a palpable sense of relief in the room. Tears came to many eyes. The families had been asking since the morning after the collapse to go to the site, but too many logistical problems had intervened: the recovery operation that was still under way; the teeming press; the closure of the smaller bridge running parallel to the fallen bridge, leaving no way to get close without virtually going down into the mess in the river. "Right now, the place is being cleared. There's no press there. We're going to open the 10th Avenue Bridge for you folks, and nobody else will be allowed on it." "We probably are only going to have ten minutes at the bridge before the press figures it out. Nobody outside of this room knows that we're going to be there. The bus drivers sitting in the buses out front have no idea where they're going to be driving us. We want this to be as private as possible. This is for you." Then he said, "Let's go." Ten minutes later, the buses pulled up to the center of the small bridge, overlooking the fallen bridge. The family members made their way to the edge of the bridge. They looked down onto the wreckage below. For most of them, it must have been the most heart-wrenching experience of their lives. There was the shapeless debris, the burned-out semi, the empty school bus, the abandoned cars, the crushed cars, the half-submerged cars, and tons and tons of broken concrete and twisted metal. And somewhere, down there in the middle of all that, were the people they loved. I walked along, trying to look as if I knew what I was doing and that it was something helpful. There were people holding hands and softly crying, people praying with the chaplains, people talking quietly. All were handling what was happening as well as they could. I didn't see any need to "help" anybody. In fact, I realized that the best help I could give was by staying out of the way. So I finally stopped trying to figure out what to do and let what I was seeing and feeling register inside me. Tears came to my eyes, and I just started to pray. I prayed for the dead, for the survivors, for the family members. And in the midst of that prayer, something inside of me opened and relaxed. For the first time since I'd learned of the disaster, I felt at peace. Patrick Dougherty, M.A., has been in private practice for more than 30 years. For the last 15 years, he's been studying Eastern practices and integrating them into his work with clients. He's been teaching Qigong for more than 10 years, and is the author of Qigong in Psychotherapy: You Can Do So Much By Doing So Little. Contact: pdougherty@usinternet.com. Letters to the Editor about this article may be e-mailed to letters@psychnetworker.org. The following Networker U Courses on this subject or by this author are available at www.psychotherapynetworker.org: Articles by Author "Breathing Lessons," May/June 2006 Audio Home Study A-213 The New Neuroscience of Empathy: Clinical Implications Change CE Credits: 4 Instructor: Babette Rothschild A-312 The Callenge of Engagement: A Moment-to-Moment Approach to Experiential Therapy CE Credits: 6 Instructor: Diane Fosha A-307 Psychotherapy from the Inside Out: The Brain of the Mindful Therapist CE Credits: 12 Instructor: Daniel Siegel Online Courses OL-127 The Mindful Therapist CE Credits: 3 Interviewees: Mary Wylie, Christopher Germer, Lorne Ladner, Jay LeBow, Michael Ventura |
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