This course is designed for practitioners at an intermediate or advanced skill level, and will offer training and supervision to enhance their treatment of couples. Common issues involved in couples’ patterns of dysfunction often include detachment and/or emotional hyper-reactivity. Cognitive understanding of how dorsal vagal response plays a part in detachment is influenced by the work of Steven Porges (2009) and Deb Dana (2018) and will inform the diagnosis and treatment of couples. Treating emotional hyperactivity will also draw from the work of Porges and Dana to help couples to utilize their social engagement system to reduce excessive surges of sympathetic arousal that both accompany and trigger hyperreactivity in the couple dynamic. This course will augment the existing knowledge and skills of participants with experiential practices designed to broaden their capacities of perception, reception and expression through the lens of seven channels of experience meditations and explicit use of “I-statements” incorporating moment-to-moment tracking. (Mars, 2011, 2017) This course will offer didactic presentations about psychophysiology and affective neuroscience to show how the orbito-frontal, insula, limbic and anterior cingulate brain regions influence behavior in couple relating. (Craig, 2015 and Schore 2016, 2019) Mindful self-compassion practices and exercises (Neff and Germer, 2012) will be incorporated into the training sessions to enhance both intra-relational (self-talk) and inter-relational safety. Maps and schemas derived from Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) as applies to individuals (Fosha, 2021a, 2021b) are integrated into the methods of Transformative Couples Therapy® (TCT). The formulation of a diagnosis or problem definition will be drawn from analyzing communication patterns between couple members. For example, we will note how each couple member’s use of defensive exclusion (Bowlby, 1982) interferes with empathy and collaborative communication (Beebe et al, 2016). Treatment then focuses on helping couple members to expand their repertoires of perception, reception and expression with each other. Emphasizing positive gains is an essential aspect of TCT to both help couple members notice progress and integrate positive changes from session to session. This follows the beneficial guidance of moment-to-moment tracking and skillful use of metaprocessing changes (Iwakabe, & Conceicao, 2016, Fosha, 2021) in order to integrate them into new positive habits in the couple’s patterns. We will apply principles from Frederickson (2013) and others about the beneficial effects of positivity as a lens through which we can learn to perceive clinical interventions while viewing participants’ video-recorded sessions of couple treatment. Over the course of the ten once-monthly group training and supervision sessions, the group members and I will collaboratively evaluate the therapy process and outcomes of treatment of the couples whose treatment we are witnessing. We will collectively offer suggested corrections along the way as a means to assist treatment implementation. As the course supervisor, I will teach integrated cognitive and science-based instruction and clinical skills from my TCT sessions that are drawn from edited and captioned recorded clinical video. During each meeting, members of the group will have opportunities to share their own clinical video. Discussion, role-play demonstrations, experiential exercises, feedback and interactive learning will be part of every four-hour Small Group Supervision session.

Psychologists, MFTs, Licensed Professional Counselors, Psychiatrists, Licensed Social Workers and Pastoral Counselors

Identify three ways to help establish a secure base in treatment.

Describe two ways to regulate emotional reactivity in both couple members.

Detect the healthiest aspects of each couple member.

Utilize two methods for couple members to process emotional experience.

Design healing a portrayal to treat relational trauma.

Define why affirmation of the self is important.

Explain how clients can melt defenses of intellectualization.

Find shared matching values in couple members.

Describe how to process warded-off emotional experience.

Conduct meta-therapeutic processing when couples have reparative experiences.

Define the value of the core emotion of surprise in treatment.

Integrate core affect through slowing down.

Locate two ways to tailor treatment to a couple member’s attachment style.

Select opportunities to help couple members to feel and show more positivity.

Utilize openings to soften defenses.

Define three early signs of dorsal vagal response.

Demonstrate knowledge of two ways to regulate dorsal vagal response.

Specify how the frequency of dorsal vagal response can be reduced in treatment.

Distinguish methods for engaging avoidantly attached patients in treatment.

Detect an example of a tough case in which an unexpected breakthrough occurred.

Explain how a meditative state of mindfulness helps in treatment.

Conduct a role play of meta-therapeutic processing.

Explain the value of increased awareness in couple members.

Identify transformance striving in a session.

8:00 am-8:1 5 am PT : Orientation and opening three-minute Channels of Experience meditation

8:15 am-9:00 am PT: A participant shares video of a session for supervision and supportive consultation focused on creating a secure base in treatment and regulating emotional reactivity

9:00 am-9:50 am PT: A second participant shares video of a session for supervision and supportive consultation focused on creating a secure base in treatment and regulating emotional reactivity

9:50 am-10:00 am PT: Closure, including metaprocessing this Small Group Supervision and Training session.

12

The cost for 12 Continuing Education (CE) credits will be $40. An email from Credits Education will be sent to all participants who complete the course.

Participants must have paid tuition fee, signed in, attended the entire seminar, completed an evaluation, and signed out in order to receive a certificate. Failure to sign in or out will result in forfeiture of credit for the entire course. No exceptions will be made. Partial credit is not available. Certificates available after satisfactory course completion at credits.education

Credits.Education, #1032827, is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists to sponsor continuing education for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and LEPs. Credits.Education maintains responsibility for this program/course and its content.  Course meets the qualifications for 12 hours of continuing education credits for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and LEPs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences.

 

All Other States: Most other states accept CAMFT approved courses for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and LEPs.  Check with your state board.