Why has depression been seen as a “woman’s disease”? Depression is not unwomanly, but many feel it as unmanly—setting up what Real calls, “compound depression.” Men, he says, feel ashamed of feeling ashamed, depressed about being depressed,” causing them to hide it, and causing those around them—even medical professionals—to shy away from confronting the condition. Even more important, however, is the fact that many men express depression differently than women. Real will speak of “covert depression” which lies at the core of many of men’s typical “bad behaviors.” like drinking, workaholism, withdrawal, and anger.
Everybody lies. Some lies are loving and harmless. But, others are enormously destructive. Couples’ patterns of deception often begin innocently but end in couples destroying the love they once had. Self deception, conflict avoidance and felony lies all undermine commitment and connection. We’ll use clinical videos and transcripts to identify and disrupt deception. You’ll learn to successfully confront the evasiveness, hypocrisy and avoidance that keep couples developmentally arrested and differentiation failing.
Dr. Barbach will explore dialogue as it pertains to creating intimacy. Her presentation will analyze the language used by partners as a key to understanding the dynamics of the relationship and how deliberate linguistic changes can transform that relationship by deepening emotional bonds and creating healthy intimacy.
Using movie clips, this presentation will illustrate a simple five-step model for effectively intervening with couples. Bring the popcorn and have fun while you learn.
CC13 Workshop 02 - When Society Loses Control: Attachment, Trauma, and a Developmental Process of Couple and Family Addiction and Recovery - Stephanie Brown, PHD
What is the process of “normal” couple and family recovery in the context of cultural loss of control? We will define addiction as a traumatic disorder of attachment for individuals and the family. We will review the Family Recovery Research Project, with an emphasis on the couple, outlining the stages of active addiction and recovery and the key themes and tasks of development that arise, along with the implications for couples therapy at every stage when the culture remains chronically stressed, chaotic and FAST.
Gay men face unique challenges regarding intimacy, communication and personal autonomy. Hiding due to being gay along with being raised male, creates a dynamic of distancing as the norm. The goal of psychotherapy is to accept and verbalize vulnerabilities in a context of safety, encourage revealing oneself for the sake of self-acceptance, and to learn how to receive nurturance from others. This workshop will define the art of how to gain connection while maintaining autonomy. There will also be an emphasis on sexuality and how specific attachment styles effects choices related to safety, security and risky sexual practices.
Volatile couples come to couples therapy with a fearsome mixture of trauma, devastated dreams, and defensive attitudes. If you ask about their goals or how you can help, you quickly get intense cross complaints, and pressure to fix their partner. Simply trying to understand their problems and asking about their goals can be a toxic beginning as their defensiveness and trauma get re-triggered. This innovative approach is the result of 30 years of seeing couples and searching for a better beginning. In this workshop you will understand how to have each person identify their role in the distress, accept accountability for self-change, identify personal growth changes that are a stretch, create the foundation to work as a team and do it all with a spirit of cooperation and positive strokes. Do all this and more in the first session.
The brain is involved with everything we do, especially our relationships. In this fun presentation Dr. Amen will discuss different areas of the brain involved in relationships, what they do, what happens when things go wrong and how to improve them. You are a better marital therapist when you understand the brain.
Jay Haley once said that couples work is the hardest kind of therapy. This presentation will identify the most common screw-ups therapists make in couples therapy, and demonstrate ways to avoid them. There will be some-thing for both beginning and experienced therapists, who tend to make different mistakes.
There are multiple reasons for affairs. We will examine the benefits of affairs and why affairs can actually stabilize a marriage. In particular, we will focus on how couples can turn the crisis into an opportunity. This is a multicultural therapeutic approach for working with extramarital relations.