This course will present concrete tools and methods of hypnosis to help couples end their habitual conflict escalation. Participants will learn the impact of affect dysregulation on relationships, client-friendly tools to enhance intimacy and connection, and how to rehearse and transfer skills from therapy to real life
We have all been taught that our romantic partner should end our misery and make us feel happy and alive. When he or she doesn’t we wonder if they’re the right one. Yet, for most of us, no partner is capable of keeping our heads above the pools of pain and shame we bring to intimate relationships. Only we can drain those pools and become the primary caretakers for the young, needy parts of us that are drowning in those pools. Once this inner trust is achieved, we can love our partners courageously and unconditionally because we don’t need them to always do the heavy lifting of our spirits.
Overtly angry and passive-aggressive partners often present the most difficulty for therapists. They frequently demand intimacy, while being unable to create the conditions for intimacy to occur or be sustained. They require a high level of activity from you to structure treatment, manage hostility in the office and confront hypocrisies that keep their development stalled. Learn to increase your personal strengths to harness the enormous developmental potential that exists in these couples.
This workshop probes the intricacies of love and desire—how they relate and how they conflict.. Participants will learn how emotional intimacy can inhibit sexual desire and why “good intimacy” doesn’t necessarily make for “good sex.” Through case material and video vignettes, we’ll explore how our emotional history: “how we were loved” shapes our erotic blueprints and expresses itself in the physicality of sex: “how we make love”. We will show how to break through erotic impasses and help couples balance the dual needs for security and freedom. This model applies to couples and individuals from all sexual orientations.
Infidelity generally points out flaws in a relationship, and the revelation of an affair often triggers a crisis of trust and connection. We’ll examine the benefits and the costs of truth-telling and transparency, how couples can rebuild trust and intimacy, and how affairs can actually stabilize a marriage and prevent its dissolution. In particular, we will focus on how couples can turn the crisis into an opportunity. Combining didactic material, case studies and video vignettes, we will lay out a nuanced and multicultural therapeutic approach for working with extramarital relations, fantasized or real, disclosed or shrouded in secrecy.
BT10 Workshop 46 - The Initiator-Inquirer Process: Not a Communication Technique - Ellyn Bader, PhD
Couples come to therapy and say “we can’t communicate.” They want your help with communication. Yet effective communication often reveals trauma, accumulated resentment, narcissism or anxiety about intimacy. Resolution requires internal self development that may be resisted by one or both partners. This advanced workshop will use video and clinical transcripts to demonstrate the intricacies of resolving predictable communication breakdowns and supporting development.
BT10 Workshop 14 - The State of Affairs: Rethinking our Clinical Attitudes Towards Infidelity - Esther Perel, MA, LMFT
Infidelity is generally regarded as a symptom of a troubled relationship, and the revelation of an affair triggers a crisis of trust and connection. In this workshop, we'll explore the multiple motives and meanings behind affairs against the complexities of marriage, sex, intimacy, and monogamy. We’ll examine the benefits and costs of truth-telling and transparency, how couples can rebuild trust and intimacy, and why affairs can actually stabilize a marriage and prevent its dissolution. In particular, we will focus on how couples can turn the crisis into an opportunity. Combining didactic material, case studies and video vignettes, we will lay out a nuanced and multicultural therapeutic approach for working with extramarital relations secret or revealed.
BT10 Workshop 28 - The Double Flame: Reconciling Intimacy and Sexuality - Esther Perel, MA, LMFT
This workshop probes the intricacies of love and desire—how they relate and how they conflict. Participants will learn how emotional intimacy can inhibit sexual desire and why “good intimacy” doesn’t necessarily make for “good sex.” Through case material and video vignettes, we’ll explore how our emotional history: “how we were loved” shapes our erotic blueprints and expresses itself in the physicality of sex: “how we make love”. We will show how to break through erotic impasses and help couples balance the dual needs for security and freedom. This model applies to couples and individuals from all sexual orientations.
This workshop will introduce a new cognitive model for brief, solution-focused psychotherapy for couples. This cognitive paradigm is unique in several ways. It points to the fact that no one knows the client better than his/her intimate partner. The client’s partner pushes, pulls, and teases every imperfection of out their partner’s personality. Specifically, intimacy reveals what is incomplete about the client’s emotional development. It also reveals how effectively the client manages the needs he or she brings to the relationship. This is precisely what clients need to study themselves and points to what we as therapists can do to help our clients. With Robert Johansen, Ian Johansen and Todd Gaffnet.