Impasses in Couple Therapy
Justin Newmark, Ph.D.
- To be able to predict and describe impasses in couple therapy
- To be able to plan and describe interventions to address impasses
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To be able to assess the success or failure of specific interventional techniques and to revise
them when necessary
Working with Therapist’s Self
Gerald Stechler, Ph.D.
- To be able to identify and describe the couple’s impact on the couple therapist
-
To be able to utilize awareness of the couple’s impact to elucidate unconscious interpersonal
processes in the couple -
To be able to utilize awareness of the couple’s impact to design interventions which help the
couple gain greater mutual understanding
Full Length Case History
Ken Reich, Ed.D.
- To be able to utilize transferences as a communication device in couples
-
To be able to learn to analyze the role of traumatic experiences in families and their impact on
the couple system -
To be able to assess affects within each person as well as the couple that can lead to change in
a system
Separation and Divorce
Arthur Klein, Ph.D.
-
To be able to describe partners’ typical reactions to separation and divorce, including the most
common problematic responses -
To be able to describe techniques for containing destructive emotional arousal when working
with separating/divorcing partners -
To be able to facilitate partners’ recognizing and accepting a wide range of emotional reactions
to the failed marriage
Betrayal in Relationships: Infidelity and Couple Therapy
Joe Shay, Ph.D.
- To be able to identify the multiple kinds of affairs and betrayals in relationships
-
To be able to specify the various stages of treatment for couples in which an affair or betrayal
has been an issue -
To be able to predict the various therapeutic challenges of working with couples in which an
affair or betrayal has been an issue and to utilize these predictions in preparing the ongoing
treatment
Parenting Issues in Couple Therapy
Ruth Chad, Ph.D.
-
To be able to integrate a psychodynamic understanding of individual family members with a
systemic perspective on the family and to be able to compare the differences between the two
models -
To be able to articulate and explain the differing experiences of family life and ally
simultaneously with all members of the family -
To be able to describe intergenerational themes in couples’ lives which play out in the
contemporary family narrative and to be able to prepare a treatment approach that incorporates
these narratives
Couple Therapy from a Kleinian Perspective
Sharon Roberts, Ph.D., LICSW
-
To be able to develop an understanding of how our knowledge of paranoid schizoid and
depressive positions helps us to work with relational cycles of mutual attack -
To be able to describe the dynamics of projective identification and Bion’s notion of
container/contained in the couple relationship, thus enabling the couple therapist to establish a
containing function for the couple -
To be able to explain how the couple therapist can use the “here and now transference/
countertransference” in order to develop effective therapeutic interventions
Brief Couple Therapy
Jennifer Stone, Ph.D.
-
To be able to explain how therapeutic focus, therapeutic alliance, developmental framework,
therapist role, use of strong affect, flexibility, and termination are each critically relevant to
productive time-sensitive work with couples -
To be able to describe the use of theoretical concepts originating in many psychotherapeutic
theoretical traditions in brief couple therapy -
To be able to use the roles of time-sensitivity and termination in deepening the work of
treatment with couples
Gay and Lesbian Couple Therapy
Andrew Compaine, M.D. and Luanne Grossman, Psy.D.
-
To be able to identify the intricate and morphing phallic states that often express themselves in
gay couples and to explain how these may represent masculine identifications and desire in
addition to the usually discussed defensive rejections of the feminine -
To be able to explain and compare the multiple and over-determined roles that sexuality takes
in male couples and how this may affect treatment alliance, transference, and
countertransference -
To be able to demonstrate and discuss the underlying effects—at times traumatic—of society’s
prescribed masculine identities and heterosexual norms on male couples, and to assess the
destabilizing influence on couples from the gay sub-culture itself
Concurrent Couple and Individual Treatments
Carolynn Maltas, Ph.D.
-
To be able to list at least two likely complications of treating a couple when there is concurrent
individual therapy of a partner by a different therapist -
To be able to describe an effective strategy for addressing certain predictable conflicts between
therapists treating the same patient -
To be able to explain the idea of a “window of tolerance” of autonomic arousal and utilize this
concept to educate couples about their own dysregulated states