All couples and couples therapies struggle with issues of mixed loyalties. At any given moment, do I choose my own fulfillment as an individual or do I yield to the needs of the relationship? Is it a zero-sum game in which one partner wins and one loses – and if not, how else can we think about it? This keynote address introduces a model integrating both attachment and differentiation in couples therapy through the idea of enlightened self-interest – taking care of yourself by taking care of the relationship – as well as a model of healthy sacrifice, which is missing in our contemporary, Narcissistic culture.
Price:
$29.00Base Price - $59.00 Sale is $29.00price reduced from Base Price - $59.00
Research confirms our clinical experience. We can teach partners all manner of skills but in moments of triggering, emotional flooding, skills go out the window. Why? Because we are no longer in our adult selves. Our thinking brain has shut down and the limbic system has taken over. An inner child part has seized the wheel. This workshop introduces a model of working with the traumatized parts of the partners we treat by empowering individuals to come into conscious relationship with those parts—loving, understanding, and ultimately containing them.
Price:
$29.00Base Price - $59.00 Sale is $29.00price reduced from Base Price - $59.00
Attachment theory posits, along with those healthy ones, the ‘securely attached,” two important types of troubled groups – those with “anxious,” and “avoidant,” attachment styles. Said in plain English, this amounts to pursuers and distancers. But the pursuer/distancer dynamic has been a central concern to couples and family therapy since it’s inception in the nineteen-fifties. This workshop will look at some of the many ways this dynamic has been thought of and treated – from recursive feedback loops, to “love addiction/love avoidance,” to attachment styles and beyond.