Male couples face multiple challenges. Living with a status that is unrecognized or marginalized, and where societal homophobia is consciously and unconsciously internalized, serves to erode these couples’ strengths and ability to thrive.
This workshop will explore how male couples maintain successful long-term relationships while choosing the model (heteronormative, open, monogamous, polyamory, and betrayal) that is right for them. Additionally it will address how gay development impacts the wellbeing of male couples.
Male couples face multiple challenges. Living with a status that is unrecognized or marginalized, and where societal homophobia is consciously and unconsciously internalized, serves to erode these couples’ strengths and ability to thrive.
This workshop will explore how male couples maintain successful long-term relationships while choosing the model (heteronormative, open, monogamous, polyamory, and betrayal) that is right for them. Additionally it will address how gay development impacts the wellbeing of male couples.
Relational Life Therapy, (RLT) specializes in couples on the brink no one else has been able to help. We produce deep, lasting change quickly by helping our clients step into a new world. We offer a map for a new way to live and a practical toolbox to realize it. Our clients move beyond the individualistic patriarchal mores we’ve all grown up with to discover the ecological wisdom of relationship, interconnectedness. This is not pie in the sky idealism but rather a practical “relational technology” that can effectively equip our clients to create and sustain the lifelong lover relationships we now long for.
Couples first learn to think relationally – which is itself transformative. For example, the relational answer to the question: “Who’s right and who’s wrong?” Is: ‘Who cares?” What matters is: “How do we face the issue at hand in a way that works for both of us?”
Relational Life Therapy, (RLT) specializes in couples on the brink no one else has been able to help. We produce deep, lasting change quickly by helping our clients step into a new world. We offer a map for a new way to live and a practical toolbox to realize it. Our clients move beyond the individualistic patriarchal mores we’ve all grown up with to discover the ecological wisdom of relationship, interconnectedness. This is not pie in the sky idealism but rather a practical “relational technology” that can effectively equip our clients to create and sustain the lifelong lover relationships we now long for.
Couples first learn to think relationally – which is itself transformative. For example, the relational answer to the question: “Who’s right and who’s wrong?” Is: ‘Who cares?” What matters is: “How do we face the issue at hand in a way that works for both of us?”
Dr. Giammattei will present the underlying framework that therapists who work with transgender or gender-expansive (TGE) couples need to understand to provide gender-affirming treatment. He will share ways to explore your own hetero/cis-normative beliefs around coupling and how these influence the models you choose, the questions you ask, and the interventions you use. While TGE couples experience many of the same issues as other couples, we will explore the minority stress and unique stressors that impact these issues in profound ways. Dr. Giammattei will use experiential exercises and clinical vignettes to discover and utilize the basics of the gender-affirming approach to couple therapy.
Regardless of the model of couple therapy used, being a gender-affirming couples therapist requires both an understanding of your own gender narratives, the hetero/cisnormativity in your models, as well as the key issues that may impact couples where one or more partners is TGE.
Dr. Giammattei will present the underlying framework that therapists who work with transgender or gender-expansive (TGE) couples need to understand to provide gender-affirming treatment. He will share ways to explore your own hetero/cis-normative beliefs around coupling and how these influence the models you choose, the questions you ask, and the interventions you use. While TGE couples experience many of the same issues as other couples, we will explore the minority stress and unique stressors that impact these issues in profound ways. Dr. Giammattei will use experiential exercises and clinical vignettes to discover and utilize the basics of the gender-affirming approach to couple therapy.
Regardless of the model of couple therapy used, being a gender-affirming couples therapist requires both an understanding of your own gender narratives, the hetero/cisnormativity in your models, as well as the key issues that may impact couples where one or more partners is TGE.
Experiential techniques can reach the heart of the matter sooner as it focus more on process and less on content but couples sometimes can resist engaging in it preferring to stay on the storytelling of the last argument. This workshop will present ways to circumvent the “blame game” using experiential techniques with a “twist” that will make sessions come to life, bringing more fun, and emotional impact to the sessions, and making it memorable.
Experiential techniques can reach the heart of the matter sooner as it focus more on process and less on content but couples sometimes can resist engaging in it preferring to stay on the storytelling of the last argument. This workshop will present ways to circumvent the “blame game” using experiential techniques with a “twist” that will make sessions come to life, bringing more fun, and emotional impact to the sessions, and making it memorable.
Couple therapists often expend too much energy by failing to take up acting out in couple therapy. Therapists are working too hard because they fail to notice acting out by one or both partners and deal with it appropriately. Acting out should not be rewarded with doing therapy. Rather, acting out is a sign that the therapist does not have a therapeutic alliance with the couple and must use specific tools necessary to address it as soon as it arises. A therapeutic alliance means that the couple and therapist remain fully collaborative, cooperative, and on task. The task of couple therapy is to focus on the relationship, not on the therapist or partner on partner. The couple therapist must use supportive confrontation of the couple system itself (avoiding partners directly) in order to gain a therapeutic alliance. In this workshop, attendees will learn how to spot signs of acting out and practice — through demonstrations — various interventions.
Couple therapists often expend too much energy by failing to take up acting out in couple therapy. Therapists are working too hard because they fail to notice acting out by one or both partners and deal with it appropriately. Acting out should not be rewarded with doing therapy. Rather, acting out is a sign that the therapist does not have a therapeutic alliance with the couple and must use specific tools necessary to address it as soon as it arises. A therapeutic alliance means that the couple and therapist remain fully collaborative, cooperative, and on task. The task of couple therapy is to focus on the relationship, not on the therapist or partner on partner. The couple therapist must use supportive confrontation of the couple system itself (avoiding partners directly) in order to gain a therapeutic alliance. In this workshop, attendees will learn how to spot signs of acting out and practice — through demonstrations — various interventions.