For half a century, close to half of all American marriages crash and burn. Of those couples who stay together, how many do so happily and passionately? Why do so many men and women start off in love and end up in misery? Why is it that the field of couple's therapy has done far too little to alter these grim statistics? In this presentation, Terry Real will introduce a radical new couple's therapy approach that aims to empower the woman, and reconnect the man with a startling and liberating therapeutic truthfulness.
Dr. Fisher will present an fMRI study of intense romantic love, a primary mating drive, and the impact of this brain circuitry on human sexuality, human marital stability and therapy using SSRI antidepressants.
During the past five years, the field of neuroscience has given us an overwhelming amount of information related to couples therapy. It is now up to us as clinicians to integrate this knowledge into our practice. Join the challenge, as we use these exciting new facts to help couples move from the relational log-jam to lasting change.
Couples therapy with challenging partners is a therapy of confrontation. You must be proficient at the nuances of gentle and forceful, but effective confrontation. You must oversee and control the confrontation between your clients, to ensure that it remains productive and positive. Learn to confront the partners, help partners confront each other, and manage yourself when they challenge you.
Cultural and religious differences provide the backdrop against which couples' issues of commitment, gender and child raising, as well as, family connectedness and cultural loyalty are played out. Mixed couples often face difficult decisions at key junctures in the life cycle. In this workshop, participants will learn to identify conflicts around culture and religion, tease out the cultural contexts of common couples' dilemmas, and help clients make informed choices about the role that group continuity, family tradition and cultural values will play in their lives.
Hypnosis is an experiential method of "gift wrapping" ideas. With or without formal trance, hypnotic methods can be used in the assessment and intervention process of couples therapy.
Infidelity is not necessarily about sex, but about secrets and the violation of trust. In this workshop, Dr. Spring will map out the trauma of an affair (or other intimate wounds) and help partners think through whether and how to reconcile.