The Solution Focused Approach has been around since the 1970s and in that time it has grown in prominence and popularity amongst professionals in many fields. One area where it has been gaining steam in recent years has been in working with couples. This is an approach about using questions to help the couple move their relationship from the problem towards a future that is more desirable to both partners.
One out of eleven couples has one partner with ADHD which can impact not only the individual, but also makes certain relationship dynamics more likely—and makes these couples more likely to show up in your office. Unfortunately, if the one partner’s ADHD isn’t addressed directly, the therapist will get stuck in the same traps as the partners do. We will begin with a more useful conceptualization of how ADHD impacts an individual’s abilities to meet daily demands. We will then discuss how this sets up the dynamics that commonly develop in these couples, so that you can help these clients break free of the disempowering tug of war and create a more balanced and satisfying relationship. This will include how ADHD impacts a couple’s sex life and how to make yet another area of discontent into a shared activity that adds energy to the relationship. This presentation will be full of practical strategies you can use with your next client.
Working with sexuality and the erotic behavior many people engage in today can challenge a therapist’s deeply held beliefs about sex and relationships. It can be difficult just to keep up with the impact of technology on sexual behavior, especially with the advent of sex robots, teledildonics, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality. Intensive and fun, this workshop includes videos, expert panels, and small-group discussion to help therapists face their own preconceived notions and countertransference around sex and intimacy.
During this time of extreme polarization in the country, political stress has invaded couple relationships. Loyalties to different political tribes create tensions, as do different ways of coping with this stressful environment. This is new territory for couples therapists, and of course we are dealing with our own distress about what’s going on the country. The presenter will offer clinical strategies for helping couples in turbulent times, along with examples of how he has applied couples therapy strategies to create community interventions to reduce polarization, via the nonprofit Braver Angels.
Couple therapists must be able to organize each session in such a way that allows for measuring progress in their treatment plan. One such way is to think of placing the couple and therapist in discreet “containers” or exercises that stress the couple. These exercises, tasks, or games allow the therapist to test and retest hypotheses, test a particular capacity, or otherwise allow the therapist to view couple performance in real time. These containers include a task, timing, and possible roles casted by the therapist and may include a role the therapist must also play. An example might be a psychodrama whereby partners must replay a recent event – step by step – as the therapist, as investigator, gets the facts. Or another container might involve a deal breaker issue whereby partners are required to persuade each other out of a deal breaker while the therapist plays the role of mediating only the manner in which partners argue their points.
Motivational factors may be central in the life of a couple. The panel will describe conflicts due to motivational factors and provide therapeutic options.
In this golden age for models of couples therapy, therapists may wonder if they should be practicing the “one best model.” The research is clear that couples therapy models that have been tested are about equally effective, and that there are a number of key ingredients in any effective way to practice couples therapy. The presenter will describe these key ingredients that cut across models and some skills necessary to practice any model. He will argue that since this therapy is about improving relationships, the relationships we establish with our couple clients—balanced, caring, and sometimes challenging—are the heart of what we have to do well.
In psychotherapy, negative emotions are essential parts of a client's stuck places. This workshop focus on how to identify, welcome, and transform such difficult emotions, such that they become integral elements of a solution.
In this workshop I will show how to use a process-based therapy approach to guide intervention, based on a new form of process-based functional analysis. Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and an extended form of its psychological flexibility model I will show how idiographic analysis can be used to fit treatment kernels to client needs, rather than using protocols that target syndromes.