CC11 Topical Panel 01 - Infidelity: What is the Essence of the Crisis and How Do Couples Move Forward? - Ellyn Bader, PhD, Marty Klein, PhD, Esther Perel, MA, LMFT, Jette Simon
Infidelity generally points out flaws in a relationship, and the revelation of an affair often triggers a crisis of trust and connection. We’ll examine the benefits and the costs of truth-telling and transparency, how couples can rebuild trust and intimacy, and how affairs can actually stabilize a marriage and prevent its dissolution. In particular, we will focus on how couples can turn the crisis into an opportunity. Combining didactic material, case studies and video vignettes, we will lay out a nuanced and multicultural therapeutic approach for working with extramarital relations, fantasized or real, disclosed or shrouded in secrecy.
CC12 Topical Panel 01 - Infidelity: What is the Essence of the Crisis for the Couple? What are the Challenges for the Therapist? - Ellyn Bader, PhD, Helen Fisher, PhD, John Gottman, PhD, and Esther Perel, MA, LMFT
Price:
$29.00Base Price - $59.00 Sale is $29.00price reduced from Base Price - $59.00
Sexual infidelity often triggers a crisis that threatens the entire foundation of trust and connection in a couple. In this workshop, we’ll discuss the complexities of marriage, sex, intimacy, and monogamy in couples from a multicultural, nonjudgmental perspective. We’ll explore the motivations behind affairs and their possible meanings in different relationships, both heterosexual and gay. We’ll examine the benefits and costs of truth-telling and transparency, how couples can rebuild trust and intimacy, and why affairs can actually stabilize a marriage. With an eye on the existential, clinical and ethical aspects involved, we will focus on how our own assumptions, values, and personal experiences can influence our therapeutic work and elude the needs of the couple.
Couples therapy typically pathologizes porn use while legitimizing the grievances of the user’s partner. While this approach may seem logical, it rarely increases sexual/relationship satisfaction. How do we hold both partners while they struggle to define their behavior, contract, and emotions? This talk examines a different approach to intrapsychic conflict and power struggles over porn use. We’ll explore underlying rela-tional issues, including: Is conflict about pornography a way to avoid confronting defi-cits in the sexual (or non-sexual) relationship? Are one or both partners acting out body image issues? Is porn use infidelity?
Price:
$29.00Base Price - $59.00 Sale is $29.00price reduced from Base Price - $59.00
Through case examples, Esther Perel will show how to effectively engage such issues as intimacy, sexuality and infidelity by creating separate spaces where each partner can explore his/her feelings and experiences along with larger relationship dynamics. We will show how to navigate privacy and secrecy, honesty and transparency, stage interventions around sexual impasses, and structure a safe and flexible therapeutic environment to work effectively with infidelity.
Ellyn will present a video of a first session with a couple about to separate after a third discovered infidelity. The session, conducted by Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson focuses on illuminating how one partner’s unresolved family of origin issues create pain for both partners, contribute to infidelity and inhibit the development of the relationship. After the video presentation, Janis Spring will comment. We all learn more when we see therapeutic work discussed from multiple perspectives.