Full Course Description
Overview of Couple Therapy: Couple Therapy and the Modern Relationship Landscape
Program Information
Objectives
- Examine the history of marriage and intimate partnerships in relation to the history of couple therapy.
- Explain the significance of Relational Self-Awareness in the context of modern relationships and couples therapy, highlighting its necessity for effective therapeutic outcomes.
- Analyze common factors, integration, and pluralism in couple therapy, providing participants with a framework for applying diverse therapeutic approaches in their practice.
Outline
- Introductions: to me and to our course
- The power of couple therapy
- State of the field of couple therapy
- The modern landscape of love… and why Relational Self-Awareness is mandatory not optional
- Our integrative approach to couple therapy
- Common factors, integration, and pluralism in couple therapy
Target Audience
- Psychologists
- Physicians
- Addiction Counselors
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Nurses
- Psychotherapists
- Other Behavioral Health Professionals
Copyright :
12/13/2024
From Stuckness to Flow: Operationalizing Health and Dysfunction in Couples
Program Information
Objectives
- Examine the “anatomy of an intimate relationship” including the pathways toward health and the pathways toward dysfunction/distress.
- Identify how destructive patterns prevent thriving intimate relationships.
- Identify and describe the touchstones of a thriving intimate relationship, equipping participants with criteria for assessing relationship health.
Outline
- Definitions and operationalizations of love and intimacy
- Touchstones of a thriving intimate relationship
- The anatomy of relational distress
- Typologies of couples
- Typologies of conflict
Target Audience
- Psychologists
- Physicians
- Addiction Counselors
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Nurses
- Psychotherapists
- Other Behavioral Health Professionals
Copyright :
12/13/2024
Best Practices: Ethics in Couple Therapy and IPV
Develop the tools to navigate high-stakes situations with clarity and confidence. You’ll learn how to apply cultural humility, set and maintain boundaries, and recognize when couple therapy is appropriate—and when it’s not.
Program Information
Objectives
- Develop a greater understanding of how intimacy is developed, maintained, and restored in intimate relationships.
- Examine the importance of cultural humility in couple therapy, and how it influences ethical decision-making and therapeutic outcomes.
- Develop comprehensive assessment and treatment strategies for addressing intimate partner violence (IPV) within the context of couple therapy, while adhering to ethical guidelines and protocols.
Outline
- Cultural humility
- Boundaries in couple therapy
- Indications and contraindications for couple therapy
- Coordination of care
- Protocol for solving ethical problems
- Scope of IPV
- Assessment of IPV
- Treatment of IPV
Target Audience
- Psychologists
- Physicians
- Addiction Counselors
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Nurses
- Psychotherapists
- Other Behavioral Health Professionals
Copyright :
12/13/2024
Creating the Therapeutic Map: Conceptualization and Treatment Planning
Develop the skills to translate complex dynamics into a focused, effective treatment plan that creates real movement in therapy.
Program Information
Objectives
- Deepen understanding of ethical practice guidelines for couple therapy including boundaries, indications (and contraindications) of couple therapy, information sharing, and collaboration of care
- Formulate effective treatment plans that incorporate techniques for understanding and disrupting problem sequences within couples' interactions, promoting healthier relational patterns.
- Implement the Vulnerability Cycle framework to map and address couples' vulnerability patterns and improve relational functioning.
Outline
- Case conceptualization through the lens of IST
- Treatment planning
- Understanding the problem sequence
- Disrupting the problem sequence
- Mapping a Vulnerability Cycle (Scheinkman & Fishbane, 2004)
Target Audience
- Psychologists
- Physicians
- Addiction Counselors
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Nurses
- Psychotherapists
- Other Behavioral Health Professionals
Copyright :
12/13/2024
Beginning with a Couple: Assessment and Alliance
This training offers an in-depth exploration of foundational components in conducting effective couple therapy. Beginning with an overview of how to assess a couple as a dynamic relational system, participants will learn to gather clinically relevant information that informs treatment planning and intervention. The course will address common self-of-the-therapist (SOTT) issues that can emerge in early sessions, helping clinicians build awareness of their own reactions and biases that may impact the therapeutic process. This training covers history taking, the strategic use of homework in couple therapy, helping clinicians assign and process tasks that support treatment goals, and more.
Program Information
Objectives
- Determine how to manage alliances in couple therapy.
- Utilize relational terms to conceptualize a couple’s difficulties.
- Identify self-of-the-therapist (SOTT) issues that may arise during the early stages of couple therapy.
Outline
- Overview of assessment of a couple system
- Self-of-the-therapist (SOTT) Issues in early sessions of couple therapy 3
- Initial contact with couple
- History of presenting concern(s) for the couple
- History of each partner
- History of the relationship
- Therapeutic alliance in couple therapy
- The role of homework in couple therapy
Target Audience
- Psychologists
- Physicians
- Addiction Counselors
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Nurses
- Psychotherapists
- Other Behavioral Health Professionals
Copyright :
12/13/2024
Bridging Difference: Culture and Power in Couple Therapy
This course explores the impact of culture, power, privilege, and intersectionality in couple therapy. Participants will examine diverse relationship structures, including consensual nonmonogamy, and learn to challenge mononormative assumptions in clinical work. Emphasis is placed on developing cultural self-awareness, building therapeutic alliances across differences, and effectively assessing and treating intercultural couples. Practical strategies will be offered to support success and resilience in culturally diverse relationships.
Program Information
Objectives
- Explore the impact of culture, power, privilege, and intersectionality in couple therapy.
- Examine diverse relationship structures, including consensual nonmonogamy, and challenge mononormative assumptions in clinical work.
- Develop cultural self-awareness, build therapeutic alliances across differences, and effectively assess and treat intercultural couples.
Outline
- Culture, power, privilege, marginalization, and intersectionality
- Consensual nonmonogamy and mononormativty
- Relationship styles conversations and opening up
- Cultural Self-Awareness and multicultural competency
- Culture and couple therapy
- Alliance building in across culture in couple therapy
- Assessing and treating intercultural couples
- Success strategies for intercultural couples
Target Audience
- Psychologists
- Physicians
- Addiction Counselors
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Nurses
- Psychotherapists
- Other Behavioral Health Professionals
Copyright :
12/17/2024
Working with Action: Communication and Conflict
This training provides practical tools for helping couples navigate communication and conflict. Participants will explore working definitions of these core dynamics, identify five common conflict triggers, and learn how to support couples in balancing acceptance and change. The training includes eleven behavioral interventions to enhance relational functioning and ten in-session strategies to manage escalation and maintain safety in the therapy room.
Program Information
Objectives
- Define and understand key concepts of communication and conflict within couple therapy.
- Identify five common triggers of conflict and learn strategies to help couples navigate acceptance and change.
- Implement eleven behavioral interventions and ten strategies to effectively manage escalation and maintain a constructive environment in the therapy office.
Outline
- Working definitions of communication and conflict
- Five things that trigger conflict
- Helping couples navigate acceptance and change
- Eleven interventions in the realm of behavior
- Ten strategies to manage escalation in your office
Target Audience
- Psychologists
- Physicians
- Addiction Counselors
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Nurses
- Psychotherapists
- Other Behavioral Health Professionals
Copyright :
12/17/2024
Working with Emotion: Softening and Affective Restructuring
Develop the skills to soften emotional defenses and create lasting change, helping you guide couples toward deeper connection and healing.
Program Information
Objectives
- Utilize relational terms to conceptualize a couple’s difficulties.
- Understand the role of attachment and emotion in couple distress.
- Implement interventions targeting affective restructuring and differentiate between attachment and identity cycles to effectively address emotional dynamics in couple therapy.
Outline
- The power of attachment
- The role of emotion
- Couple distress through the lens of emotion (Johnson)
- Interventions that target affective restructuring (Johnson)
- Attachment cycles versus identity cycles (Greenberg & Goldman)
- Final reminders when working with emotion
Target Audience
- Psychologists
- Physicians
- Addiction Counselors
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Nurses
- Psychotherapists
- Other Behavioral Health Professionals
Copyright :
12/13/2024
Working with Meaning: Intergenerational Patterns, Family of Origin Wounds, and the Stories We Live By
Learn to identify trauma and its impact on intimate connections, address vulnerabilities in couple therapy, and use interpersonal neurobiology to transform conflict and power dynamics. This module offers clinical strategies for deepening empathy and helping couples rewrite the stories that drive their relationships.
Program Information
Objectives
- Understand the psychodynamic perspective on healthy development and its impact on adult relationships.
- Identify the effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) on adulthood and how early childhood trauma manifests in intimate relationships.
- Apply interpersonal neurobiology and the concept of the autonomic ladder to transform conflict and address power dynamics in couple therapy.
Outline
- A psychodynamic view of healthy development
- Averse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and the impact in adulthood
- Defining trauma
- How early childhood experiences “show up” in intimate relationships
- Addressing enduring vulnerabilities in couple therapy
- Using interpersonal neurobiology to transform conflict and address power dynamics
- The autonomic ladder in couple therapy
- Clinical strategies for deepening empathy
Target Audience
- Psychologists
- Physicians
- Addiction Counselors
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Nurses
- Psychotherapists
- Other Behavioral Health Professionals
Copyright :
12/13/2024
Co-Responsibility and Boundaries: Working with Individual Issues in the Context of Couples Therapy
This program explores how to effectively address individual challenges within the context of couples therapy. Participants will learn to externalize one partner’s issue without pathologizing, support couples in developing realistic expectations, and assign therapeutic tasks to both the “affected” and “non-affected” partners. The course also covers strategies for addressing codependency and demonstrates the RRF in action through a case involving health habit discrepancies.
Program Information
Objectives
- Develop the ability to understand the interaction of individual/intrapsychic issues and relational issue in order to help couples move from codependency to co-responsibility
- Articulate the difference between self-focused caregiving and other-focused caregiving in order to help partners empower (rather than enable) each other
- Assist couples in creating and maintaining realistic expectations of themselves and each other, fostering healthier and more balanced relationships.
Outline
- Recursive Relational Framework (RRF)
- Externalizing one partner’s individual challenge
- Helping couples creating realistic expectations of self and other
- Therapeutic tasks for the “non-affected” partner
- Therapeutic tasks for the “affected” partner
- Addressing codependency
- RRF in action: Navigating a Health Habit Discrepancy
Target Audience
- Psychologists
- Physicians
- Addiction Counselors
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Nurses
- Psychotherapists
- Other Behavioral Health Professionals
Copyright :
12/17/2024
The Power of Touch: Addressing Sexual Challenges with Couples
In this training, therapists will enhance their ability to address sexual challenges in couple therapy. The course covers crucial topics including sexual self-awareness, inadequacies in sex education, and the impact of trauma with the partner as an intimate ally. It provides insights into common sexual problems and sex therapy, explaining the differences between spontaneous and responsive desire. A review of vulva-body anatomy is included to deepen understanding, alongside practical strategies for helping couples discuss sex openly and manage desire discrepancies effectively.
Program Information
Objectives
- Identify the most common sexual presenting concerns
- Understand how to assess and intervene with sexual challenges in the context of couple therapy, including when to refer for sex therapy
- Analyze the impact of trauma on sexual relationships and empower partners to act as intimate allies, fostering a supportive and healing process in sex therapy.
Outline
- Sexual Self-Awareness
- Inadequacies in sex education
- Impact of trauma and partner as intimate ally
- Sexual problems and sex therapy
- Sexual desire including definitions of spontaneous and responsive desire
- Review of the anatomy of vulva-bodies people
- Helping couples talk about sex
- Working with desire discrepancy in couple therapy
Target Audience
- Psychologists
- Physicians
- Addiction Counselors
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Nurses
- Psychotherapists
- Other Behavioral Health Professionals
Copyright :
12/17/2024
The Narrative Arc of Love: Milestones, Commitment Transitions & Pace Discrepancies
This training explores the major milestones and transitions in romantic relationships, from defining the relationship (DTR) and navigating long-distance relationships (LDRs) to moving in together, engagement, marriage, parenting, empty nest, and retirement. Therapists will learn strategies to support couples through these significant life stages and address pace discrepancies for those struggling with commitment milestones. By understanding the narrative arc of love, practitioners can better guide couples toward thriving, resilient relationships.
Program Information
Objectives
- Develop a greater understanding of the impact of commitment milestones to support your ability to plan, conceptualize, and intervene with couples in normative transitions
- Help couples navigate the confusion and pain of a pace discrepancy
- Understand and define key milestones in relationships, including Defining the Relationship (DTR), long-distance relationships (LDRs), moving in together, engagement, marriage, parenting, empty nest, and retirement.
Outline
- Defining the relationship (DTR)
- Long-distance relationships (LDRs)
- Moving in together and cohabitation
- Engagement and marriage
- Parenting
- Empty nest
- Retirement
- Pace Discrepancies: Working with couples who are struggling with commitment milestones
Target Audience
- Psychologists
- Physicians
- Addiction Counselors
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Nurses
- Psychotherapists
- Other Behavioral Health Professionals
Copyright :
12/17/2024
Hot Topics: Domesticity, Parenting, Money, and Extended Family
This course addresses some of the most common sources of conflict in relationships. Therapists will learn effective strategies to help couples navigate disputes related to domestic responsibilities, parenting, finances, and extended family or in-laws. By exploring these hot topics, practitioners will be equipped with the tools to foster healthier communication and conflict resolution, ultimately guiding couples toward stronger, more resilient relationships.
Program Information
Objectives
- Learn skills and tools to help couples navigate the most common topics of conflict (domesticity, parenting, in-laws, and money)
- Equip therapists with tools to assist couples in managing and resolving parenting-related conflicts, promoting cooperative and united parenting approaches.
- Provide techniques for guiding couples through financial conflicts, aiding them in establishing healthy communication and budgeting practices.
Outline
- Helping couples navigate conflict related to domesticity
- Helping couples navigate conflict related to parenting
- Helping couples navigate conflict related to money
- Helping couples navigate conflict related to extended family / in-laws
Target Audience
- Psychologists
- Physicians
- Addiction Counselors
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Nurses
- Psychotherapists
- Other Behavioral Health Professionals
Copyright :
12/17/2024
Infidelity and Betrayal: Helping Couples Tend to Pain and Possibility
This course offers a compassionate, stage-based approach to working with infidelity and betrayal in couple therapy. Participants will explore the broader context of infidelity, learn how to support both the betrayed and betraying partners, and navigate common constraints to healing. Emphasis is placed on restoring trust, fostering emotional repair, and helping couples move toward post-traumatic growth and renewed connection after betrayal.
Program Information
Objectives
- Explore the nature of infidelity, the impact on a couple, and how to work with infidelity in couple therapy.
- Identify barriers to restoration of trust after a breach and discern whether and how a couple can rebuild
- Promote post-traumatic growth in individuals and couples after infidelity, leveraging the crisis as an opportunity for personal and relational growth.
Outline
- Big picture of infidelity and working with infidelity in couple therapy
- Tending to the betrayed partner
- Tending to the betraying partner
- A stage-based model for recovery from infidelity in couple therapy
- Constraints to healing from infidelity
- Restoration of trust in couples post-infidelity
- Post-traumatic growth after the experience of infidelity
Target Audience
- Psychologists
- Physicians
- Addiction Counselors
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Nurses
- Psychotherapists
- Other Behavioral Health Professionals
Copyright :
12/17/2024
Conscious Uncoupling: Break Ups, Separation, and Divorce
This course explores the therapeutic process of supporting couples through breakups, separation, and divorce. Using frameworks like Discernment Counseling, participants will learn how to work with couples on the brink, navigate the complexities of “boomerang couples,” and maintain a balanced therapeutic stance. The course also addresses self-of-the-therapist (SOTT) issues and provides strategies to help couples end their relationship with clarity, respect, and care.
Program Information
Objectives
- Identify internal and relational challenges of breakups and divorce to help couples create endings that are careful and caring
- Develop a therapeutic stance for effectively working with couples on the brink, including those deciding to break up, to provide balanced and supportive guidance.
- Learn approaches for working with "boomerang couples" who repeatedly separate and reconcile, focusing on stabilizing their relationship dynamics.
Outline
- Overview of couples on the brink
- Discernment Counseling (Doherty)
- Therapeutic Stance vis a vis couples on the brink and couples breaking up
- Working with “boomerang couples”
- Self-of-the-therapist (SOTT) issues in breakups and divorce
- Helping a couple end well
Target Audience
- Psychologists
- Physicians
- Addiction Counselors
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Nurses
- Psychotherapists
- Other Behavioral Health Professionals
Copyright :
12/17/2024
Ending Well: Termination in Couple Therapy and Course Wrap Up
Program Information
Objectives
- Understand when and how to terminate a couple therapy case including navigating Self-of-the-Therapist concerns that commonly arise.
Outline
- Unilateral termination in couple therapy
- Dose-based approach to couple therapy
- When to end couple therapy
- How to end couple therapy
- Self-of-the-therapist (SOTT) matters regarding termination
- Course wrap up
Target Audience
- Psychologists
- Physicians
- Addiction Counselors
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Nurses
- Psychotherapists
- Other Behavioral Health Professionals
Copyright :
12/13/2024
Live Q&A Call - Dr. Alexandra Solomon’s Couple Therapy Certification: Start-to-Finish Intensive Training Program
Copyright :
09/30/2025
Live Q&A Call - Dr. Alexandra Solomon’s Couple Therapy Certification: Start-to-Finish Intensive Training Program
Copyright :
11/18/2025
Live Q&A Call - Dr. Alexandra Solomon’s Couple Therapy Certification: Start-to-Finish Intensive Training Program
Copyright :
01/13/2026