Weeks 1-10

Faculty: Robert Bartlett, Ph.D.

Weeks 11-20

Faculty: Elena Skolnick, Ph.D.

Weeks 21-30

Faculty: Ethan Graham, Ph.D.

1. After the first class, students will be able to list at least two constructs from psychoanalysis (e.g. transference/countertransference) and two from systems therapy (e.g. co-construction) that are integrated in the orientation of this program.
2. After the second class, students will be able to take a genogram, getting information about the family of origin of each member of the couple in such a way that the information anticipates transference/countertransference issues relevant to the presenting couple’s complaint.
3. After the third class, students should be able to diagnose which of three crucial components of couple functioning are relevant for their couple’s case.
4. After the fourth class, students should be able to analyze in a commitment difficulty in a couple.
5. After the fifth class, students should be able to analyze a power or an intimacy difficulty.
6. After the sixth class, students would be able to assess and make a plan about what to do when they are siding, unconsciously at first and collusively with the system, with one person in a couple over another.
7. After the seventh class, students should be able to present their couples’ cases giving the most relevant couple’s issues, rather than individual issues, that is, the students should begin to speak systemically as well as speaking their more familiar psychoanalytic language and conceptualization. Their descriptions should not only include complementarity and similarity, but also life cycle stage, triangulations, and horizontal manifestations of vertical (family of origin) unresolved issues.

1. Students will be able to recite the historical origins and development of three concepts central to family systems theory.
2. Students will be able to describe the historical origins and development of three interventions central to a systemic approach to couples therapy.

Students will be able to:
1. Recognize the importance of cultivating curiosity when working with couples to​ ​address issues related to diversity.
2. Conceptualize and understand a hermeneutic orientation to clinical inquiry.
3. Identify the central role of the unbidden and of relational freedom within the​ ​clinical encounter with couples.
4. Describe three central impacts of race and racism on a given couple, regardless of​ ​the particular ethnicities of the members of the couple.
5. Conceptualize diversities of sexuality and gender as requiring the same kinds of​ ​open-mindedness and sensitivity as other diversities where discrimination is often a​ ​feature.

1. After the first class, students will be able to identify client and therapist barriers to discussing sexual issues in couples therapy. Students will increase their comfort and skill levels to be able to assess and identify the sexual concerns of their clients.
2. After the second class, students will increase their ability to address the sexual concerns that their clients bring into therapy. Students will be able to conceptualize sexual concerns in the context of couples therapy, take a more thorough sexual history, and will begin to apply their newfound skills into their practice.

Explain how to broaden the focus of the treatment when practicing couples therapy with couples who are talking about their children.

1. Demonstrate in a case how the variables of membership, power and affection interact as a three-generational family goes through the phase of emerging adulthood.

2. Show in a case how the variables of membership, power and affection affect unresolved issues in a couple depicted in Classical Art.

Participants will be able to describe special issues when working with lesbian couples.

Week One: Candidates will be able to list at least 3 different theories about high conflict couples. ( Theories will include attachment, trauma, object-relations, systems and EFT).

Week Two: Candidates will be able to demonstrate to the couple members how their attachment anxieties fuel their problematic dynamics.

Week Three: Candidates will be able to design initial interventions for de-escalating high conflict behavior.

Week Four: Candidates will be able to create additional interventions to reduce repetitive cycles of high conflict.

Week Five: Candidates will be able to create a safer space for the couple to heal their attachment injuries and demonstrate to them how to do so.

Week Six: Candidates will be able to plan with the couple rules to interrupt and eliminate any violence.