Digital Seminar
Helping Time-Starved Couples Center Love
Navigating Stress, Connection, & the Transition to Parenthood
- Average Rating:
- 182
- Faculty:
- Elizabeth Earnshaw, LMFT
- Duration:
- 2 Hours 03 Minutes
- Format:
- Audio and Video
- Copyright:
-
Mar 21, 2026
- Product Code:
- NOS096719
- Media Type:
- Digital Seminar
Description
Many of the couples showing up in our offices are stressed, time-starved, and disconnected. This isn’t because they lack love, but because the demands of modern life leave them with little space for intimacy, rest, and safety within their relationship. How can therapy help couples with limited time, limited emotional bandwidth, and an overwhelming to-do list? In this workshop, we’ll explore the hidden dynamics driving modern couples’ struggles and how those dynamics escalate during major life transitions, like becoming new parents. From mismatched schedules and simmering resentment over who carries more of the mental load to the invisible wounds of postpartum depression, many modern couples face unique stressors that test even the strongest partnerships. You’ll learn to help them:
- Understand how chronic stress impairs co-regulation and trust, and gain tools for helping couples repair ruptures related to early parenting injuries.
- Surface and reframe invisible dynamics, such as boundary violations, and moments of abandonment/emotional withdrawal
- Engage in productive, key pre-baby and post-baby conversations about parenting roles and how family-of-origin dynamics shape expectations and stress responses.
- Divide invisible labor fairly and prevent the resentment that often begins in the early parenting years
Credit
Handouts
| File type | File name | Number of pages | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transcript - Helping Time Starved Couples (1.1 MB) | 30 Pages | Available after Purchase | |
| Transcript - Helping Time Starved Couples - French (1.1 MB) | 30 Pages | Available after Purchase | |
| Transcript - Helping Time Starved Couples - Italian (1.1 MB) | 30 Pages | Available after Purchase | |
| Transcript - Helping Time Starved Couples - German (1.1 MB) | 30 Pages | Available after Purchase | |
| Transcript - Helping Time Starved Couples - Spanish (1.1 MB) | 30 Pages | Available after Purchase |
Faculty
Elizabeth Earnshaw, LMFT Related seminars and products
Elizabeth Earnshaw, LMFT, is a Certified Gottman Therapist and AAMFT Clinical Fellow and Approved Supervisor. She’s the founder of A Better Life Therapy, where she specializes in working with couples navigating relational challenges, transitions, and repair. Earnshaw is the author of several books, including I Want This to Work, Til Stress Do Us Part, The Clinician’s Guide to Intensive Couples Therapy, and The Couples Therapy Flip Chart. Her work has been featured in The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Elizabeth Earnshaw is the co-founder of The Rory Project and is the founder and Clinical Director of A Better Life Therapy, LLC. She receives royalties as a published author. Elizabeth Earnshaw receives a speaking honorarium, recording and book royalties from Psychotherapy Networker and PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Elizabeth Earnshaw is a fellow of AAMFT.
Additional Info
Questions?Visit our FAQ page at www.pesi.com/faq or contact us at www.pesi.com/info
Access for Self-Study (Non-Interactive)
Access never expires for this product.
For a more detailed outline that includes times or durations of time, if needed, please contact cepesi@pesi.com.
Objectives
- Identify the clinical challenges dual-income couples face, including time scarcity, role overload, and workplace stress, particularly during the transition to parenthood.
- Apply brief-session and asynchronous therapy interventions that meet the needs of time-starved couples.
- Facilitate structured conversations about parenting roles, stress, varying responsibilities, and mental load while helping clients understand how family-of-origin dynamics shape stress responses.
- Support couples in identifying postpartum-related mental health concerns and provide tools to repair early parenting injuries and restore co-regulation.
Outline
Modern Love in a Time-Starved World- The clinical profile of dual-income couples
- Internalized gender roles and contemporary stressors
- Relationship impacts of role overload and time scarcity
- Cultural myths of "doing it all"
- The collision of identity shifts, sleep deprivation, and stress spillover
- Birth trauma and postpartum depression/anxiety as relational injuries
- Recognizing ruptures like feeling unprotected or emotionally abandoned
- The relationship between supportive family structures and relationship wellbeing
- Adapting therapy for irregular attendance
- Providing psychoeducation to couples on stress and mental load.
- Three step system for navigating stress
- Surfacing invisible dynamics and family-of-origin wounds
- Dividing labor fairly without reinforcing binary thinking
- Dyadic Coping: Tools for co-regulation, stress recovery, and emotional attunement
- Social media's impact on gender scripts, expectations, and comparison
- Findings may be limited by heteronormative and middle-class samples
- Some strategies require adaptation for partners experiencing IPV or trauma
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Psychotherapists
- Therapists
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Addiction Counselors
- Physicians
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Reviews
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Overall: 4.6
Total Reviews: 182
Satisfaction Guarantee
Your satisfaction is our goal and our guarantee. Concerns should be addressed to: PO Box 1000, Eau Claire, WI 54702-1000 or call 1-800-844-8260.
ADA Needs
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