Love... It's never been more complicated.
Yet the skills we need to help clients caught in modern relationship issues are within our reach.
Join 12 of the field's leading relationship innovators as they reveal practical advice and real-life case studies and demonstrations for both individual and couples therapists, focusing on the most pressing issues facing our clients today.
This online course just might change the way you see and work with your clients' relationships.
Come find out what the most trusted experts are saying now — and how you can improve your practice.
Yet the skills we need to help clients caught in modern relationship issues are within our reach.
Join 12 of the field's leading relationship innovators as they reveal practical advice and real-life case studies and demonstrations for both individual and couples therapists, focusing on the most pressing issues facing our clients today.
This online course just might change the way you see and work with your clients' relationships.
Come find out what the most trusted experts are saying now — and how you can improve your practice.
Couples Therapy Intensive Course
Navigating Modern Relationships with Esther Perel, Ellyn Bader, Tammy Nelson, and more
Valued at $839.88
Register Today for Just $179.99!
Navigating Modern Relationships with Esther Perel, Ellyn Bader, Tammy Nelson, and more
Valued at $839.88
Register Today for Just $179.99!
Plus, earn up to 13.0 CE Hours included in the course tuition.
Click here for Credit details | Click here for course objectives and outline
Click here for Credit details | Click here for course objectives and outline
Dear Colleague,
The world of dating, love, and sex is changing... Fast.
As therapists, we can't simply apply old rules to this new world or relationships. We have to be able to help our clients with approaches and language that make sense to them.
And this extends beyond traditional couples therapists — an understanding of relational systems is a core part of being a successful therapist.
Register today and become part of a powerful community of like-minded therapists equipped with a new understanding and the transformative skills to make a huge difference in the lives and relationships of our clients.
Every session — led by one of twelve relationship experts in the field — provides you with one more piece to the puzzle of helping your clients be more satisfied in their love relationships (and maybe our own too!).
We hope to see you there!
With LOVE,
Zach Taylor, MA LPC, Director, Psychotherapy Networker
Jon Olstadt, Conference Organizer, PESI
P.S. — We know your time is valuable. If you're ever not happy with your experience, all you need to do is reach out to us and let us know, and we'll provide a no-questions-asked refund. No hoops to jump through. It's our promise to you. How's that for a guarantee? Register today!
The world of dating, love, and sex is changing... Fast.
As therapists, we can't simply apply old rules to this new world or relationships. We have to be able to help our clients with approaches and language that make sense to them.
And this extends beyond traditional couples therapists — an understanding of relational systems is a core part of being a successful therapist.
Register today and become part of a powerful community of like-minded therapists equipped with a new understanding and the transformative skills to make a huge difference in the lives and relationships of our clients.
Every session — led by one of twelve relationship experts in the field — provides you with one more piece to the puzzle of helping your clients be more satisfied in their love relationships (and maybe our own too!).
We hope to see you there!
With LOVE,
Zach Taylor, MA LPC, Director, Psychotherapy Networker
Jon Olstadt, Conference Organizer, PESI
P.S. — We know your time is valuable. If you're ever not happy with your experience, all you need to do is reach out to us and let us know, and we'll provide a no-questions-asked refund. No hoops to jump through. It's our promise to you. How's that for a guarantee? Register today!
Couples Therapy Intensive Course
Navigating Modern Relationships with Esther Perel, Ellyn Bader, Tammy Nelson, and more
Valued at $839.88
Register Today for Just $179.99!
Navigating Modern Relationships with Esther Perel, Ellyn Bader, Tammy Nelson, and more
Valued at $839.88
Register Today for Just $179.99!
Plus, earn up to 13.0 CE Hours included in the course tuition.
Click here for Credit details | Click here for course objectives and outline
Click here for Credit details | Click here for course objectives and outline
Course Session Details
The Other AI: The Rise & Influence of Artificial Intimacy
Esther Perel, MA, LMFT | Click here for information about Esther Perel
The more our lives are guided by predictive technology, the less we are able to cope with the natural uncertainties of life. And nowhere is there more uncertainty in our day-to-day lives than in our relationships — meeting new people, developing friendships, and trusting intimate partnerships all require facing ambiguity and uncertainty. Many are choosing to disengage to avoid this anxiety and may miss out on the richness that comes from deep and meaningful relationships. In this session, we'll explore:
Esther Perel, MA, LMFT | Click here for information about Esther Perel
The more our lives are guided by predictive technology, the less we are able to cope with the natural uncertainties of life. And nowhere is there more uncertainty in our day-to-day lives than in our relationships — meeting new people, developing friendships, and trusting intimate partnerships all require facing ambiguity and uncertainty. Many are choosing to disengage to avoid this anxiety and may miss out on the richness that comes from deep and meaningful relationships. In this session, we'll explore:
- The connection between the unprecedented rise of anxiety with the fact that we don't get the practice of living with ambiguity, ambivalence, and the unknown.
- The collateral damage and consequences of technological progress on our human relationships
- How predictive technologies are affecting everything from our expectations to our sense of curiosity, to our ability to tolerate friction
- How, by eradicating friction, people find themselves unable to handle disagreement — and how this leads to increased polarization
Obsessing After Infidelity: When One Partner Can't Move Forward
Ellyn Bader, PhD | Click here for information about Ellyn Bader
Therapists often feel challenged working with couples in the aftermath of infidelity. PTSD symptoms can surface in the form of unrelenting obsession about the details of a partner's affair. In this presentation, Ellyn will describe when and why obsessing is valuable and when it is not. She will also demonstrate via video how to start interrupting this negative ongoing traumatic pattern.
Ellyn Bader, PhD | Click here for information about Ellyn Bader
Therapists often feel challenged working with couples in the aftermath of infidelity. PTSD symptoms can surface in the form of unrelenting obsession about the details of a partner's affair. In this presentation, Ellyn will describe when and why obsessing is valuable and when it is not. She will also demonstrate via video how to start interrupting this negative ongoing traumatic pattern.
- Describe 3 stages of infidelity treatment and what type of work matters most at each stage.
- Recognize when obsessing about details is valuable and when it isn't.
- Interrupt patterns of conflict avoidance and move couples into deeper work
- Theorize on risks and benefits of therapy with infidelity
Emotionally Focused Therapy with Couples of Color: Changing Negative Cycles & Cultural Legacies
Paul Guillory, PhD | Click here for information about Paul Guillory
Discover how to build an emotionally-focused map for working with romantic bonds and using a model of culture to enhance clinical attunement and attachment love with couples of color. Cultural identity is typically treated as a demographic category. By extension, the internal working model of cultural identity is a clinical blind spot. In his book Emotionally Focused Therapy with African American Couples, the presenter suggests that therapists work most effectively with Black couples (and Couples of Color) when they have a conceptual model for cultural matters, including internalized wounds, dynamic cultural identity, race-based events, and racial trauma. This intermediate workshop addresses useful clinical concepts (e.g., negative cultural priming, racial distress cues, cultural identity as a dynamic process) and how they can be integrated into couples' therapy. Case studies and video clips of clinical interventions illustrate the work.
Paul Guillory, PhD | Click here for information about Paul Guillory
Discover how to build an emotionally-focused map for working with romantic bonds and using a model of culture to enhance clinical attunement and attachment love with couples of color. Cultural identity is typically treated as a demographic category. By extension, the internal working model of cultural identity is a clinical blind spot. In his book Emotionally Focused Therapy with African American Couples, the presenter suggests that therapists work most effectively with Black couples (and Couples of Color) when they have a conceptual model for cultural matters, including internalized wounds, dynamic cultural identity, race-based events, and racial trauma. This intermediate workshop addresses useful clinical concepts (e.g., negative cultural priming, racial distress cues, cultural identity as a dynamic process) and how they can be integrated into couples' therapy. Case studies and video clips of clinical interventions illustrate the work.
Navigating Open Relationships, Polyamory, and Swinging in Therapy: Co-Creating Relationship Agreements
Tammy Nelson, PhD | Click here for information about Tammy Nelson
Modern relationships today take many forms, and couples are creating them intentionally, with a focus on honesty, transparency, and equality. What all these relationship choices have in common is the dilemma of personal and relational integrity. How do couples negotiate commitment, keep their promises, and find their personal sexual freedom at the same time? This workshop looks at contemporary relationships and helps clinicians guide couples to create sustainable and flexible monogamy agreements that contribute positively to relational change. You'll discover how to:
Tammy Nelson, PhD | Click here for information about Tammy Nelson
Modern relationships today take many forms, and couples are creating them intentionally, with a focus on honesty, transparency, and equality. What all these relationship choices have in common is the dilemma of personal and relational integrity. How do couples negotiate commitment, keep their promises, and find their personal sexual freedom at the same time? This workshop looks at contemporary relationships and helps clinicians guide couples to create sustainable and flexible monogamy agreements that contribute positively to relational change. You'll discover how to:
- Explore new types of monogamy and open relationships and how couples are creating them
- Identify how to help clients co-create their ideal relationship agreements
- Provide nonjudgmental guidance for those who break their agreements, have affairs, or have trouble visualizing their ideal vision of modern monogamy
- Examine your own biases and countertransference around non-traditional relationships
The Cure for Trauma is Intimacy
Terry Real, LICSW | Click here for information about Terry Real
Our own traumatic reactions are triggered more often in our intimate relationships than in any other place in our lives. Yet trauma treatment remains highly individualistic, often seeing recovery as a prerequisite to intimacy. But what if healing trauma can happen most effectively within relationships?
In this provocative clinical workshop, we'll unpack the relational nature of trauma recovery, and show that rather than intimacy being a result of recovery, it can be the doorway that gets your clients there. In this session, you'll learn about the three-part system of the psyche, how they each operate in relationships, and how clients can learn specific skills to use their relationships as a crucible for recovery.
Terry Real, LICSW | Click here for information about Terry Real
Our own traumatic reactions are triggered more often in our intimate relationships than in any other place in our lives. Yet trauma treatment remains highly individualistic, often seeing recovery as a prerequisite to intimacy. But what if healing trauma can happen most effectively within relationships?
In this provocative clinical workshop, we'll unpack the relational nature of trauma recovery, and show that rather than intimacy being a result of recovery, it can be the doorway that gets your clients there. In this session, you'll learn about the three-part system of the psyche, how they each operate in relationships, and how clients can learn specific skills to use their relationships as a crucible for recovery.
- Theorize on the neurobiological underpinnings of trauma adaptation and recovery
- Practice 3 skills for helping traumatized clients in their relationships
- Demonstrate how to help clients map their relational patterns and overcome them within their existing intimate relationships
Guiding Our Clients Who are Dating: The Great Social Experiment of Coupling in the 21st Century
Christiana Awosan | Click here for information about Christiana Ibilola Awosan
People searching for love today are facing a complex minefield of issues that make dating more complicated than ever. Dating apps, reality TV that turns love into a kind of game show like "Love is Blind" and "90 Day Fiance," and endless advice columns on "how to attract a partner," and "red flags" to run from have all turned dating into a new kind of social experiment. As a result, clients are coming to us more confused and anxious than ever about their dating experiences.
In this session, we will explore how to help singles and early-stage couples in today's difficult dating world can enhance emotional intimacy and attachment at the beginning stages of the coupling process. Participants will be equipped with innovative ways to journey with their singles and early-stage couples to see and address the ways in which social-cultural differences are keys to unlocking the pathways to see and know their potential partner or current partner and themselves. To truly have intimacy, we can't be blind in love. We have to see and fully embrace the whole person; this presentation will facilitate such discussion and clinical skills to achieve this goal.
Christiana Awosan | Click here for information about Christiana Ibilola Awosan
People searching for love today are facing a complex minefield of issues that make dating more complicated than ever. Dating apps, reality TV that turns love into a kind of game show like "Love is Blind" and "90 Day Fiance," and endless advice columns on "how to attract a partner," and "red flags" to run from have all turned dating into a new kind of social experiment. As a result, clients are coming to us more confused and anxious than ever about their dating experiences.
In this session, we will explore how to help singles and early-stage couples in today's difficult dating world can enhance emotional intimacy and attachment at the beginning stages of the coupling process. Participants will be equipped with innovative ways to journey with their singles and early-stage couples to see and address the ways in which social-cultural differences are keys to unlocking the pathways to see and know their potential partner or current partner and themselves. To truly have intimacy, we can't be blind in love. We have to see and fully embrace the whole person; this presentation will facilitate such discussion and clinical skills to achieve this goal.
From Chaos to Creativity: Facilitating Play in High Conflict Couples
Shadeen Frances, LMFT | Click here for information about Shadeen Francis
Working with couples who have high levels of active conflict can feel like an unwinnable game. When every conversation is a new opportunity for aggression or escalation, the therapy office can feel more like a sparring ring than a healing space. If not addressed, these dynamics stop therapy. How do we change the rules of the game to create an atmosphere that feels more open and collaborative? Maybe even FUN? This interactive workshop will explore creative opportunities to change the tone of therapy work, pivoting the focus from tension and negativity to kindness and play. In this session, you will explore:
Shadeen Frances, LMFT | Click here for information about Shadeen Francis
Working with couples who have high levels of active conflict can feel like an unwinnable game. When every conversation is a new opportunity for aggression or escalation, the therapy office can feel more like a sparring ring than a healing space. If not addressed, these dynamics stop therapy. How do we change the rules of the game to create an atmosphere that feels more open and collaborative? Maybe even FUN? This interactive workshop will explore creative opportunities to change the tone of therapy work, pivoting the focus from tension and negativity to kindness and play. In this session, you will explore:
- Opportunities to harness the energy of conflict into passion for play
- Real case studies showcasing successful outcomes for a few common high-conflict presentations, such as hostility, unsportsmanlike competition, passive aggression, stonewalling, couples who take revenge, and couples who turn on the therapist
- Techniques to help couples to express and negotiate their needs in conflict, foster a sense of collaboration, and establish an atmosphere of shared vulnerability and empathy
High-Achieving Couples: When Love & Work Collide
Alexandra Solomon, PhD | Click here for information about Alexandra Solomon
More than ever, couples where each partner has a career are facing a choice between their work and their relationships. It's not just about money, which is a perennial couples issue, but that sometimes one partner's career may fall by the wayside in preference of the other's career. When this comes up in therapy, how do we guide our clients? In this workshop, Dr. Alexandra Solomon will offer a framework and tools you can use to help your clients bring Relational Self-Awareness to the intersection of love and work. You will leave this workshop with a framework for assessing how intergenerational patterns, gender role socialization, and larger cultural narratives converge on couples and how to help couples minimize friction and maximize flow.
Alexandra Solomon, PhD | Click here for information about Alexandra Solomon
More than ever, couples where each partner has a career are facing a choice between their work and their relationships. It's not just about money, which is a perennial couples issue, but that sometimes one partner's career may fall by the wayside in preference of the other's career. When this comes up in therapy, how do we guide our clients? In this workshop, Dr. Alexandra Solomon will offer a framework and tools you can use to help your clients bring Relational Self-Awareness to the intersection of love and work. You will leave this workshop with a framework for assessing how intergenerational patterns, gender role socialization, and larger cultural narratives converge on couples and how to help couples minimize friction and maximize flow.
Couples Therapy Intensive Course
Navigating Modern Relationships with Esther Perel, Ellyn Bader, Tammy Nelson, and more
Valued at $839.88
Register Today for Just $179.99!
Navigating Modern Relationships with Esther Perel, Ellyn Bader, Tammy Nelson, and more
Valued at $839.88
Register Today for Just $179.99!
Enroll Today and Receive FREE Bonus Sessions
(valued at $279.96)
(valued at $279.96)
When One Partner is Kinky: Mixed Erotic Orientations
Joe Kort, LMSW | Click here for information about Joe Kort
It's increasingly common for one partner in a relationship to have certain erotic kinks, fetishes, or sexual fantasies that the other partner doesn't share. These differences in erotic orientation run the risk of creating shame, betrayal, secrecy, and defensiveness that can lead to intense relationship distress. But it doesn't need to be that way. Being able to give clients a sexual and relational roadmap to navigate these differences can make all the difference. In this workshop, you'll learn how to:
Joe Kort, LMSW | Click here for information about Joe Kort
It's increasingly common for one partner in a relationship to have certain erotic kinks, fetishes, or sexual fantasies that the other partner doesn't share. These differences in erotic orientation run the risk of creating shame, betrayal, secrecy, and defensiveness that can lead to intense relationship distress. But it doesn't need to be that way. Being able to give clients a sexual and relational roadmap to navigate these differences can make all the difference. In this workshop, you'll learn how to:
- Use "erotic compassion" in individual and couples sessions
- De-mystify kinks and fetishes for clients and their partners and uncover the non-erotic origins of many erotic interests
- Create a sexual roadmap that considers both the kinky and non-kinky partner’s interests and comfort levels
When One Partner Has ADHD: A Guide for Couples Therapy
Ari Tuckman, PsyD, CST | Click here for information about Ari Tuckman
Adults with ADHD are over-represented in therapy offices—and especially over-represented in couples therapy. If the couples therapist does not recognize the impact of ADHD on the couple's dynamic, they will fall into the same disempowering trap that the partners are stuck in. Fortunately, an informed therapist can apply specific interventions to break the couple out of the under/over-functioner dynamic and promote each partner's agency to make positive changes. Some of this involves helping the partners actively manage the ADHD in order to reduce its impact on daily life. The rest involves helping the partners do the universal work of negotiating different preferences, but through the lens of how ADHD impacts relationship functioning. Because ADHD can exacerbate common relationship dynamics, knowing how to work with couples with one ADHD partner will make you a better therapist with every couple you see.
Ari Tuckman, PsyD, CST | Click here for information about Ari Tuckman
Adults with ADHD are over-represented in therapy offices—and especially over-represented in couples therapy. If the couples therapist does not recognize the impact of ADHD on the couple's dynamic, they will fall into the same disempowering trap that the partners are stuck in. Fortunately, an informed therapist can apply specific interventions to break the couple out of the under/over-functioner dynamic and promote each partner's agency to make positive changes. Some of this involves helping the partners actively manage the ADHD in order to reduce its impact on daily life. The rest involves helping the partners do the universal work of negotiating different preferences, but through the lens of how ADHD impacts relationship functioning. Because ADHD can exacerbate common relationship dynamics, knowing how to work with couples with one ADHD partner will make you a better therapist with every couple you see.
- An individual condition... with relationship dynamics
- The easy slide into the classic dynamic of the under-/over-functioner
- A new diagnosis of ADHD can be a total game-changer if the therapist knows how to work with it
- Actively Manage ADHD—By Both Partners
- Help both partners actively manage ADHD—and also expectations
- Get partners out of defensiveness and personalizing ADHD symptoms
- Re-balance the relationship
- Get the partner with ADHD to step up—and also the partner without ADHD to step down
- How to negotiate different desires and get things done
- Can I trust you? How to increase honesty and follow through
- Help partners work with each other, rather than for each other
Treating Narcissism in Relationships: Empathic Confrontation
Wendy Behary, MSW, LCSW | Click here for information about Wendy T. Behary
Informed by the science-based model, Schema Therapy, along with other proven models for treating couples, there is some consensus that core unmet emotional needs can lead to maladaptive life themes (schemas) and self-defeating coping behaviors. Schema chemistry can play an important role in partner selection, for example, choosing someone who may replicate a familiar experience with a parent or other significant caregiver, or someone who appears to fill a longstanding void — often resulting in longings and needs that go unfulfilled and schema triggering, conflict escalations, detachment, and violations of trust, create deeper fractures in attachment and intimacy.
Dealing with issues of narcissism in the intimate relationship poses an even greater challenge in the treatment room, where the narcissist's typical devaluing, approval-seeking, entitled, controlling, "victim/martyr," and passive-aggressive reactions and behaviors, are often paired with a partner who is burdened by the challenges of self-doubt, self-diminishment, subjugation, and self-sacrifice. Narcissists are notorious for denial, defensiveness, devaluation, and defiantly detached reactions when confronted about their hurtful contributions to the problems in the relationship. Restoring trust and intimacy can seem like an overwhelming and insurmountable endeavor.
Unlike most other approaches to couple's treatment, schema therapy offers a protocol that does not insist on exclusive conjoint work. This approach appreciates the value of flexibility where individual treatment and conjoint treatment are part of an integrated plan, when necessary.
Wendy Behary, MSW, LCSW | Click here for information about Wendy T. Behary
Informed by the science-based model, Schema Therapy, along with other proven models for treating couples, there is some consensus that core unmet emotional needs can lead to maladaptive life themes (schemas) and self-defeating coping behaviors. Schema chemistry can play an important role in partner selection, for example, choosing someone who may replicate a familiar experience with a parent or other significant caregiver, or someone who appears to fill a longstanding void — often resulting in longings and needs that go unfulfilled and schema triggering, conflict escalations, detachment, and violations of trust, create deeper fractures in attachment and intimacy.
Dealing with issues of narcissism in the intimate relationship poses an even greater challenge in the treatment room, where the narcissist's typical devaluing, approval-seeking, entitled, controlling, "victim/martyr," and passive-aggressive reactions and behaviors, are often paired with a partner who is burdened by the challenges of self-doubt, self-diminishment, subjugation, and self-sacrifice. Narcissists are notorious for denial, defensiveness, devaluation, and defiantly detached reactions when confronted about their hurtful contributions to the problems in the relationship. Restoring trust and intimacy can seem like an overwhelming and insurmountable endeavor.
Unlike most other approaches to couple's treatment, schema therapy offers a protocol that does not insist on exclusive conjoint work. This approach appreciates the value of flexibility where individual treatment and conjoint treatment are part of an integrated plan, when necessary.
When One Partner Doesn't Want to Attend Couples Therapy: Working Individually in the Relational Space
Tracy Dalgleish, CPsych | Click here for information about Tracy Dalgleish
A common experience for clients is the resistance of one partner attending couples therapy, leaving individual therapists and couples therapists to navigate the relationship without the other partner in the room. Without the other partner's presence, therapists will want to tailor their interventions carefully to consider the information that they are missing given they are providing individual therapy for relationship issues. This session will provide details on the systemic perspective of change and the common negative cycles that couples get into (and how to identify the relationship pattern when it is not-so-obvious), how you can assess these cycles with one partner absent, and the clinical interventions and steps that you can take to help clients make meaningful changes within themselves and in their relationship.
Tracy Dalgleish, CPsych | Click here for information about Tracy Dalgleish
A common experience for clients is the resistance of one partner attending couples therapy, leaving individual therapists and couples therapists to navigate the relationship without the other partner in the room. Without the other partner's presence, therapists will want to tailor their interventions carefully to consider the information that they are missing given they are providing individual therapy for relationship issues. This session will provide details on the systemic perspective of change and the common negative cycles that couples get into (and how to identify the relationship pattern when it is not-so-obvious), how you can assess these cycles with one partner absent, and the clinical interventions and steps that you can take to help clients make meaningful changes within themselves and in their relationship.
Couples Therapy Intensive Course
Navigating Modern Relationships with Esther Perel, Ellyn Bader, Tammy Nelson, and more
Valued at $839.88
Register Today for Just $179.99!
Navigating Modern Relationships with Esther Perel, Ellyn Bader, Tammy Nelson, and more
Valued at $839.88
Register Today for Just $179.99!
Plus, earn up to 13.0 CE Hours included in the course tuition.
Click here for Credit details | Click here for course objectives and outline
Click here for Credit details | Click here for course objectives and outline
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Register for this intensive training course without risk. If you're not completely satisfied, give us a call at 800-844-8260.We’re that confident you'll find this learning experience to be all that's promised and more than you expected.