CHALLENGING COUPLE THERAPY NIGHTMARES: CO-CREATING COMPELLING FUTURE REALITIES WITH COLLABORATIVE STRENGTHS-BASED BRIEF THERAPY

Where do you begin with a couple when both partners are grappling with substance abuse and other self-destructive behaviors? How do you maintain mutual respect and peace in the therapy room with high conflict couples? What is the best protocol for therapeutic action with crisis-prone couples? These are just a few of the questions and treatment dilemmas that will be addressed in this “hands-on,” practice-oriented workshop. As a result of attending this highly interactive two-day workshop, participants will be able to successfully apply the Collaborative Strengths-Based Brief Therapy approach to accomplish the following with difficult couples:

• Engage reluctant symptom-bearing partners who refuse to participate in couple therapy
• Re-engage a partner that prematurely drops out of couples therapy
• Select and craft meaningful questions that capture clients’ curiosities, untold stories, and taps their resourcefulness and inventiveness to co-create building blocks for solutions
• Conduct externalizing conversations that empower couples to conquer their oppressive difficulties
• Construct, select, and tailor-fit therapeutic experiments and rituals for each partner and their relationship
• Use time-traveling as a catalyst for change
• Use couple connection-building rituals to strengthen their relationship bond
• Use art, drama, writing, and other expressive therapy strategies
• Use couple mindfulness practices to infuse loving-kindness, compassion, peace, and harmony in the relationship
• Conduct one-person couple therapy
• Use effective harm-reduction strategies with dual substance-abusing and/or other self-destructive behavior couples
• Teach couple partners effective relapse prevention and goal-maintenance tools and strategies
• Involve key resource people from the couple’s social network to get unstuck, for crisis management, and relapse prevention purposes

The workshop format will combine information-rich didactic presentation, videotape examples, skill-building exercises, and live couple case consultations.