Treating Complicated Couples:

Successful Approaches to Challenging Cases

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Working with couples can be an exciting and rich experience. However, it often includes repetitive battling with clients; complaints that you favor or don't understand one or both partners; the sense of being watched and judged; and, ultimately, unnecessary treatment failures. This intermediate course presents a powerful set of tools with which to address the difficult issues that most couples present. Participants will also learn the inaccurate assumptions behind many popular clinical models; understand what keeps them from productively using the experience of being triangulated, and other client resistances; acquire strategies to help individual partners make progress within the couples sessions; and ways of working with boundaries, intimacy, and risk-taking that make couples therapy deeper, longer-lasting, and more satisfying for therapists and couples alike.

TESTIMONIALS

Here are some comments about Dr. Klein's past programs:

"The speaker is very entertaining and informed."—MFT, Portland, Oregon, February 2, 2003

"We can always count on you to keep the audience laughing while they are learning."—Mary Riemersma, Executive Director, California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists

"Dr. Klein's dynamic presentation style, clear expertise, and winning sense of humor quickly win over even difficult audiences. His ratings are consistently high."—National Association of Social Workers

"Your superb program covered a wide variety of issues in a practical, useful way, and your humor made the experience even more enjoyable."—Stanford University Medical School

"Those attending your training gave it an excellent rating. They found it entertaining and informative, and we are very pleased." —Idaho Psychological Association

TOPICS

• Power Dynamics in Intimate Relationships
• Handling High-Voltage, Angry Couples
• Enhancing Trust in Couples in Pain
• Bringing Historical Hurts & Betrayals to a Close
• Existential Issues in Couples Counseling
• The Myth of “Poor Communication”
• Common Mistakes in Couples Therapy
• Transference and Countertransference
• Triangulation
• Gender & Sexuality Issues in Couples Work
• How Therapists Unwittingly Collude with Clients' Disempowerment

GOALS

At the conclusion of this program you should be better able to:

• Contain couples' anger, and reduce their acting out.
• Understand developmental stages in trust, commitment, and communication problems.
• Use an existential perspective in explaining couples' and individuals' dynamics.
• Diagnose and defuse power struggles.

SPEAKER PROFILE

Marty Klein, Ph.D. has been a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (#MFC 15392) and Sex Therapist for 24 years. His innovative therapeutic approach integrates psychodynamic psychotherapy, cognitive/linguistic reframing, existential perspectives, sociological insight, and a liberal dash of humor. His five books have been published in nine languages, and his publications also include over 100 articles, the provocative electronic newsletter Sexual Intelligence, and a website that gets 20,000 hits per month. He has appeared on virtually every national talk show; his wit and expertise also make him a frequently quoted expert in places like Newsweek, USA Today, and even Ann Landers. He has presented over 600 keynote speeches, training programs, and popular lectures, and has trained professionals in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Dr. Klein has been honored for Lifetime Achievement by the California Association of Marriage & Family Therapists (CAMFT).