“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”
Carl Jung
Paul Henderson BSc., FACCPH, Author, Founder of UKAIT
Welcome to this CPD course on Couples’ Counselling. My name is Paul Henderson and should you need any help please do not hesitate to contact me on tutor@ukait.org. When you have completed the course, please inform me via this email address and state clearly the name you would like on your Certifcate. I will then email your certificate to you.
Read the information below then use the menu at the side or bottom of the page to navigate through the rest of the course. Please note: you may have to use the ‘expand all‘ button below to see all the topics. The course is worth 25 CPD hours. You have 180 days to complete the course.
Couples’ Counselling
When we aren’t getting what we need from our relationships, we can lose track of not only the relationship we thought we had, but who and where we are as individuals. When things are not going well with the person you are closest to and most intimate with, there may well be a loss of confidence which can spill over into other areas of your life.
Perhaps you are bored in your relationship or fed up with constantly bickering with your partner. Maybe there is a crisis point that has to be addressed: an affair or betrayal of trust; differing sex drives or needs; money problems; issues with children, parenting or in blending families. It may simply be that there is something missing in the relationship that you can’t quite put your finger on but that you want to try to resolve.
Couples therapists often employ an integrative approach to treatment, using techniques from different therapeutic modalities.
Here are some of the strategies a couples’ therapist might employ:
- Getting to know your Client: The therapist creates a sense of safety by getting to know the couple. They work actively and collaboratively with the couple, helping them to gain a deeper insight into the dynamics and underpinnings of their relationship.
- Identifying feelings: The therapist helps the couple identify their authentic feelings and verbalise them to each other.
- Exploring the past: Couples therapy can involve exploring the past, since that can help people better understand their fears, motivations, and behaviours in a relationship. It can also help address unresolved conflicts that affect the equilibrium of the relationship..
- Focusing on solutions: A therapist will help the couple to resolve issues, correct negative behaviour patterns, and focus on positive aspects of the relationship.
- Teaching skills: Couples therapy often involves educating your clients in subjects such as anger management, problem solving, and conflict resolution. The aim is to equip the couple with the tools that help to deal with issues as they emerge.
What might be talked about in relationship counselling?
Couples therapy can give a couple the opportunity to discuss and resolve issues related to several aspects of their relationship, which can include:
- Roles in the relationship: Couples therapy can help examine the roles a couple play in the relationship, and identify unhealthy dynamics; it can also help address differences in expectations.
- Beliefs and values: Couples therapy can help a couple to discuss beliefs, values, and religious sentiments, and the implications of these aspects on their daily lives.
- Finances: Finances can be a major source of conflict in relationships. Couples therapy can help promote open dialogue and transparency around income and spending habits.
- Time spent together: Couples can address issues that have been sabotaging their time together. They can discuss activities that they enjoy doing together and devise ways to make the time they spend together more enjoyable.
- Children: They can discuss issues surrounding their children, resolving any differences of opinion, worries and concerns. It can also help with stressors such as difficulty conceiving or adopting children.
- Familial relationships: Couples therapy can help with resolving conflicts with other family members, like parents, children, and siblings.
- Sex and intimacy: Issues related to sex and intimacy, or infidelity, can be discussed in a safe space.
- Health issues: Physical or mental health illnesses can be a fundamental source of disruption in a relationship. Couples therapy can help with the stress these put on a relationship.
- External stressors: Therapy can also help a couple to deal with conflicts caused by external factors, like work, for instance, that can put stress on relationships.
In this course we will explore three different couples’ therapy models. In addition, we will introduce you to attachment theory to lay the foundation for Emotionally Focused Therapy. They are listed below. where appropriate, please use the ‘expand‘ button to view topics contained within the modules.
COURSE MODULES
- Relationship Fits – The unconscious dynamics of relationships
- John Gottman’s Sound Relationship House
- Attachment Theory
- Emotionally Focused Couples’ Therapy
Details of each model can be found below…..
RELATIONSHIP FITS
Relationship fits is a model that looks at the unconsious dynamics of relationships.
- Why are you attracted to your partner?
- Why do you gravitate towards your friends
- Why do you gravitate towards certain people and repel others?
These questions can be answered in a superficial manner, but underlying all relatioships and friendships are unconscious dynamics that determine the friends and relationships we choose.
In all there are five fits:
- Positive Mirror Image
- Negative Mirror Image
- Opposites
- Insecure with Insecure
- Unrelsoved Childhood Issues
ATTACHMENT THEORY
Attachment theory is psychological, evolutionary and ethological theory concerning relationships between humans. The most important tenet is that young children need to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for normal social and emotional development. The theory was formulated by psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby.
Within attachment theory, infant behaviour associated with attachment is primarily the seeking of proximity to an attachment figure in stressful situations. Infants become attached to adults who are sensitive and responsive in social interactions with them, and who remain as consistent caregivers for some months during the period from about six months to two years of age. During the latter part of this period, children begin to use attachment figures (familiar people) as a secure base to explore from and return to. Parental responses lead to the development of patterns of attachment; these, in turn, lead to internal working models which will guide the individual’s feelings, thoughts and expectations in later relationships Separation anxiety or grief following the loss of an attachment figure is considered to be a normal and adaptive response for an attached infant. These behaviours may have evolved because they increase the probability of survival of the child.
Research by developmental psychologist Mary Ainsworth in the 1960s and 70s underpinned the basic concepts, introduced the concept of the “secure base” and developed a theory of a number of attachment patterns in infants: secure attachment, avoidant attachment and anxious attachment A fourth pattern, disorganized attachment, was identified later. In the 1980s, the theory was extended to attachments in adults. Other interactions may be construed as including components of attachment behaviour; these include peer relationships at all ages, romantic and sexual attraction and responses to the care needs of infants or the sick and elderly.
EMOTION-FOCUSED COUPLES’ THERAPY THEORY
In this approach to treatment, the therapist and the person in therapy collaborate in an active process. Both are viewed as equal contributors. The person in treatment, not the therapist, is seen as the person most capable of interpreting their emotional experience.
EFT is founded in the idea that emotions should be used to guide healthy, meaningful lives. Its theory is based on a scientific inquiry into the human emotional experience. Scientific study of human emotion has provided information about:
- How emotions are produced
- The importance of emotions to human functioning
- How emotions are related to thought and behavior
Emotion schemes is the core concept of EFT. It was developed largely from these theories of human emotion. Emotion schemes are models that outline how emotion can:
- Be experienced physically
- Cause physiologic changes
- Influence thinking
- Guide future action
EFT helps people both accept and change their personal emotion schemes.
TECHNIQUES USED IN EMOTION-FOCUSED THERAPY
EFT sessions typically centres around the development of two key skills. These are:
- Arriving at one’s emotions through increased awareness and acceptance.
- Learning to transform emotions and better use the information they provide to avoid negative or harmful behaviors or other effects of certain emotions.
Therapists practicing this method take a compassionate, non-judgmental, and reflective approach to listening and questioning. This allows the person in therapy to come to a better understanding of their emotions. Then, various therapeutic techniques known as emotion coaching are utilized. These help people learn new ways to use healthy emotions to guide their actions. Emotion coaching may further help people transform and move on from challenging emotions.
Initial sessions of therapy focus on helping people arrive at emotions. One or more of the following goals are often included in each session:
- Become more aware of emotions
- Learn to welcome, allow, and regulate emotions
- Learn to describe emotions clearly and in detail
- Increase awareness of the multiple layers of emotional experiences and learn to identify the most direct reaction
The next phase of treatment focuses on leaving. It may include the following goals:
- Evaluate whether emotions are helpful or unhelpful in various situations
- Learn to use helpful emotions to guide action
- Identify the source of unhelpful emotions
- Learn to change unhelpful emotions
- Develop alternative, healthy ways of coping with situations that often elicit maladaptive emotions
- Form personal scripts that help challenge the destructive thoughts that may be associated with unhelpful or maladaptive emotions
EFT is generally thought to have been successful when the person(s) in treatment have an increased awareness of their emotional experience. They may also have an improved ability to regulate emotions and be better able to transform unhelpful emotions.
JOHN’S GOTTMAN’S SOUND RELATIONSHIP HOUSE THERAPY
Dr. John Gottman introduced the concept that a foundationally secure partnership is like a house. It has weight-bearing walls and levels that each person builds upon to create a sturdy bond. He called this structure the Sound Relationship House, and for more than 30 years, it’s given countless couples the tools they need to have happy healthy relationships.
Floor 1: Build Love Maps
Floor 2: Share Fondness and Admiration
Floor 3: Turn Towards
Floor 4: The Positive Perspective
Floor 5: Manage Conflict
Floor 6: Make Life Dreams Come True
Floor 7: Create Shared Meaning
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