The Essentials of Couple Therapy - Part 2

Inviting each partner out of the fusion

This workshop is specifically designed for those who have completed The Essentials of Couple Therapy Part 1 and who are keen to refocus or progress their efforts to apply a systems framework to working with couples.

Bowen proposed that emotional fusion (or loss of "I" position) reaches its greatest intensity in the togetherness of an intimate couple relationship and that it is the anxiety generated in this fusion, that is at the core of relational disruption and therapeutic work. In this workshop we will follow up and extend the concepts from part 1 with a more detailed examination of the emotional processes that occur in couple relationships which in turn, serve as key mechanisms for symptom development i.e. distance, conflict, reciprocal functioning and problematic triangles.

Alongside the clarification and extension of theory this workshop will prioritise application and the workshopping of essential skills required to work effectively with couples experiencing difficulties. Additionally, because most students of the ‘Bowen Theory’ report that the absorption of these complex ideas occurs incrementally and through experience, there will be opportunity for discussion and review of participant’s efforts to apply the ideas and to workshop any difficulties encountered.

Program:

     Brief review and clarification of key elements of theory from part 1. Opportunity for participants feedback on efforts (successful and not so successful!!) to apply or use any of the ideas. Discussion and workshopping of hurdles and difficulties encountered in attempts to apply a Bowen Family Systems framework

     Understanding the couple as an emotional system - the context of extended family relationships as a prelude and backdrop to the couple relational processes. Tools for assessing and exposing the key components of emotional process and strategies for intervening in entrenched patterns and symptoms. This will include understanding the conflict cycle and over and under-functioning.

     Triangles - key theoretical ideas. The inevitability of triangles as an anxiety regulator. Defining and drawing out key interlocking triangles in couple relationships. Working to reverse the flow of key triangles - if, when and how?

     Case study and demonstration - working with common relational triangles

     Key change interventions part 2: experiments, de-triangling, coaching and teaching.

     Managing yourself as a therapist revisited: keeping yourself detriangled from the couple’s emotional process in the intensity of the anxiety field.