Full Course Description

Building Capacity for Attachment, Differentiation, and Ongoing Intimacy

Helping couples communicate better is no longer enough. In this opening keynote, Dr. Bader challenges clinicians to shift from managing relationship symptoms to developing each partner's emotional capacities — building the foundation for sustained change. You'll leave with a sharpened clinical lens and practical tools for creating meaningful growth in even the most entrenched relational patterns.

Distinguish symptom-focused approaches from developmental ones and know when each is warranted
Identify clinical indicators of limited emotional capacity — dysregulation, polarization, conflict avoidance
Apply targeted interventions that build partner capacity based on observed relational dynamics

Program Information

Objectives

Delineate symptom-focused (e.g., communication skills training) and developmental approaches in couples therapy.
Describe the role of attachment and differentiation at different stages of couples development.
Identify clinical indicators of limited capacity (e.g., emotional dysregulation, polarization, conflict avoidance, and personalization) in either partner.
Demonstrate how to target the building of emotional capacity in partners based on observed relational dynamics.

Outline

What Couples Therapy Entails and What It Means to Think Developmentally

Shift from managing relationship problems to developing each partner
Attachment and differentiation are both essential frameworks
Couples development moves through predictable stages: Symbiosis → Differentiation
Differentiation builds gradually — it is not a skill mastered in a few sessions
Risks and Limitations

Why Relationships Fail and Why Therapists Get Stuck

Couples stall when partners stay arrested in Symbiosis or when trauma goes unrepaired
Therapists default to repetitive, symptom-focused interventions that don't create lasting change
Clinical indicators of limited capacity: dysregulation, polarization, conflict avoidance, personalization

Using Differentiation-Based Interventions to Build Emotional Capacity

Target specific capacities: listening without personalizing, empathy, open initiation
Set developmental goals focused on self-growth, not partner change
Lead with direction — assess where couples are stuck and intervene accordingly

Target Audience

Psychologists
Social Workers
Counselors
Marriage & Family Therapists
Physicians

Copyright : 10/08/2026

Attachment Injury and Trauma Activation in Couples

When couples arrive flooded, guarded, and reactive, what looks like conflict is often fear. Drawing from IFS, attachment theory, and relational neuroscience, Wayne Baker shows how old wounds get activated in present-day relational conflict — and how therapists can respond in ways that reduce escalation and restore safety. Leave with immediately applicable tools for your most distressed and trauma-impacted couples.

Recognize trauma-driven attachment protest underlying reactive, guarded, or withdrawn couple presentations
Apply IFS-informed parts work to de-escalate conflict and increase emotional safety
Use neuroscience-based interventions to help couples shift from survival responses toward secure connection

Program Information

Objectives

Differentiate ordinary relational conflict from trauma-driven attachment alarm in couples’ sessions.

Identify verbal, emotional, and embodied signs of protective survival responses in couple dynamics.
Apply Utilize IFS-informed, embodied, and neuroscience-based interventions to actively reduce escalation and to facilitate the development of a “safe enough” both within and outside therapy session, such as guiding partners to identify and verbalize an activated part in real time before re-engaging in dialogue.
Use shame-reducing language and sequencing to help couples move from protection to greater presence and connection.

Outline

Understanding Attachment Alarm in Couples

Distinguish conflict from threat
The attachment alarm sequence: cue, meaning, activation, protection, cycle
How developmental trauma, attachment injury, and relational pain shape reactivity

Recognizing Protective Survival Responses

Common protective responses in couples include pursuit, shutdown, withdrawal, criticism, and over-explaining.
Embodied signs of activation: breath, posture, gaze, cadence, tone, urgency, and collapse
The role of therapist self-awareness and the therapist’s body as part of the field

Interventions That Help Couples Move from Protection to Presence

Using embodied tracking to slow escalation
Help partners unblend from protective responses
Shame-reducing and non-pathologizing language
Create safe enough connection for honesty, vulnerability, and meaningful contact

Clinical Application, Limitations, and Risks

Practical considerations when working with highly activated or trauma-impacted couples
Limitations of the research and potential risks
Risks of moving too quickly, forcing vulnerability, over-interpreting, or using techniques beyond the couple’s window of tolerance

Target Audience

Psychologists
Social Workers
Counselors
Marriage & Family Therapists
Physicians

Copyright : 10/08/2026

Micro-Moves in Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFT)

Couples work can be invigorating — and it can bring you to your knees. This skills-focused workshop distills EFT into moment-by-moment decision points, equipping therapists to stay on target through reactivity, blocks, and misattunement. You’ll leave with a concrete set of “what works” interventions ready to apply in your very next session.

Identify predictable therapeutic blocks and use the CPR process to work through them
Recognize key attachment signals and harness them to create lasting change events
Apply specific micro-move interventions to de-escalate conflict and build relational responsiveness

Program Information

Objectives

Identify the three key attachment systems of romantic love and their role in shaping negative interactional cycles
Analyze common therapeutic impasses in couple treatment and the protective strategies that sustain relational distress
Apply the CPR process and specific micro-move interventions to address blocks, interruptions, and de-escalation in session
Summarize the three change events in EFT and the conditions that foster a positive cycle of relational responsiveness

Outline

Introduction to Attachment Theory in Practice

Overview of EFT: theoretical foundations and evidence base
The three key attachment systems underlying romantic love (Attachment, Caregiving, Sexuality)
Recognizing attachment signals and bids for connection in the room
How negative interactional cycles form and are maintained
Risks and Limitations

Working with Blocks, Defenses, and Interruptions

Identifying common therapeutic impasses in couple treatment
Understanding protective strategies: their function, logic, and cost
The CPR (Catch it, Process it, Redirect it) process for working through blocks
Micro-moves for taking charge of session and staying oriented when a session escalates or shuts down
Responding to interruptions without losing relational thread

Getting Specific with Interventions

The intervention toolkit: evocative questioning, heightening, empathic conjecture, and reframing
De-escalation micro-moves and the test for successful de-escalation
Building relational responsiveness moment by moment by meeting unmet needs

Celebrating the Process of Change – Tying It All Together

The three change events in EFT: de-escalation, withdrawer re-engagement, blamer softening
Consolidating shifts: how to name and anchor change in session
The positive cycle of responsiveness: what it looks and sounds like
Integration and reflection: translating skills to your next session

Target Audience

Psychologists
Social Workers
Counselors
Marriage & Family Therapists
Physicians

Copyright : 10/08/2026

When Intimacy Feels Unsafe

Childhood trauma leaves a lasting imprint — not just on individuals, but on their intimate relationships. Dr. Fisher explores how early attachment failures live in the body and get activated by the people we love most. Through lecture, video, and clinical examples, you’ll gain trauma-informed strategies to help couples shift from reactive blame cycles toward curiosity, co-regulation, and genuine repair.

Articulate the neurobiological and psychological effects of traumatic attachment on couple dynamics
Implement mindfulness-based interventions to disrupt habitual trauma-driven relational patterns
Use somatic techniques to help partners regulate intense reactions to closeness and distance

Program Information

Objectives

Discuss the neurobiological and psychological effects of traumatic experience on attachment
Implement mindfulness-based interventions to increase client awareness of these effects
Utilize practice of new patterns to increase distress tolerance

Outline

The legacy of traumatic attachment

When a parent is the source of danger and the solution
“Disorganized attachment”
Internal conflicts connected to closeness and distance

Implicit emotional memory is not recognizable as memory

Couples evoke each other’s trauma-related feeling memories
Their responses reflect how they instinctively learned to survive
Confused by how they feel, each blames the other

The couples therapist must stimulate clients’ curiosity and mindfulness

Disrupting their habitual patterns is often necessary
Practicing new ways of relating to each other in session
Each attending to their own nonverbal communication

Teaching couples somatic interventions for regulating their interaction

Somatic interventions disrupt the tendency to argue with each other
They change how it feels to be in relationship
Using somatic techniques for regulating each partner’s emotional responses
Using somatic interventions for tolerating closeness and distance

Limitations of the research and potential risks

Target Audience

Psychologists
Social Workers
Counselors
Marriage & Family Therapists
Physicians

Copyright : 10/08/2026

Treating Betrayal Trauma

Betrayal is a core dynamic of narcissistic relationships – breaches of trust, emotional abandonment, infidelity, chronic deceit, emotional abuse. These chronic betrayals, occurring within a relationship that is meant to be predicated on trust, connection, and attachment, result not just in significant psychological fallout for our clients, but also a loss of trust in other people, the world at large, and themselves. Understanding the framework of betrayal trauma theory, and the role of betrayal in narcissistic relationships is a KEY to successfully working with these clients. It means expanding our definition of betrayal past just lying and cheating, but in not meeting the fundamental roles and responsibilities of a relationship. This program will open up your understanding of Dr. Jennifer Freyd’s models of betrayal trauma theory and betrayal blindness and apply them to optimizing antagonism-informed work with clients experiencing the harmful impacts of narcissistic relationships.

Program Information

Objectives

Utilize the tenets of betrayal trauma theory with clients experiencing narcissistic relationships and antagonistic relational stress.
Integrate the model of “betrayal blindness” to understand dynamics such as trauma bonding, selective recall, and client difficulties in creating coherent narratives about antagonistic relationships.
Differentiate betrayal trauma from other forms of trauma to validate and stabilize clients who have experienced multiple breaches of trust in various relationships.

Outline

Betrayal and Why It Matters for Work with Clients Experiencing Narcissistic Relationships

Betrayal trauma theory
Apply theory to clients experiencing narcissistic abuse/antagonistic relational stress (NA/ARS)
Betrayal, attachment, social connections, and status quo
Range of behaviors and relational issues that can be framed as betrayal

Why Narcissistic Relationships Are So “Betrayal-Heavy”

Narcissism, narcissistic behaviors and relational dynamics, and betrayal
Subjective experience of clients in these relationships
“Habituation” to betrayal that happens over time in these relationships

“Betrayal Blindness”, “Trauma Bonding”, and Other Dynamics Keeping Clients “Stuck”

Define betrayal blindness and trauma bonding
Who gets stuck in these relationships
Strategies to validate clients and help “unstick” them from schemas that result in self-blame

Research Limitations and Considerations for Treatment

Target Audience

Psychologists
Social Workers
Counselors
Marriage & Family Therapists
Physicians

Copyright : 10/09/2026

Why “Communication Skills” Fail

When skilled couples still stay stuck, the issue is rarely communication. This session uncovers how disruptions in consent and differentiation drive the most persistent relational challenges — conflict, withdrawal, desire discrepancy, and disconnection. Clinicians will walk away with a deeper clinical framework and concrete language to move clients from surface-level skills toward authentic relational change.

Recognize consent dynamics embedded in everyday relational patterns
Understand how differentiation directly shapes desire, boundaries, and connection
Apply interventions that move clients from communication techniques to deeper relational work

Program Information

Objectives

Define the key elements of relational consent.
Summarize how consent can support differentiation to deepen relational work.
Formulate intervention strategies based on a case example that address disruptions in consent and support increased differentiation.

Outline

Reframing “Stuck Couples”

Explore common breakdowns in couples communication
- Making decisions
- Violations of trust
- Resentment blocks
Discuss examples of where couples therapy approaches fall short
Present the opportunity to reframe stuck couples from a consent lens

Defining Relational Consent

What do we mean when we talk about relational consent?
So much more than consent to sex
Key elements of relational consent
Why consent matters in relational therapy

Differentiation and Consent

Review differentiation (reference Ellyn’s presentation yesterday)
Story about differentiation and its connection to relational consent practices
How consent practices can elevate opportunities for differentiation

Limitations of the research and potential risks

How we talk about “consent” in Psychotherapy → limited to informed consent practices or about negotiating sexual encounters
The most robust research lives with fields that are seen as “woo-woo” or less legitimate
Why consent is universal and applicable to relational therapy

Clinical Integration and Case Example

Handout: Consent continuums (compliment differentiation continuums)
Case Example:
- Guiding consent practices
- Consent to support differentiation

Target Audience

Psychologists
Social Workers
Counselors
Marriage & Family Therapists
Physicians

Copyright : 10/09/2026

Neuroaffirming Couples Therapy

Neurodivergent couples bring unique relational strengths — and unique vulnerabilities shaped by lived experiences of masking, misattunement, and chronic stress. This clinically rich workshop equips therapists with neuroaffirming tools grounded in Gottman’s Sound Relationship House, exploring ADHD, ASD, attachment, and sexuality with a strengths-based lens. Leave equipped to offer neurodivergent and mixed-neurotype couples genuine hope.

Apply core neuroaffirming principles immediately within your existing clinical practice
Understand how ADHD and ASD impact adult attachment styles and relationship patterns
Use ND-friendly emotional and sensory regulation tools to support co-regulation and hard conversations

Program Information

Objectives

Apply at least two core elements of neuroaffirming practice within their existing clinical work with neurodivergent and mixed-neurotype couples
Articulate the emotional and relational legacy of ADHD and ASD and its impact on attachment and relationship patterns
Apply elements of Gottman's Sound Relationship House through a neurodivergent-affirming clinical lens
Identify one unique element of sexuality for neurodivergent couples and its implications for clinical practice

Outline

Introduction

About me
Disclosures
Limitations of Research and Potential Risks

Why do we need this presentation?

Gaps in research and care
Why a neurotypical framework is insufficient
Surge in adult diagnoses

Neuroaffirming Couples Care

Neuroaffirming principles and how to apply them in session
Exploring ableism, the glorification of neurotypicality, and their impact
ADHD/ASD as context, content, and process
Cultural considerations & intersectionality

Review of ADHD & ASD

Similarities and differences
How they show up in relationships

The Emotional & Relational Legacy of Neurodivergence

How ADHD & ASD impact emotional regulation
- Research findings, implications, and limitations
- Notes on masking
Research on attachment and neurodivergence
- Findings, implications, and limitations
Impacts on ableism and neuronormativity
- Stress, masking, burnout
How this shows up, why it matters, and how to discuss in therapy

Gottman’s Sound Relationship House & Neurodivergent Couples

Gottman’s research on healthy vs. Maladaptive partnerships
- Neurodivergent examples
- Limitations

Sexuality and Neurodiversity

What the research says

Findings and limitations

Implications for therapy and Interventions

Neuroaffirming adjustments to interventions

How to take a neuroaffirming approach to common couples therapy interventions – differences you might see or pivots you might make
- Naming and embracing neurodivergence
- “You, Me, We” approach (instead of “You vs. Me”)
- Speaker/listerner dialogue
- Making and receiving bids for connection
- Discussions about balancing roles and mental load
- Approaches to co-regulation
- A reminder of examples of healthy boundaries

What does this mean for me, the therapist?

A summary of things to keep in mind
How to stay engaged in this work

Closing Note & Q&A

Target Audience

Psychologists
Social Workers
Counselors
Marriage & Family Therapists
Physicians

Copyright : 10/09/2026

Healing Trauma Through Transformative Dialogue

Couples often begin therapy with the complaint, "We can't communicate." Feelings of frustration, disappointment, and despair often lie behind this common problem, along with a mistaken belief that communication techniques will easily restore love and connection. But true healing and reconnection requires something deeper: embracing differentiation. In this workshop, you’ll explore this essential developmental stage and identify the emotional capacities required for partners to relate to each other clearly—not as idealized extensions of themselves, but as separate, unique individuals. You’ll learn to help couples:

Identify where they are in the developmental model
Move through the challenging terrain of the differentiation process
Draw on practical strategies to increase genuine understanding, respect, and appreciation
Transform relational trauma into opportunities and growth

Program Information

Objectives

Analyze the role that differentiation plays in the facilitation of significant personal growth for each partner.
Utilize developmental continuums to help partners progressively build empathy, improve listening skills, and confidently initiate challenging conversations.
Define differentiation and explain how embracing differentiation facilities significant personal growth for each partner.
Determine the impact that unresolved trauma has on a couple’s developmental progress.
Formulate effective questions partners can use during emotionally charged conversations.

Outline

Understanding the Communication Myth

Why “we can’t communicate” is rarely about technique
Moving beyond surface-level fixes

The Role of Differentiation in Couple Therapy

Defining differentiation and its role in relational development
Emotional capacities required for authentic connection

Mapping the Developmental Journey

Using developmental continuums in assessment and treatment
Identifying where each partner is in their growth process

Trauma’s Impact on Relational Development

How unresolved trauma disrupts differentiation and connection

Facilitating Transformative Dialogue

Strategies and sample questions for emotionally charged conversations
Supporting partners in building empathy, respect, and emotional presence

Clinical Application and Integration

Practical tools for helping couples grow through conflict
Therapist stance

Risks and Limitations

Discussion of the accuracy and utility of the materials presented, research limitations, and the severe and common risks associated with the content of the program

Target Audience

Psychologists
Social Workers
Counselors
Marriage & Family Therapists
Physicians

Sex Therapy for Relationship Therapists

If you work with couples, you’re already doing sex therapy — consciously or not. Dr. Nelson challenges therapists to stop treating sexuality as a specialty and start recognizing it as the relational pulse point it is. This provocative, clinically grounded session helps therapists overcome avoidance, build erotic fluency, and integrate sex into couples work in ways that unlock deeper honesty and lasting change.

Identify sexual dynamics as expressions of relational patterns — not isolated bedroom problems
Differentiate sexual dysfunction as pathology from sexual disconnection as a relational process
Apply integrative sex therapy interventions within your existing couples therapy framework

Program Information

Objectives

Identify common sexual dynamics that reflect underlying relational patterns in couples.
Differentiate between sexual dysfunction as pathology and sexual disconnection as a relational process.
Utilize integrative sex therapy interventions within a couples therapy framework.

Outline

Reframing the Role of Sex in Couples Therapy

Moving from “specialty” to integrated model of sex + relationship work
Identifying how sexual dynamics reflect power, attachment, and differentiation
Recognizing avoidance of sex talk as a clinical blind spot
Language shifts that invite erotic conversation without shame

Assessment and Clinical Entry Points

How to assess desire discrepancy, avoidance, and erotic disconnection
Mapping relational patterns through the sexual relationship
Differentiating between dysfunction, developmental phase, and relational impasse
Using curiosity-based inquiry to reduce defensiveness and increase disclosure

Interventions for Erotic and Relational Repair

Techniques to increase presence, regulation, and embodied awareness
Supporting couples in navigating difference without collapsing into compromise
Working with shame, performance anxiety, and sexual narratives
Facilitating conversations around affairs, compulsivity, and erotic identity

Integration, Ethics, and Clinical Considerations

Managing therapist discomfort, bias, and countertransference around sex
Cultural, relational, and identity-based considerations in erotic work
Helping couples co-create a sexual relationship that reflects current values
Limitations of the research and potential risks

Target Audience

Psychologists
Social Workers
Counselors
Marriage & Family Therapists
Physicians

Post-Infidelity Couple Therapy

Few topics spike our anxiety and judgment like infidelity. But one of the realities of living in the digital age is that it's easier than ever to cheat—and easier than ever to get caught. Betrayal has the power to rock the very foundation of a relationship: partners likely feel lost, overwhelmed with emotions, and unsure of their next steps. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to effectively support both the betrayed and betraying partners and navigate common barriers to healing. Using a compassionate, multi-stage approach, we’ll explore different skills to help couples restore trust, foster emotional repair, and move toward post-traumatic growth and renewed connection after betrayal. You’ll also learn:

Reflection questions to ask both partners
How to help partners cope with flashbacks and intrusive thoughts
How our culture shapes our views of infidelity
How to help partners decide whether, when, and how to talk about the infidelity with family and friends

Program Information

Objectives

Summarize the nature of infidelity, the impact on a couple, and how to work with infidelity in couple therapy.
Identify barriers to restoration of trust after a breach and whether or how a couple can
Formulate how to create post-traumatic growth in individuals and couples after infidelity, leveraging the crisis as an opportunity for personal and relational growth.

Outline

Big picture of infidelity and working with infidelity in couple therapy
Tending to the betrayed partner
A stage-based model for recovery from infidelity in couple therapy
Constraints to healing from infidelity
Restoration of trust in couples post-infidelity
Post-traumatic growth after the experience of infidelity
Risks and Limitations: discussion of the accuracy and utility of the materials presented, research limitations, and the severe and common risks associated with the content of the program

Target Audience

Psychologists
Social Workers
Counselors
Marriage & Family Therapists
Physicians

Restoring Trust: New Insights into Trauma & Healing After Infidelity

There aren’t too many presenting problems that de-skill therapists as quickly as affairs. Whether emotional or sexual, affairs can feel like the kryptonite of love. How do we reliably help couples stuck in the paralyzing aftermath of a romantic betrayal? In this keynote, the Gottmans will present ground-breaking research from the first-ever, six-year randomized controlled study of a treatment for couples distressed by extra-marital affairs. Therapists will be introduced to an evidence-based protocol, based on Gottman Method Couples Therapy, for supporting clients through key steps in successfully navigating the aftermath of an affair and emerge stronger, closer, and more resilient as a couple.

Program Information

Objectives

Identify the traumatic impacts of infidelity on both partners.
Apply Gottman Method interventions to help couples rebuild trust and emotional intimacy after betrayal.
Implement practical strategies and rituals that foster long-term relational resilience and prevent recurrence of betrayal in couples recovering from infidelity.

Outline

The neuroscience of betrayal and its traumatic impacts on relationships
Common emotional patterns exhibited by betrayed and betraying partners
Gottman’s latest research and limitations insights on affair-related trauma dynamics
Effective Interventions to Restore Trust
How to facilitate meaningful dialogue around betrayal and remorse using Gottman Method techniques
Managing conflict and restoring emotional intimacy after infidelity
Practical tools to build rituals of trust and renewed commitment
Strategies to prevent relapse and strengthen relationship satisfaction

Target Audience

Counselors
Marriage and Family Therapists
Social Workers
Physicians
Psychologists
Addiction Counselors

The Other AI: The Rise & Influence of Artificial Intimacy

The more our lives are guided by predictive technology, the less we are able to cope with the natural uncertainties of life. And no where 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 dis-engage 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

Program Information

Objectives

Catalogue five ways technological dependence impacts our mental and relational health.
Propose how to work with clients around navigating and becoming more comfortable with uncertainty in relationships.
Utilize key psychodynamic understandings of human relationships to intervene with couples and individuals to promote healthy relationships.

Outline

Relational anxiety as a function of technological dependence

How technology is impacting couples’ relationships

How therapists can identify and help with this kind of relational anxiety

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychotherapists
Therapists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Case Managers
Physicians
Nurses
Other Mental Health Professionals

Delivering High-Impact Relational Therapy

Authentic connection is every client’s birthright—yet trauma, shame, and rigid relational stances so often block the path. This workshop will guide you through the transformative roadmap of Relational Life Therapy (RLT) to help clients find authentic connection. You’ll discover how the integration of loving confrontation, deep trauma work, and actionable skills creates the rapid, lasting breakthroughs RLT is known for. Through live teaching and demonstrations, you’ll learn how to help clients move out of destructive cycles and into profound, sustainable intimacy. You’ll learn:

How to engage with clients through loving confrontation to interrupt destructive relational patterns
Work with trauma through a developmental lens
Equip clients with real-life relational skills that can anchor in lasting intimacy

Program Information

Objectives

Describe the three core phases of Relational Life Therapy and how they interlock to create lasting change.
Apply the principles of loving confrontation to help clients recognize and shift destructive relational stances.
Demonstrate at least two relational skills that enable clients to sustain intimacy and connection over time.

Outline

Waking Clients Up with Loving Confrontation
Interrupting toxic patterns and establishing a foundation of accountability
Guiding clients into profound inner child repair in the presence of their partner
Equipping Clients with Relational Mastery
Teaching practical skills that anchor lasting intimacy and whole-hearted connection
Risks and Limitations

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychotherapists
Therapists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Case Managers
Physicians
Nurses
Other Mental Health Professionals