Course Description

Explore and reframe the fundamental truths about predictable despair in relationships.

In this course, students will delve into the complexities of crisis within relationships, exploring personal experiences and reactions. They will learn strategies to transition from dysregulation to regulation, applying this knowledge to working with dis-regulated couples. The course will provide an in-depth understanding of the human nervous system, polyvagal theory and techniques to guide couples back to a state of regulation.

Students will also explore Imago processes aimed at fostering secure attachment and emotion regulation in insecure couple systems. They will develop insights into their own nervous systems and defense mechanisms, as well as learn about available resources to manage reactivity with couples.

Through the course, students will internalize concepts such as the Lost Self and practice techniques for claiming it. They will learn how dialogue can regulate reactivity and gain proficiency in facilitating various Imago Processes like the Goodbye, Amends, Forgiveness, and Repair Processes.

Further topics include distinguishing reactivity from responsiveness, guiding clients to move from reactivity to intentionality through letting go processes, understanding Unconscious Collusion in relationships, and examining beliefs surrounding anxiety in couples. Students will analyze interventions for dysregulation, evaluate successful and unsuccessful approaches, helping couple move through dysregulation to connection as they continue on the paths of recovery and forgiveness.

The course will also focus on the therapist’s role in establishing a safe and empathic environment for polarized couples in crisis. Students will learn about the Imago-based model of interpersonal and inner attunement for effective work with couples facing challenges.

This course will also enhance the student’s own personal and relational growth journey.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze and explore their own experience with crisis in their relationships & how they reacted to it.
• Discuss and learn different ways to move from dysregulation into regulation & how to apply that information while sitting with a dis-regulated couple.
• Explain and comprehend in depth about the human nervous system and techniques to move couples back into regulation.
• Utilize Imago processes to promote secure attachment and emotion regulation in an insecure, dis-regulated couple system.
• Formulate a deep understanding of therapists’ own nervous system and situations that trigger their defenses.
• Find and internalize an understanding of the various resources that the therapists can use when they feel themselves reactive with a couple.
• Integrate their understanding of the Lost Self & identify it in themselves and with their couple
• Practice integrating the new possibilities of claiming Lost Self
• Identify how dialogue can regulate reactivity
• Define and facilitate the various Imago Processes (Goodbye Process, Amends Process, Forgiveness Process, Repair Process).
• Recite the differences between reactivity and responsiveness
• Summarize Unconscious Collusion as a dynamic in relationships
• Review the beliefs operative when couples experience a great anxiety concerning the fears of disappointing and being disappointed.
• Practice the Dialogues of Letting Go.
• Describing effective and ineffective interventions with dysregulation.
• Describe the road to recovery and forgiveness.
• Evaluate and explore your own roads to recovery in your history.
• Explain the therapist’s role in establishing a safe and empathic structure when couples are polarized and in crisis.
• Describe the Imago-based model of interpersonal and inner attunement for working with couples in crisis.