Treating Couples: Surmounting Challenges

This course will focus on doing effective relational work in the midst of specific challenges in couple therapy, including working with trauma, maintaining stable and cohesive relationships, healing from infidelity, addressing consensual non-monogamy, working well across cultural differences and different attachment needs.

Treating Couples: Surmounting Challenges

Couples therapy presents complexity unlike any other form of therapy, and today's couples therapists need to address increasingly difficult situations. Effective couples therapy requires clinicians to understand and address many relational challenges in an intimate context that can sometimes invite defensiveness and repetition of problematic patterns. In addition, the persistent stress of our socio-political-cultural contexts has been a strain on couples and therapists alike.

This course will focus on doing effective relational work in the midst of specific challenges including working with trauma, maintaining stable and cohesive relationships, healing from infidelity, addressing consensual non-monogamy, working well across cultural differences and different attachment needs.

We will also enhance participants' learning about the therapeutic position of a couples therapist using concepts from Internal Family Systems Therapy, Emotionally Focused Therapy, Socioculturally Attuned Couple Therapy, and other integrative models.

We will continue the series format this year to delve deeper and allow ample time for audience interaction and questions. Clinicians will gain key strategies to help advance their treatment skills and improve their effectiveness.

Who Should Attend

• Primary Care Physicians
• Specialty Physicians
• Psychologists
• Social Workers
• Counselors
• Family Therapists

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this activity, participants will be able to:

• Identify how the Internal Family Systems Model understands the primary route to healing trauma.
• Summarize the basic insights of attachment science and how they offer a map to the core interventions, and the potent change events of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) that consistently predict positive results in therapy. In addition, outline how EFT addresses depression and the echoes of trauma in distressed partners.
• Apply sociocultural attunement as a conceptual framework to assess larger context influences on relational power dynamics in couple relationships and identify ways to transform power processes.
• Identify strategies to effectively coach both betrayed and unfaithful partners to undertake specific tasks to manage intense feelings and master skills for navigating the complex road to recovery.
• Define and understand different forms of open couples relationships, including the ethical principles differentiating these romantic and sexual practices from betrayal and disloyalty.

ABMS/ACGME Competencies

This course is designed to meet the following American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) / Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Educational (ACGME) competencies:

• Patient Care and Procedural Skills
• Interpersonal and Communication Skills
• Professionalism

IOM Competencies

This course is designed to meet the following Institute of Medicine Core Competencies:

• Provide Patient-Centered Care
• Employ Evidence-Based Practice

Course Directors

Karen J. Kuc, MPH
Elizabeth G. Brenner, LICSW
Jill Harkaway, EdD

Thursday, November 9, 2023

Thursday, November 16, 2023

Thursday, November 30, 2023

Thursday, December 7, 2023

Thursday, December 14, 2023

Elizabeth Brenner, LICSW

Director, Therapy Training Boston
Supervisor, Couples and Family Therapy Program, Cambridge Health Alliance
Teaching Associate in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Private Practice, Watertown, MA

Jill Harkaway, EdD

Senior Faculty and Consultant, Couples and Family Therapy, Cambridge Health Alliance
Assistant Professor in Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Co-Director, Couples Therapy Project
Private Practice, Newton MA

Sue Johnson, EdD

Founder, Emotionally Focused Couples and Family Therapy (EFT)
Distinguished Research Professor, Alliant University (San Diego)
Professor Emeritus of Clinical Psychology, University of Ottawa
Clinical faculty, University of British Columbia’s Department of Psychiatry

Lana Kim, PhD

Program Director and Associate Professor, Marriage, Couple, & Family Therapy, Lewis & Clark College Graduate School

Jean Malpas, LMHC, LMFT

Founder, Gender & Family Project, Ackerman Institute for the Family; Private Practice, New York City

Richard Schwartz, PhD

President, IFS Institute
Teaching Associate, Harvard Medical School

Michele Weiner-Davis, MSW

Director, The Divorce Busting Center

In support of improving patient care, Harvard Medical School is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.

Physicians

The Harvard Medical School is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians. The Harvard Medical School designates this live virtual activity for a maximum of 7.50 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Psychologists

The Cambridge Health Alliance, Psychiatry Continuing Education Division, is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Cambridge Health Alliance, Psychiatry Continuing Education Division, maintains responsibility for this program and its content. This course offers 7.50 continuing education credits.

Social Workers

This program has been approved for a total of 7.5 Social Work Continuing Education hours for re-licensure, in accordance with 258 CMR. NASW-MA Chapter CE Approval Program Authorization Number D 91982-2. NY Social Workers: The Division of Continuing Education in Psychiatry at Cambridge Health Alliance is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an Approved Provider #0038 of continuing education for licensed social workers. This course has been approved for 7.50 contact hours.

Counselors

The Cambridge Health Alliance, Psychiatry Continuing Education Division, has been approved by the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) as an approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 5444. This program meets the requirements for 7.50 continuing education hours. CHA is solely responsible for all aspects of the program. This offering is also applicable for Commonwealth of Massachusetts Counseling/Allied Mental Health accreditation for 7.50 credits.

Family Therapists

This activity has been certified by New England Association for Family and Systemic Therapy on behalf of the Massachusetts Board of Registration of Allied Mental Health and Human Services Professions, for LMFT professional continuing education, Certificate #PC-041982, for a total of 7.5 contact hours. The States of CT and RI accept NBCC and NASW approval for marriage and family therapy.

Physician Assistants, Nurse Practitioners and Registered Nurses

For the purpose of recertification, the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants, the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners Certification Board and the American Nurses Credentialing Center accept AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ issued by organizations accredited by the ACCME. We would also suggest that learners check with their state licensing board to ensure they accept reciprocity with AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ for re-licensure.

Canadian Accreditation

The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada recognizes conferences and workshops held outside of Canada that are developed by a university, academy, hospital, specialty society or college as accredited group learning activities.

European Accreditation

The American Medical Association (AMA) has an agreement of mutual recognition of continuing medical education (CME) credit with the European Union of Medical Specialties (UEMS). Additional information regarding this agreement may be found here: https://www.uems.eu/areas-of-expertise/cme-cpd/eaccme

Disclosure Policy

In accord with the disclosure policy of the Medical School as well as standards set forth by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), course planners, speakers, and content reviewers have been asked to disclose any relationships they have to companies whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. In addition, faculty have been asked to list any off-label uses of pharmaceuticals and/or devices for investigational or non-FDA approved purposes that they plan to discuss.

Disclaimer

CME activities accredited by Harvard Medical School are offered solely for educational purposes and do not constitute any form of certification of competency. Practitioners should always consult additional sources of information and exercise their best professional judgement before making clinical decisions of any kind.

Note: AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ is calculated based on submission of a preliminary agenda and may be subject to change.

Tuition for Treating Couples: Surmounting Challenges is listed below. You may register through our secure online environment and will receive an email confirmation upon receipt of your payment. Electronic syllabus and access to recordings for 30 days after the course are included.

At the end of the registration process, a $10 non-refundable processing fee will be added to your registration. Refunds, less an administrative fee of $75, will be issued for all cancellations received at least two weeks prior to the start of the course. Refund requests must be made in our secure online system or by email. “No shows” are subject to the full course fee.

Course Tuition

Course Registration - Treating Couples: Surmounting Challenges

Physician (MD/DO)

$250.00 / ($225 if registered by Wednesday, October 11, 2023)

Nurse (RN/APRN)

$195.00 / ($175 if registered by Wednesday, October 11, 2023)

Resident/Fellow

$195.00 / ($175 if registered by Wednesday, October 11, 2023)

Allied Health Professional / Other

$195.00 / ($175 if registered by Wednesday, October 11, 2023)

Tuition includes electronic syllabus.