Mindfulness Centered Couples Therapy – How to Use Mindfulness and the Body with Couples

July 13th and 27th 2024 

Mindfulness is one of the most powerful tools in couples’ psychotherapy by helping clients to step out of adversarial and into vulnerable and collaborative interactions. Through externally focused mindfulness, therapists can notice the subtle messages each partner communicates and help their clients to practice internally focused mindfulness that allows them to “act in” instead of “acting out” with each other. Working experientially, mindfully, and from an attachment perspective adds significant depth, impact and aliveness for therapist and client alike.

In this workshop, you will learn the principles and practical interventions that use present moment experience to:

● Gently access unconscious characterological organization, and
● Explore and change core interactional patterns in couples’ relationships.

Mixing didactic segments with demonstrations, experiential exercises, and actual skills practice, this training will provide both theory and techniques for practitioners to feel more confident and work more effectively with couples.

Learning Objectives

• Describe three applications of Mindfulness to couples therapy.
• Be familiar with three uses of the body in couples therapy.
• Identify and be able to name couples’ resources in the present moment.

What You Will Learn

• Specific experiential principles and techniques in couples therapy
• How to apply mindfulness with couples
• How to join deeply and create safety and support with each partner in their immediate experiences.
• Maps for assessing couples dynamics and systems, and each partner’s contributions.
• How to befriend and utilize individual defensive responses.
• How to engage each person’s innate resources.
• How to track somatic signals to access unconscious relational material.
• How to design clinical experiments that go both to the heart of the issue, and the hearts of the partners.

Who Is This For? 
This workshop is open and relevant to Hakomi Graduates, couples’ therapists and other helping professionals as well as the general public.

Faculty: Rob Fisher, MA, LMFT