Introduction to Current Trends in Couple Therapy: Integrative Relational Perspective

Couple therapy as a field has developed to include multiple models of therapy. In spite of significant differences, the integration of some models of couple therapies and techniques has been practiced over the years with great success. This course will review the history of couple therapy, introduce the psychoanalytic couple therapy model, and focus on four of the current influential couple therapists and theorists; John Gottman, Dan Wile, Sue Johnson, and Esther Perel. We will explore models of aggression and conflict in couples as well as love and sexuality. Lastly, a purely behavioral, non-psychoanalytic, approach to the issue of problematic substance use in couples will be presented as a contrast. Couple therapy, to quote Sue Johnson, is “for people from all walks of life and all cultures; everyone on this planet has the same basic need for connection”. The models and principles that will be presented apply to couples independent of their gender identifications, sexual orientations, race, culture, and even individual diagnoses.

Learning Objectives

I. Understand models of couple therapy, how they converge and differ.

II. Learn clinical approaches to the management of aggression and conflict in intimate relationships.

III. Learn approaches to the enhancement of secure attachment and sexual expression in couples.

IV. Learn a systematic evidence-based behavioral approach to problematic substance use in couples.

Michal Seligman, Psy.D. is a clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst, and couple therapist. Dr. Seligman has been in practice for 30 years. She is a graduate of the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. Her work with couples integrates psychoanalytic ideas with the clinical observations and techniques of contemporary couple therapists. Dr. Seligman specializes in the treatment of addictions and incorporates behavioral therapy for couples struggling with addictions.