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AAMFT Winter
Institutes for Advanced Clinical
Training
March
4 - 8, 2009
Asheville,
North Carolina
 Advances
in Couples Therapy: Integrative Theory and Practice
Gerald R. Weeks, PhD
Practicing couple
therapy successfully is one of the most difficult and
complex, yet rewarding approaches to therapy. Couples almost
always present with the hidden agenda of “change us without
changing me.” The beginning phase of couple therapy is
filled with pitfalls that can quickly cause the couple to
terminate therapy prematurely.
The basic philosophy
of this Institute is that the therapy must be tailored to the
couple. The therapist must be flexible and knowledgeable about
a number of approaches and techniques. This requires an
integrative approach such as the Intersystems approach the
presenter has developed over the past 25 years. In this
approach the individual, interactional, and intergenerational
aspects of the couple are all considered in assessment and
treatment.
This Institute will be
didactic, practically focused and highly interactive. It will
cover several areas of couple functioning and dysfunction,
beginning with an emphasis on couple health rather than
pathology. The ability to facilitate intimacy will be
described, and the underlying fears of intimacy will be
discussed. The workshop will provide integrative
approaches to common complaints such as conflict and anger,
lack of sexual desire, and the latest advances in dealing with
one of the most therapeutically perplexing and difficult
problems to treat in couples—extramarital affairs.
Participants will
learn:
- an integrative approach to working
with couples—The Intersystems Approach.
- how to formulate a case using the
Intersystems Approach.
- how to identify and avoid the common
pitfalls in working with couples.
- how the underlying fears of intimacy
produce couple dysfunction, and how to enhance intimacy.
- an integrative approach for dealing
with lack of sexual desire.
- an integrative approach to conflict
resolution.
- how to apply cognitive therapy to
couples.
- how to assess and treat extramarital
affairs utilizing the Intersystem Approach.
- new research on forgiveness.
Course Schedule
Thursday,
March 5 – Sunday, March 8, 2009
8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. each day
This course provides 20 hours of continuing education.
Gerald R. Weeks,
PhD, ABPP is Professor and Chair of the Department of
Counseling at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. He is an
AAMFT Clinical Member, Fellow, and Approved Supervisor. He is
a Diplomate of both the American Board of Family Psychology
and the American Board of Sexology. Dr. Weeks has specialized
in couple and sex therapy for over 25 years and has earned a
national and international recognition for his publications in
individual, couple, sex, and marital therapy. He has published
19 advanced professional books including, Paradoxical
Psychotherapy, Focused Genograms, Couples in
Treatment, Dictionary of Family Psychology and
Therapy, Hypoactive Sexual Desire, Handbook of
Family Therapy, Treating Infidelity, If
Only I Had Known: Avoiding Common Mistakes in Couple
Therapy, and most recently, Systemic Sex Therapy and A
Clinician’s Guide to Sex Therapy.
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