Treating Stressed Out Couples: 22 Essential Interventions to Help Partners Set Healthy Boundaries, Overcome Resentment, & Thrive

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Elizabeth Earnshaw, LMFT Related seminars and products

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Elizabeth Earnshaw, LMFT, is a Marriage and Family Therapist, Clinical Fellow of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT), Certified Gottman Method Couples Therapist, Certified Clinical Trauma Professional, and AAMFT Approved Supervisor. She is the author of the best-selling relationship book I Want This to Work, The Couples Therapy Flip Chart, and Til’ Stressed Do Us Part. She is the owner of a national therapy practice that provides systemic therapy to individuals, couples, and families. Elizabeth has worked with hundreds of couples since becoming a couple’s therapist. She lives in West Chester, Pennsylvania, with her husband, children, and dog.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Elizabeth Earnshaw is the co-founder of The Rory Project and is the founder and Clinical Director of A Better Life Therapy, LLC. She receives royalties as a published author. Elizabeth Earnshaw receives a speaking honorarium, recording and book royalties from Psychotherapy Networker and PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Elizabeth Earnshaw is a fellow of AAMFT.

Additional Info

Program Information

Access never expires for this product.

For a more detailed outline that includes times or durations of time, if needed, please contact cepesi@pesi.com.

Objectives

1. Identify the role and impact of stress when clients present with dysregulation in session.
2. Determine the impact of stress on relational functioning within partnered relationships.
3. Evaluate Diffuse Psychological Arousal (DPA) to de-escalate, regulate, and repair relational ruptures.
4. Utilize tools for co-regulation, verbal negotiation, and conversation outlines to improve clinical outcomes with couples.
5. Develop strategies to help both partners take accountability for the role they play in their own stress.
6. Utilize a three-part system for helping couples manage stress within and outside the relationship.

Outline

• Types and origins of stress in modern partnered relationships
• Identifying and navigating the mental load
• Neurological underpinnings of stress
• 3-part stress cycle
• Diffuse Physiological Arousal (DPA)
• Limitations of the research and potential risks

• How to recognize when an individual is flooded
• When to step in, when to step back
• Tools for turning down the temperature:
  • Stop Action
  • BPM Tracking
  • Deflating the Balloon
  • Doubling (The Dan Wile)
  • Cross Questioning
  • Relaxation, Mindfulness, Breathing, and Breaks
• Recovery, repair, and personal responsibility
• Tools for increasing closeness and attunement:
  • Psychoeducation
  • Acceptance
  • The Stress-Reducing Conversation
  • Negotiation
  • Remembering “We”
  • Coregulation
  • Creating a Break Plan

• Helping couples identify the stress they “create”
• The 3-part system for managing stress – individually and together
• Radical Responsibility
• Tools to help couples change their lifestyle:
  • Completing the Stress Cycle
  • Awareness of Tasks + Redistribution
  • North Star Values
  • Meaningful Time Together
  • The Weekly Meeting

• Self-disclosure and boundaries
• Navigate countertransference
• When the problem is bigger than stress levels
• Therapist tools:
  • Mindfulness
  • Appropriate Self-Disclosure
  • Thinking on Your Toes
  • De-triangulating

Target Audience

• Counsellors
• Marriage and Family Therapists
• Social Workers
• Psychologists
• Physicians
• Other mental health professionals