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Short Course
The Impact of Countertransference in Couples Therapy


with Tybe Diamond, MSW, BCD

Course Description:

This short course will use a seminar approach to discuss countertransference issues in working with couples for use as a tool in developing insight into the dynamics of the couple. It will focus on how countertransference evokes awareness of the therapist’s own internal issues and how processing and utilizing this information is central to determining treatment outcome. The course will explore the use of countertransference material as the basis for understanding each partner’s unconscious communications of impulses, affects, fantasies and conflicts that determine how we internally hold each partner and the couple in our minds during the therapeutic encounter. The use of countertransference in this way leads to the therapist’s dynamic formulation of the couple’s relationship and is the path toward intimacy between partners.

At the conclusion of the short course, the participants in this seminar will:

  1. State how the therapist holds the primary resistance to the couple understanding their interaction and discuss how to effectively utilize this awareness.
  2. Discuss how the therapist's attention to and use of countertransference creates an enormous therapeutic impact on the therapeutic encounter and treatment outcome.
  3. Explain the significance of the therapist's "walking the walk" and not just "talking the talk" of intimate relationships, by the therapist modeling intimate interaction during the therapy session.
  4. Describe the different meanings currently attached to the concept of countertransference.
  5. Assess the narcissistic vulnerability of each partner in a couple and demonstrate how this determines if the therapist comments or not on countertransference.
  6. Discuss the factors in the therapeutic milieu that lead to therapist burnout.
  7. Discuss how burnout symptoms and secondary trauma can lead to therapeutic depletion.
  8. Apply strategies in professional and personal life that can be used to diminish therapist burnout and secondary trauma symptoms.

Faculty: Tybe Diamond, MSW, BCD, is a clinician in private practice, offering treatment, consultation and supervision. She is a faculty member of the Couples Training Program, Director of the Center for the Study of Aging at the Washington School of Psychiatry and founder and Principal of Tybe Diamond & Associates, a consulting group focused on organizational development, group dynamics and executive leadership.


Dates: 2-4 p.m., 9/3, 9/10, 9/24 and 10/1/2010

Location: 4707 Connecticut Ave., Suite 205, Washington, DC 20008

Cost: $160 for ICP&P members; $240 for non-members


Registration

Please fill out the registration form and make your check payable to ICP&P and send to ICP&P, 4601 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 8, Washington, DC 20008.


Continuing Education Credit

The Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy & Psychoanalysis (ICP&P) maintains responsibility for the content, quality, and scientific integrity of this educational program. ICP&P is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. ICP&P is approved by the Maryland Board of Social Work Examiners to offer Category I continuing education credit. Because ICP&P has approval from the Maryland Board, CE credits hours awarded by ICP&P may also be claimed by social workers licensed in Virginia and the District of Columbia. These continuing education credits meet the ANCC approval standards for nurses and the approved standards for marriage & family therapists. Attendees from the above professional groups will earn 8.0 CE credits for attending the conference. Full attendance is required to receive the designated CE credit. ICP&P is accredited by MedChi, the Maryland State Medical Society to provide continuing medical education for physicians. ICP&P designates this educational activity for a maximum of 8.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s). Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.


For more information, call 202-686-9300, ext. 5