Psychological functioning is always embedded within the context of interpersonal relationships. Maladaptive patterns that bring clients to psychotherapy are often learned in early attachment relationships. The interpersonal context of psychotherapy can help clients explore and understand relational patterns. Clients can practice new ways of relating in therapy and, hopefully, these more effective ways of being can be generalized to new contexts.
This seminar will teach both interpersonal conceptualization and intervention methods. Interpersonal conceptualization will be described as way to understand interpersonal patterns in the present. In order to promote a unified approach to treatment, the seminar will highlight how relational patterns shape cognition, emotion, and behavior. Diversity is addressed in this seminar by describing the way cultural contexts shape relationships.
Foundational interpersonal skills will be described and demonstrated with role-play videos. These skills will address three general processes: (1) Exploration and functional analysis of current patterns, (2) Guided discovery to uncover more adaptive functioning, and (3) Enacting adaptation outside of psychotherapy.
At a more advanced level, this seminar will explore the source of interpersonal patterns. This section will use attachment theory to understand the roots of internalized relational models. A video demonstration of exploring deeper patterns will be used to illustrate how this idea can be enacted with clients. Both transference and countertransference will be explored as they are practiced within a contemporary interpersonal approach.
This seminar is part of Level Two of Training in Unified Psychotherapy (TUP), focusing on working contextually with external contexts and internal influences. An essential part of a unified approach to treatment is understanding the impact of interpersonal patterns on dysfunctional thoughts, feelings, and actions and fostering more adaptive responses.
