Talk Time Featuring Dr. William Doherty-Talking About Helping Couples on the Brink

I wonder, what do you do with those difficult couples, the ones that aren’t good therapy candidates because they have mixed agendas?

In order to do good couple therapy we need to assess if both partner’s goals are appropriate and compatible. Are the really invested in the change process or if one is just stringing their partner along and trying not to over rock a sinking ship.

If you’ve ever struggled with assessment, especially with couples who have very varied motivation for making their relationship work, this is your lucky day. Dr. Doherty is a huge contributor to the field of couple therapy. He has written many books and articles for professional audiences as well as for general readers. Consider these helpful titles: Family Therapy: Theories of Psychotherapy, Sourcebook of Family Theories and Methods, Soul Searching: Why Psychotherapy Must Promote Moral Responsibility, Take Back Your Marriage and The Intentional Family: Simple Rituals to Strengthen Family Ties.

Bill Doherty is a Professor and Director of the Minnesota Couples on the Brink Project at the University of Minnesota, and a practicing marriage and family therapist.

Most recently Dr. Doherty has developed and founded Discernment Counseling. Dr. Doherty will help us discover:

• How to work with high risk couples when one partner wants to save the relationship and the other wants out of the relationship without joining in the pursue/distance pattern.

• How can you help couples prepare to really engage in couple therapy and avoid the common mistakes most therapists make with mixed agenda couples.

• How you can get splitting up off the table long enough, with enough commitment, to see if you can help them engage in meaningful treatment without encouraging the pursuer into more pursuit.

• How to help even if you’re not yet an expert couples therapist to have a much needed speciality practice.

• The two forms of ambivalence that classic mixed agenda couples have so you can offer them the most fitting interventions.

We will also discuss how to work with each partner on their own agenda, even though they want different things. You’ll find this fascinating.

I’ve been following Dr. Doherty’s work for years. Needless to say, it’s such an exciting thing for me to have him on Talk Time so I can share this important information with you.