Ethics with Couples 

Friday April 20, 2018
9:45 a.m. to 1 p.m.

David Woodsfellow, PhD

Couples therapy is very different from individual therapy. We encounter some additional ethical problems, but, thankfully, we have some additional ethical principles to guide us. This intermediate to advanced 3-hour workshop will teach you those principles. The training is designed for psychologists, social workers, counselors, and marriage and family therapists.

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In couples therapy, of course, we've got two clients, not one.

They can each want us to take their side.
They can have different "best interests."
They can have secrets from one another.
They can disagree very intensely.
They can hurt one another very deeply.

In couples therapy, we have to interrupt their negative cycle much more than we would have to in inividual therapy.

This is why couples therapy is so difficult.  It's why we have special sections of our Ethics Codes on couples therapy. It's also why we need to be careful when we apply the Ethics Codes that were written for individual therapy. Yes, all those individual codes apply to couples therapy, but they need to be applied in a different context. Confidentiality, for instance, is much more complicated when there are two clients.

It's important to learn the circumstances where couples therapy ethics differ from individual therapy ethics. We need to think about these situations ahead of time to prepare for them -- so we can make better decisions when these situations occur.

In this workshop, our topics will be: boundaries, loyalty, confidentiality and secrets. We will consider how each of these ethical issues applies to couples therapy.

This workshop will help you

• Do better couples therapy with more confidence and less worry
• Know that you are handling issues ethically
• Clarify and improve your verbal and written informed consent
• Decide whether (and when) to see clients together versus individually
• Learn how to respond to requests for secret-keeping - and why you need a clear "secrets" policy.

As a result of this workshop you will be able to

• State reasons why therapists need to clarify "who is the client"
• Explain the value of "conjoint" couples therapy
• Describe situations when therapists need two releasese of information
• Compare reasons for keeping secrets versus reasons for not keeping secrets

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David Woodsfellow, PhD is a licensed psychologist whose practice is 100% couples therapy.  He has been doing therapy for 25 years and seeing 100% couples for 20 years.  David was educated at Harvard, Antioch, UC Santa Barbara, Georgia State, and the UCLA Medical School.  He has been personally trained by Harville Hendrix, John Gray, John and Julie Gottman, Terry Real and Sue Johnson.

The Woodsfellow Institute for Couples Therapy is approved by The American Psychological Association to offer continuing education for psychologists. The Woodsfellow Institute for Couples Therapy maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

This workshop is for psychologists, social workers, counselors and marriage and family therapists. The instructional level is intermediate to advanced. The Woodsfellow Institute for Couples Therapy receives no commercial support for this CE program, this presentation, or this instructor.

Cancellation policy: If you need to cancel, we will credit your payment to any future workshop of ours. However we do not offer refunds.

Included in your registration is a free copy of our new book, Love Cycles, Fear Cycles published by SelectBooks, New York, March 2018. We will be glad to inscribe your book at the workshop.