An intensive 3-hour training in couples therapy
Spouses and partners also welcome

Changing Negative Cycles:
The Essence of
Couples Therapy

Dr. David & Deborah Woodsfellow
Friday October 26th
9:45 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Many people come to therapy troubled about their relationships. They’re usually stuck in some negative cycle that they can’t get out of, no matter how hard they try. Our ability to see, understand and help them change these cycles is an essential component of successful therapy. 

Harville Hendrix calls them power struggles, John Gottman and Sue Johnson call them negative cycles, Terry Real calls them the stance-stance dance. Each approach has a method for changing these “perfect storms” that are the worst possible combination of each person’s core vulnerability and each person’s chronic defense.

This workshop presents an extremely user-friendly model for understanding these vicious cycles. The model is interesting, insight-producing and easy-to-remember. Clients like it, and find it easy to understand. It clarifies what needs to change. For some people, just seeing their negative cycle this clearly can be life-altering. For others it shows them what they need to do - and not do.  Therapists find this model easy to use, even in the midst of a fast-moving session.

This workshop is appropriate for couples therapists and individual therapists.  It is also appropriate for therapists' life-partners.  You and your partner might want to learn this model together, so that you can apply it to your relationship together.

In time, every relationship finds it's negative cycle - the worst possible combination of the two people's issues.  In these cycles, things worsen quickly.  Each person threatens the other. Again and again and again. This loop leaves both people feeling frustrated and hurt. 

For instance, if Jill's vulnerability were feeling intimidated, and Jack's vulnerability were feeling abandoned, their vicious cycle might go like this:

Jack feels abandoned. 
So he gets angry in protest.  
So Jill feels intimidated. 
So she withdraws in fear.  
So Jack feels more abandoned. 
Etc. 

People need to understanding their negative cycle so they can interrupt it and change it. In this workshop, we'll show you how to help them do that. We call this changing a fear cycle into a love cycle.

Jack and Jill's love cycle might go like this:

Jack feels nurtured.
So he is calm and kind.
So Jill feels safe.
So she is present.
So Jack feels more nurtured.
Etc.

When you help someone change their negative cycle to a love cycle, you've really helped them change their life.

In this workshop you will learn how to 
- Diagram your clients' negative cycles
- Describe the cycles in your own relationship
- Turn vicious cycles into love cycles
- Explain what Hendrix, Gottman, Johnson and Real have in common

This training is for psychologists, social workers, counselors, marriage and family therapists, and pastoral couneslors. The instructional level is intermediate to advanced. There is no commercial support for this CE program, this presentation, or this instructor.

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 UCLA Medical School.  He has been personally trained by Harville Hendrix, John Gray, John Gottman, Terry Real, and Sue Johnson. 

Deborah Woodsfellow, MPH is a relationship coach who works with couples and individuals.  Deborah has also been managing The Woodsfellow Institute for 10 years and has co-led workshops with David for 15 years.  Deborah was educated at Emory University.  She also has been personally trained by Harville Hendrix, John Gray, John Gottman, Terry Real, and Sue Johnson.

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