Transformative Couples therapy® Core Training
online core training sessions begin MArch 2025
Transformative Couples Therapy® is a body-oriented, affective neuroscience and attachment-based method.
These courses will present the theory and practice of Transformative Couples Therapy® through lively teaching from David Mars that incorporates inspiring video-recorded demonstrations of the work. Core Training also provides supervision and consultation for each group member's video-recorded session work to help participants learn to better track, inspire and affectively regulate two people at a time in couple treatment. The six group members share their own clinical video to receive constructive support, reflection and guidance. Each participant will receive 40 minutes of focused attention each time they share their work. The beauty of these TCT Core Trainings is in the way we safely develop ourselves and our work with each other by using communication based on embodied witnessing through the seven channels of experience. This is a relieving alternative to "feedback" with it's inherent judgement and projection. Instead, we will usE Process Language throughout each training session to build safety and develop optimal skillful communication for creating a secure base in ourselves at the same time as learning how to generate transformative outcomes for your couples.
On the first, fourth and eighth monthly Core Training, Transformative Couples Therapy® will be taught for one hour from an edited and subtitled clinical video over Zoom with commentary and discussion. These training sessions help participants to learn the application of the Transformative Couples Therapy® model in a range of challenging clinical situations. "Unlikely transformations" is the theme of the teaching topics and training videos selected. It is the couples who seem impossibly mired in their patterns of combined high reactivity, dissociation and low levels of positive responsiveness who the are our greatest teachers!
To discuss joining a Core Training group series, please contact Dr. Mars using the link below to schedule your interview.
COURSE COMPLETION REQUIREMENTS:
Participants must complete all sessions to be awarded CE. Cameras on Zoom must be left on, with only brief exceptions. A post test with a 70% pass rate will be required prior to CE being awarded. Attendance will be taken and documented each session by the course Coordinator, Abraham Lim. No specific assignments are required, other than reading the course materials sent out before we meet each session. Any questions can be addressed to davidmarsphd@gmail.com. To attend this live, interactive course you must have access to a working computer, a room with sufficient privacy to protect the confidentiality of couple members whose clinical work is shown and internet connectivity sufficient to maintain a stable connection to Zoom.
At the end of the course, CE can be applied for via this link
Transformative Couples Therapy® Experiential Skills Course is pending approval by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program to be offered by Transformative Couples Therapy® Institute as an individual course ASWB # 6114. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE course approval period: February 8, 2025 to December 4, 2025. Social workers completing this course receive 16 clinical continuing education credits.
Transformative Couples therapy® Core Trainings
Hong Kong Core Training series
Eight two-hour sessions meeting once a month: $750 if paid all at once or $100 per month by subscription.
Maximum six participants
8am-10am HKT-
February 8, 2025
March 15, 2025
April 12, 2025
May 24, 2025
June 21, 2025
Summer Break
September 13, 2025
October 18, 2025
November 15, 2025
Tuesday Core Training series
Eight two-hour sessions meeting once a month: $750 if paid all at once or $100 per month by subscription.
Maximum six participants
8am-10am PTCredits.Education is pending approval to co-sponsor this course for CEs.
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March 11, 2025
April 8, 2025
May 6, 2025
June 3, 2025
Summer Break
September 9, 2025
October 7, 2025
November 4, 2025
December 2, 2025
Thursday Core training Series
Eight two-hour sessions meeting once a month: $750 if paid all at once or $100 per month by subscription.
Maximum six participants
8am-10am PTCredits.Education is pending approval to co-sponsor this course for CEs.
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March 6, 2025
April 3, 2025
May 1, 2025
May 29, 2025
Summer Break
September 4, 2025
October 2, 2025
October 30 2025
December 4, 2025
Training Objectives
At the end of this program, participants will be able to:
Locate two ways to tailor treatment to a couple member’s attachment style.
Select opportunities to help couple members to feel and show more positivity.
Utilize openings to soften defenses.
Define three early signs of dorsal vagal response.
Demonstrate knowledge of two ways to regulate dorsal vagal response.
Specify how the frequency of dorsal vagal response can be reduced in treatment.
Distinguish methods for engaging avoidantly attached patients in treatment.
Detect an example of a tough case in which an unexpected breakthrough occurred.
Explain how a meditative state of mindfulness helps in treatment.
Conduct a role play of meta-therapeutic processing.
Explain the value of increased awareness in couple members.
Identify transformance striving in sessions.
Identify three ways to help establish a secure base in treatment.
Describe two ways to regulate emotional reactivity in both couple members.
Detect the healthiest aspects of each couple member.
Utilize two methods for couple members to process emotional experience.
Design healing a portrayal to treat relational trauma.
Define why affirmation of the self is important.
Explain how clients can melt the defense of intellectualization.
Find matching values in couple members.
Describe how to process warded-off emotional experience.
Conduct meta-therapeutic processing when couples experience reparative experiences.
Define the value of the core emotion of surprise in treatment.
Integrate core affect through slowing down.
Session Details
Cancellation policy: You may end your enrollment at any time and receive a refund for the remaining sessions of the course.
Complaints, questions or concerns may be communicated to David Mars, PhD by email at davidmarsphd@gmail.com for prompt attention.
David Mars, Ph.D., the presenter for this course, holds a Ph.D. in Psychology, is licensed as an MFT, has taught Transformative Couples Therapy® (TCT) to psychotherapists for over sixteen years. He is the developer of the Transformative Couples Therapy® method and a former faculty member of the AEDP Institute who taught this method for eleven of those years. He is the director of the Transformative Couples Therapy® Institute has been treating couples in private practice for over forty years. Click here to see a more complete bio.
There are no conflicts of interest or external commercial support related to this course or any course offered by the Center for Transformative Therapy.
Meeting Schedule
All Times BELOW Are in PACIFIC TIME
8am-8:10am: Orientation and opening three-minute Channels of Experience meditation
8:10am-8:20am: Check-in and discussion of participants’ responses to the meditation and any breakthroughs or problems in treating their clients with TCT
8:20am-9:00am: On the first, fourth and eighth monthly session a presentation of a clinical video demonstrating the theory and practice of Transformative Couples Therapy@ presented by David Mars. On all other sessions a participant shares video of a session for supervision and supportive consultation.
9:10am-9:50am: A participant shares video of a session for supervision and supportive consultation
9:50am-10am: Closure, including metaprocessing this Core Training session