Transformative Couples Therapy®
experiential Skills Course 2026
Application of TCT Fundamentals and working with complex Issues
22 CE available from CAMFT, which is affiliated with AAMFT
ENROLLMENT NOW OPEN!!
Wake Up Transformative Change with your Challenging Couples
Join Our Exciting Monthly Training Series on Zoom!
Transformative Couples Therapy® Institute is excited to announce the third year of our Monthly Training Series, starting Tuesday, February 24, 2026. This series is designed for new and returning participants, offering a dynamic blend of teaching methods to help you navigate even the most challenging couples' dynamics.
Why Join?
Deepen Your Expertise: The first hour of each session will dive into the foundational theory and practice of Transformative Couples Therapy®, providing you with powerful tools and techniques to help couples break through longstanding struggles.
In the second hour, you’ll witness "unlikely transformations" unfold through clinical training videos, featuring couples working through complex issues:
High Conflict
Premarital Therapy with Cross-Cultural Couples
Sexual and Financial Conflicts
Attachment Deprivation
Treating Unresolved Trauma
Preoccupied, Avoidant and Disorganized Attachment Patterns
Earned Secure Attachment
Integration of TCT and the Seven Channels of Experience® to Enhance Your Skill Set
Hands-On Application: The third hour of each session is where the magic happens. With a skillful and supportive Experiential Assistant you’ll apply what you’ve learned with a live role-play “couple”.
Impactful Methods: You'll learn techniques like accessing the Seven Channels of Experience®, facilitating healing portrayals and parts work in addition to other methods that help couples build and maintain a stable, deep and lasting felt experience of love.
Who Should Attend?
This series is ideal for clinicians who want to build their capacity to treat couples in a somatically rich, attachment research and mindfulness-based method. A background in AEDP, Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, EFT, Gottman, or ACT are helpful, but not required. If you are passionate about helping couples transform and thrive, this training is for you: Psychiatrists, Psychologists, LPC’s, Psychotherapists, MFT's, Social Workers, Registered Clinical Counselors and Pastoral Counselors.
Space is limited!
Take the first step by scheduling your free 20-minute informational interview with David Mars, Ph.D.
This is an opportunity to discuss your needs and goals, allowing the course content to be tailored to benefit the 2026 cohort.
SESSION CALENDAR & PRicing
Sessions begin February 24th, 2026
Enrollment Deadline is January 2oth, 2026.
Eight monthly three-hour sessions
Tuesdays 8am-11am PST
Cost: $125 per three-hour session, total cost $1000
or $950 if paid in advance
Course Dates
February 24, 2026
March 24, 2026
April 21, 2026
May 19, 2026
June 16, 2026
Summer Break
September 8, 2026
October 6, 2026
November 3, 2026
TRAINING OBJECTIVES
At the end of this program, participants will be able to:
Identify two ways to help establish a secure base in treatment.
Describe two ways to regulate emotional reactivity in both couple members.
Define how to detect the healthiest aspects of each couple member.
Describe two methods for couple members to process emotional experience to completion.
Define why affirmation of the value of the self and the other is important in couple treatment.
Explain how couple members can learn to melt defenses of intellectualization.
Describe how to process warded-off emotional experience.
Describe how to conduct meta-therapeutic processing after couples have reparative experiences.
Define the value of the core effect of surprise.
Define what is important about helping couple members develop skills to show more demonstrations of valuing in daily life.
Define three early signs of dorsal vagal response.
Describe two ways to regulate dorsal vagal response.
Specify how the frequency of incidences of dorsal vagal response can be reduced in treatment.
Distinguish three methods for engaging avoidantly attached patients in treatment.
Explain why a state of mindful awareness helps both couples and therapist in treatment.
Explain the value of increased awareness of bodily states in couple members.
Define what transformance striving is and how to identify it.
Describe the value of sensation in being aware of internal state.
Define two ways a therapist can use their vision to identify tension in couple members.
Define ways that awareness and skillful expression about energetic states can be helpful.
Course DETAILS
This course is designed for beginning and intermediate learners. The course will be conducted in the delivery format of live online learning. Instruction will include didactic presentation, recorded clinical video, role play, and group discussion. Review videos will be sent for all non-clinical portions of each training session to reinforce learning.
Special Needs - If you require ADA accommodations please contact our office 30 days or more before the event. We can only ensure accommodations with adequate prior notification.
Cancellation policy: You may end your enrollment at any time and receive a refund for the remaining sessions of the course. Questions or concerns may be communicated by email to davidmarsphd@gmail.com.
David Mars, PhD, the main presenter for this course, holds a PhD in Psychology and has taught Transformative Couples Therapy® to couples therapists and psychotherapists since 2008. He is the developer of the method and taught it as a faculty member of the AEDP Institute for eleven years. He is the director of the Transformative Couples Therapy® Institute and has been treating couples in private practice for over forty years. Click here for a more complete bio.
There are no conflicts of interest or external commercial support related to this course or any course offered by the Transformative Couples Therapy® Institute.
MEETING Agenda
All times are in Pacific Time
8:00-8:10am PT: Orientation and opening three-minute Channels of Experience meditation.
8:10-8:20am PT: Check-in and discussion of a few participant’s responses to the meditation.
8:20-9:00am PT: Didactic presentation by David Mars, PhD, Lisa Gardner LCSW and/or Abraham Lim. Group discussion will include strategies to implement the TCT method through the use of the TCT Fidelity Scales.
9:00-9:50am PT: Presentation and discussion of captioned clinical video. During the clinical video sharing, the instructor will reinforce examples shown in the didactic portion described above. We will highlight moments that illustrate the use of the Seven Channels of Experience®.
9:50-10:05am PT: Break
10:05-10:55am PT: Transition to Breakout rooms for the Experiential Exercise to apply what you have learned. Participants will choose to become role-play couple members, role-play therapist or witness. With the support of the Experiential Assistants, all participants gain a direct experience of applying the method.
10:55-11am PT: Regathering, closing remarks.
COURSE COMPLETION REQUIREMENTS:
Participants must complete sessions to be awarded CE.
Cameras on Zoom must be left on, with only brief exceptions. An evaluation must be completed prior to CE being awarded. Attendance will be taken and documented each session. Reading the course materials is a key to full participation. These materials will be sent out prior to each session. Any questions can be addressed to davidmarsphd@gmail.com or lisagardnerlcsw@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.
The cost for 22 Continuing Education (CE) credits will be $40. An email from Credits Education will be sent to all participants who complete the course. Credits.Education, #1032827, is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists to sponsor continuing education for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and LEPs. Credits.Education maintains responsibility for this program/course and its content. Course meets the qualifications for 22 hours of continuing education credits for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and LEPs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences.
Please check with your state board to confirm if CAMFT CE applies to your licensure.
Note: We are sorry to say that we do not have capacity to offer CE to Psychologists or Psychiatrists at this time.