Certificate in Advanced Couple Counselling
Taught by: Andrew G. Marshall
Marshall has over thirty years working face-to-face with couples to find solutions to today’s most common relationship problems: infidelity, falling out of love and losing the sexual spark.
The aim of the course is to help you build an alliance where the clients and therapist work as a team to break destructive old patterns, gain insight and learn better communications skills.
To this end, Marshall has synthesised a wide range of theory and practice to offer an new integrative approach to couple therapy called The Marshall Method.
This course will take place over three long weekends in 2017 (Friday, Saturday and Sunday). You will learn games and exercises to try out with your clients, explore different psychological schools to integrate into your counselling style and learn how to deal with difficult questions from your clients and use them to heal.
What makes this course unusual is students who gain the certificate and reach a standard of excellence could be invited to become associate therapists with client referrals and on-going training.
For each module, you will be asked to write a short essay (around one thousand words) showing how you have used one aspect of the work with a client.
Schedule
- CPD Taster: Mid-life Crisis – Helping Couples: Friday 20th January ( The Wesley Hotel, 81-103 Euston Street London NW1 2EZ)
- Module One: 24th, 25th, 26th March (Haywards Heath, West Sussex)
- Module Two: 23rd, 24th, 25th June (Haywards Heath)
- Module Three: 6th, 7th, 8th October (Haywards Heath)
Entry requirement
Previous relevant qualification for working with couples.
Haywards Heath Location
Haywards Heath, West Sussex. There are good train links to London with direct trains to Victoria (43 minutes), London Bridge (48 minutes) and St Pancras (1 hour and 7 minutes). There are also direct trains from Gatwick Airport (15 minutes).
Module One: What is the Marshall Method?
You will be invited to think not only about the Marshall Method but your own underlying philosophy about relationships and counselling and how it impacts on your work.
This module will cover dealing with couples with split agendas – one partner wants to work on the relationship and the other wants to end it – and how best to respond to client questions (about the counselling, the outcomes etc).
The focus will be on the first appointment – building a good working relationship – and teaching communication skills to the couples. This module will include games for clients to play in the room and interventions for breaking deadlock.
Learning outcomes:
Improving communication between clients and between the counsellor and clients in order to become a team to tackle both the surface and underlying problems together.
Module Two: Specific Relationship Issues
You will be given a framework for dealing with the most common relationship problems.
These include ‘I love you but I’m not in love with you’, recovering trust after infidelity, the impact of the midlife crisis on the couple dynamic, getting back the sexual spark and supporting individuals whose partners are involved with someone else (and therefore not available for couple counselling).
With each topic, you will be given models that can be shared with your clients to help provide fresh insights and exercises to do in the room. You will also learn Andrew’s exercises for kick-starting an emotional connection between couples and improving communication.
Learning outcomes:
To gain a range of exercises, insights and skills that can be drawn on to create a treatment plan tailor made for each client or couple plus the confidence to improvise.
Module Three: Self development in a couple focus
Although clients will often present with one partner as the ‘problem’, couple work is about working with the shared dynamic and each partner’s different contribution to their issues.
In this module, you will learn how to tackle individual problems while still keeping the couple focus and how to use an occasional individual session (when perhaps the other partner is away) for a client’s personal reflection on the couple process.
The module discusses issues of confidentiality that arise from solo sessions and show how to discover each client’s personal script (based in childhood experiences) and how this script interacts and is unwittingly strengthened by other people. Once again, you will learn exercises to use in the room to help clients deal with painful or destructive material.
Learning outcomes:
Deciding how much of the presenting problem is couple related and how much an expression of individual issues and finding a balanced approach that allows a couple to grow together.
CPD Taster
A Continuous Professional Development Certificate will be provided for those who ask one.
Cost
- CPD Taster: £75
- Course: £1,000 paid in advance of the first session or £500 in advance and two further payments of £300 before modules two and three.
Entry Requirement
There will be a pre-intake telephone interview with Andrew to discuss your qualifications and experience with couple counselling and to help him decide if this course is right for you. Afterwards you will be notified by email if you are being invited onto the diploma or not.
Enquiry Form
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