Description:

Couples therapists are typically discouraged from seeing partners separately lest power imbalances, allegiances, or secrets further divide the couple. What’s lost in this approach? Through case examples, Esther Perel will show how to effectively engage such issues as intimacy, sexuality and infidelity by creating separate spaces where each partner can explore his/her feelings and experiences along with larger relationship dynamics. We will show how to navigate privacy and secrecy, honesty and transparency, stage interventions around sexual impasses, and structure a safe and flexible environment to work creatively with infidelity.

Educational Objectives:

1. How to create a safe and non-judgmental therapeutic environment to work with secrets, privacy, transparency and truth-telling.
2. Present a more nuanced therapeutic approach for working with extra-marital relations — past and present, fantasized or real, disclosed or withheld.
3. Introduce two interventions for couples to rebuild trust and intimacy and to promote erotic recovery following an affair.

*Sessions may be edited for content and to preserve confidentiality*