Core Training

online core training sessions begin january 2024

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 be using 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.

Every second month of the Wednesday Core Training, Transformative Couples Therapy®  will be taught for two hours from an edited and subtitled clinical video over Zoom with a brief PowerPoint.  These didactic and experiential training sessions help participants to learn the application of the TCT 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!

For the once-a-month Tuesday Core Training and the Hong Kong series, didactic and clinical video training will be offered once every third month to allow more time for participants to share their couples therapy videos for supportive consultation and supervision.

To register for Core Training, participation requires an admission interview. Please contact Dr. Mars using this form to schedule your interview.

Tuesday Core Training series

Nine two-hour sessions meeting once a month: $850 if paid all at once or $100 per month by subscription.
Maximum six participants
8am-10am PST

  • March 12

    April 9

    May 14

    June 11

    Summer Break

    September 10

    October 8

    November 12

    December 10

    January 7, 2025

Hong Kong Thursday HKT Series

Nine two-hour sessions monthly sessions: $850 if paid all at once or $100 per session by subscription.
Maximum six participants           8am-10 AM HKT

  • February 15 HKT

    March 14 HKT

    April 11 HKT

    May 9 HKT

    June 6

    Summer Break

    September 12 HKT

    October 10 HKT

    November 7 HKT

    December 5 HKT

Objectives

At the end of this program, participants will be able to:

  1. Identify three ways to help establish a secure base in treatment.

  2. Describe two ways to regulate emotional reactivity in both couple members.

  3. Detect the healthiest aspects of each couple member.

  4. Utilize two methods for couple members to process emotional experience.

  5. Design healing a portrayal to treat relational trauma.

  6. Define why affirmation of the self is important.

  7. Explain how clients can melt defense of intellectualization.

  8. Find matching values in couple members.

  9. Describe how to process warded-off emotional experience.

  10. Conduct meta-therapeutic processing when couples experience reparative experiences.

  11. Define the value of the core emotion of surprise in treatment.

  12. Integrate core affect through slowing down.

  13. Locate two ways to tailor treatment to a couple member’s attachment style.

  14. Select opportunities to help couple members to feel and show more positivity.

  15. Utilize openings to soften defenses.

  16. Define three early signs of dorsal vagal response.

  17. Demonstrate knowledge of two ways to regulate dorsal vagal response.

  18. Specify how the frequency of dorsal vagal response can be reduced in treatment.

  19. Distinguish methods for engaging avoidantly attached patients in treatment.

  20. Detect an example of a tough case in which an unexpected breakthrough occurred.

  21. Explain how a meditative state of mindfulness helps in treatment.

  22. Conduct a role play of meta-therapeutic processing.

  23. Explain the value of increased awareness in couple members.

  24. Identify transformance striving in sessions.

Meeting schedule - All times PT


8am-8:10am: Orientation and opening eight-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: Presentation and discussion of a Power Point of theory and practice of TCT presented by David Mars (on alternate months a participant shares video of a session for supervision and supportive consultation)

9:10am-9:50am: Presentation of a clinical training video of a session from David Mars (on alternate months a participant shares video of a session for supervision and supportive consultation)

9:50am-10am: Closure, including metaprocessing this Core Training session

On alternate monthly sessions there will be no video presentation and Power Point from David Mars, but instead three participants will share video of their TCT clinical work following the same time frame.


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 to David Mars, PhD by email at davidmarsphd@gmail.com or by phone at 415-234-3821.

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 thirteen years. He is the developer of the TCT method and was formerly a faculty member of the AEDP Institute teaching the method for eleven years. He is the director of the Center for Transformative Therapy has been treating couples in private practice for over forty years. For a more complete bio, see https://cfttsite.com/david-mars-phd-mft

There are no conflicts of interest or external commercial support related to this course or any course offered by the Center for Transformative Therapy.