Couples Communication Specialist Certificate
Using EFCT, Attachment-Based and Gottman Interventions for De-Escalation, Rupture Repair and Rekindled Connection
- Speaker:
- Leslie Becker-Phelps, PhD
- Duration:
- Approx 12 hours
- Language:
- Presented in EN
- Copyright:
-
Dec 16, 2026
- Product Code:
- POS151060
- Media Type:
- Digital Seminar - Also available: Live Webinar
Description
Add Dozens of Valuable Tools to Your Work and Set Yourself Apart in a Crowded Couples Therapy Field
- Strategies for couples with avoidant and anxious childhood wounds
- De-escalate conflicts so real communication can happen
- Solutions that help clients overcome contempt, stonewalling and defensiveness
- Gold-standard techniques for building empathy, compassion and coregulation
- Includes scripts, exercises and step-by-step instruction
So many couples who walk into your office share the same plea, “We just can’t communicate anymore.”
They’re stuck in the same fight, talking past each other, watching connection slip away – and they’re looking to you to help them find their way back.
But when sessions spiral you need more than empathy – you need a roadmap.
That’s exactly what this training gives you.
You’ll watch Dr. Leslie Becker-Phelps, couples expert and author whose trainings have been trusted by thousands of therapists worldwide.
Through step-by-step instruction with demonstrations that show you exactly what to do, she’ll integrate interventions from EFCT, attachment theory, Imago, the Gottman Method, Compassion Focused Therapy, and insights from neuroscience and Polyvagal theory – into a framework you can use in your very next session.
You’ll leave this training ready to:
- Help clients de-escalate conflicts before partners shut down or spiral into defensiveness
- Identify negative cycles and pursuit-withdrawal dynamics
- Coach soft start-ups, repairs, and bids for connection
- Work through attachment wounds and communication patterns established in childhood
- Build empathy, compassion, coregulation, and lasting emotion safety
- Guide couples from rupture to repair – and keep them connected
Whether you’re new to couples work or a seasoned clinician, you’ll leave with practical scripts and targeted interventions to improve communication in every phase of treatment – from the first session to the last.
PLUS you’ll earn a digital badge and displayable certificate of completion!
Purchase now!
Credit
Speaker
Leslie Becker-Phelps, PhD Related seminars and products
Leslie Becker-Phelps, PhD, has over 30 years of experience as a psychologist. She hosts a YouTube channel and is the best-selling author of several books with New Harbinger Publications including The Insecure in Love Workbook (2024), Insecure in Love (2014) and Bouncing Back from Rejection (2019). Her books have been praised by luminaries like Harville Hendrix, PhD and Steven Hayes. They have helped thousands of people improve their relationships and lives. She writes the Authentically You blog, and she wrote the weekly Relationships blog for WebMD for over 10 years. She is also a medical reviewer for
Financial: Leslie Becker-Phelps maintains a private practice and has an employment relationship with Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital. She receives royalties as a published author. Leslie Becker-Phelps receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Leslie Becker-Phelps is a member of the American Psychological Association, the New Jersey Psychological Association, the Morris Psychological Association, the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration, the New Jersey Association of Cognitive Behavioral Therapists, the Postpartum Support International, and the American Telemedicine Association.
Additional Info
Program Information
Access for Self-Study (Non-Interactive)Access never expires for this product.
For a more detailed outline that includes times or durations of time, if needed, please contact cepesi@pesi.com.
Questions?
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Objectives
- Identify concepts in attachment theory that facilitate effective couple therapy.
- Identify broad themes that have been shown to be foundational to effective, research-based couple therapy.
- Label common negative interactive cycles as identified by EFCT and help couples create healthier patterns.
- Change communication for couples in conflict to be successful by teaching them to regularly maintain at least five positive to one negative communication or interaction.
- Use mentalization-based therapy questions to assess partners in their current relationship.
- Develop a mentalization-based therapy style case formulation with the couple.
- Use Gottman’s four horsemen to assess divorce risk and the limitations of this finding.
- Restructure partners’ awareness of sensations, thoughts, emotions, and actions to facilitate healthier communication and connection.
- Use EFCT-style interventions to facilitate emotionally-connected communication to improve relationship satisfaction.
- Identify ways in which neuroscientific findings can be used to regulate affect and facilitate more effective communication between partners.
- Facilitate the communication of empathy and compassion in partners to increase emotional intimacy.
- Choose interventions for unresponsive partners whose defensiveness impedes treatment.
- Evaluate how communication in person as compared to in virtual sessions may affect therapy effectiveness.
Outline
The Role of Communication in Good Couple Therapy
- Empirical foundations of couple therapy
- Understand the attachment narrative
- The role of mentalizing in creating emotional intimacy
- Use communication to facilitate secure relationships
Shape Healthy Relationships with Communication
- Attachment theory and the influence of protective communication habits
- Understand how attachment and mentalization are fundamental to change
- Identify communication patterns for attachment styles
- Recognize pursuit—withdrawal dynamics
- Assess EFCT’s negative interaction cycles
- Build safety and safeness systems of social mentalities theory
- Use Gottman ratios to build safety and safeness
- Research, risks and limitations
Get Started: Assess Communication Patterns and Attachment Styles
- Structure the evaluation
- Develop a mentalization-based therapy style case formulation
- The four horsemen as predictors of divorce
- Reduce tension and build harmony
- Integrate Gottman’s Sound Relationship House theory
Building the Therapeutic Alliance
- Create an effective therapeutic alliance guided by attachment theory
- Monitor and titrate arousal
- Heightening 5 domains of awareness (STEAM)
Communication Coaching: Teach Clients to Use Soft Start-Ups, Listen without Defending, Have Hard Conversations and More
- Coach active listening
- Initiate difficult conversations with Gottman’s soft start-up and other tools
- Teach guidelines for problem-solving conversations
- Nurture and communicate empathy to process differences
- Lessons from neuroscience in developing secure relationships
- How neuroscience-based tools can help facilitate affect regulation
- Use Polyvagal theory to facilitate affect regulation
- Facilitate biobehavioral synchrony to improve coregulation
Make Expressing Empathy and Compassion the Norm: Clinical Tools for Co-regulation and Connection
- Identify and nurture essential components of empathy and compassion
- Address fears of giving and receiving compassion
- Compassion Focused Therapy interventions for fears, blocks, and resistances
- Transform attachment relationships by addressing childhood communication patterns
- Coach partners in healing trauma reactions
Rupture Repair Toolkit: Help Partners Make Repairs that Stick and Sustain Connection
- Develop scripts to facilitate collaborative communication
- Use Gottman-style repairs to reconnect
- Facilitate effective communication with “unresponsive’ partners
- Teach Gottman tools: Bids for affection and magic 5 hours to sustain connection
- Develop Emotionally Focused Couple therapy attachment rituals
- Guide partners through Imago-inspired sharing the love exercise
Managing Risks, Complications, and Termination
- Guidance for naming, discussing, and addressing complications
- Four EFCT interventions for identifying, highlighting, and expressing growth from therapy
- Guide couple in discussing their readiness for termination
- Coach couple in planning for the future
- Develop a termination plan to help sustain treatment benefits
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Registered Psychotherapists
- Addiction Counselors
- Case Managers
- Other Professionals Who Work Within the Mental Health Fields
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