Relational Justice in Couples Therapy

NOTE: You have the opportunity to sign up for an additional workshop at a discounted rate. If you'd like to register for Socially Constructed Bodies: Implicit Bias, Cultural Competence, & Body Justice for $75 (that's two workshops for just $200), there will be a discount provided in your confirmation email. Should you have any questions about your registration or discount, please email hello@lisakays.com.

CEs for this workshop are provided by Continuing Education of Illinois, in addition to ASWB. Continuing Education of Illinois is an accepted CE provider for LMFTs and LCPCs in the state of Oregon. If you are not sure if your state will accept these CEs for your profession, please consult this map. If you still aren't sure, please email lisa@lisakays.com for further clarification.

Relational Justice in Couples Therapy: Linking Emotion, Power, & Societal Context

Lisa Kays PLLC invites you to attend this course, which explores what happens as societal context, power, and emotion converge in couple therapy. Participants will be introduced to Socio-Emotional Relationship Therapy (SERT), an approach that centers relational justice as an important component of ethical, culturally competent clinical practice and challenges implicit bias and inequities related to societal power positions and a culture that privileges individuality at the expense of relationships. The presenter will use video examples to illustrate the three phases of the SERT clinical sequence: (1) position therapy toward relationality, equity, and mutual support, (2) create relational safety by interrupting the flow of power, and (3) embody relational practices that transform destructive power imbalances and create relational possibilities based on equity and mutual support. Participants will consider SERT as a comprehensive approach, while also learning practical strategies to incorporate issues about gender, culture, power, and intersectionality into other approaches to therapy.

Learning Objectives

After completing this workshop, participants will be able to:

1. Name three ways to recognize and interrupt societal power dynamics as a foundation for safety and addressing other clinical concerns.
2. Name three interventions that help clients embody just relational practices and navigate discrimination and injustice in their worlds.
3. Name three practical strategies to address gender, culture, power, and intersectionality in couple therapy.

This course is appropriate for social workers at the following levels of practice: beginning, intermediate, and advanced. Most clinicians know the larger societal context impacts their clients, but do not have a model for how to work with these issues in the moment-by-moment of practice. Because the course introduces a state-of-the-art clinical approach based on over 15 years of in-depth research on how to work with gender, culture, and intersectionality in couple therapy, it is applicable to a wide range of social workers at varying levels of experience. Indeed, social workers will walk away with different take-aways depending in their level/experience in practice, as outlined below:

Beginner: The course will offer a vision of the social worker’s role in facilitating relational justice and provide a clinical framework through which to critique, organize, and apply the information they are learning in the course of their training and professional development.

Intermediate: Intermediate level social workers will be able to consider their usual clinical approach through a social justice lens and adapt the SERT principles and illustrations to fit their own evolving clinical approach.

Advanced: Advanced social workers will learn new clinical research findings that may offer a different way to frame or address a familiar clinical issue or stimulate new ideas and questions for practice, teaching, supervision, and research.

The course will be led by Carmen Knudson-Martin, PhD, LMFT. Carmen is Professor Emerita of Marital, Couple, and Family Therapy at Lewis & Clark College, Portland Oregon, and a founder of Socio-Emotional Relationship Therapy. Carmen has published over 100 articles and book chapters on the influence of the larger sociocultural context in couple and family relationships and the political and ethical implications of therapist actions on marital equality, relational development, and couple therapy. Her most recent book, A Step-by-Step Guide to Socio-Emotional Relationship: A Socially Responsible Approach to Clinical Practice, was released this year. She is also co-author of Socioculturally Attuned Family Therapy: A Guide to Equitable Theory and Practice, 2nd ed. and three other related books. Carmen serves on the board of the American Family Therapy Academy (AFTA) and was the 2017 recipient of the AFTA Distinguished Contribution to Family Therapy Theory and Practice.

Relational Justice in Couples Therapy: Linking Emotion, Power, & Societal Context

Workshop Agenda

• 1:00pm - 1:10pm ET: Introduction of presenter, topic, and history of SERT
• 1:10pm - 1:20pm ET: Breakout 1, introductions and interests/questions on this topic
• 1:20pm - 1:35pm ET: How the social world affects power, emotion, relational processes, and well-being.
• 1:35pm - 1: 55pm ET: Introduction to orienting principles that support relational justice and overview of the SERT clinical sequence.
• 1:55pm - 2:05pm ET: Phase 1, Positioning with video clips
• 2:05pm - 2:15pm ET: Breakout 2, What did you observe the clinician do to position therapy toward relationality and justice?
• 2:15pm - 2:30pm ET: Phase 1 cont. Socio-emotional attunement video clips
• 2:30pm - 2:40pm ET: Break
• 2:40pm - 2:55pm ET: Phase 2, Interrupting the flow of power video clips
• 2:55pm - 3:10pm ET: Phase 3, Practicing mutual support video clips
• 3:10pm - 3:20pm ET: Breakout 3, How did the clinician provide leadership that helped the couple develop mutual support?
• 3:20pm - 3:40pm ET: Discussion and Q&A
• 3:40pm -3:50pm ET: Breakout 4, What are you taking away?
• 3:50pm -4:00pm ET: Share take-aways and wrap up

Details

Date: Friday, June 21, 2024

Time: 1:00pm - 4:00pm ET

Location: Online via Zoom

CEs: Participants successfully completing this workshop and the course evaluation will receive 3 Continuing Education credits.

Fees: $125

In order to receive CEs and certificate, attendees must attend the full workshop and complete a course evaluation. CE certificates will be emailed within one month of receiving evaluation.

“Lisa Kays, #1526, is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organizations, not individual courses, are approved as ACE providers. State and provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for continuing education credit. Lisa Kays maintains responsibility for this course. ACE provider approval period: 1/27/22 through 1/27/25. Social workers completing this course receive 3 Category I continuing education credits.”

If you have questions or concerns about the course content, references, or content evaluation, contact Carmen Knudson-Martin at carmen@lclark.edu.

If you have questions or concerns about registration, facilities, accommodation for disability, or course administration, contact Lisa Kays at lisa@lisakays.com.

Any concerns, complaints or grievances related to this workshop may be addressed to Lisa Kays at lisa@lisakays.com.