INTEGRATIVE BEHAVIORAL COUPLE THERAPY (IBCT):

In an effort to improve the outcome of couples therapy, Andrew Christensen of UCLA, the late Neil Jacobson of the University of Washington, and later Brian Doss of the University of Miami developed Integrative Behavioral Couples Therapy (IBCT), which integrates strategies for promoting acceptance in couples with traditional behavioral strategies for promoting change.

"Acceptance work" focuses on turning problems into vehicles for promoting intimacy and increasing couples' tolerance for what they see as each other's negative behavior. As couples let go of the struggle to change each other, change often occurs in response to natural contingencies. Several clinical trials have demonstrated the effectiveness of IBCT. It has been adopted since 2010 by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) as one of its empirically supported treatments for couples, with positive results.

IBCT has also been adapted by Brian Doss and Andrew Christensen into an online program (www.OurRelationship.com), recent clinical trials of which have shown the effectiveness of this program.

In this two-day workshop, Andrew Christensen, Brian Doss will provide the theoretical foundation, assessment strategies, treatment strategies, and empirical support for Integrative Behavioral Couples Therapy (IBCT). The workshop will illustrate assessment and treatment techniques through videotaped examples of couples in treatment and will provide role-play experiences in implementing these techniques. The first day of the workshop will provide the theoretical and empirical basis for IBCT, review couples assessment in IBCT, describe and illustrate assessment and feedback sessions in IBCT, and provide an overview of treatment. There will be role-play experiences in which audience members can rehearse these case formulation, evaluation, and feedback procedures. For the role-play experiences, the audience will be divided into small groups of three or four participants, along with a coach with one person playing the role of the therapist and the other two the couple, with members switching roles for the different role-play experiences. We will preview the role-playing exercises and summarize the role-playing exercises in the larger group, but we will divide into smaller groups to better guide the learning of the role-playing exercises.

On the second day of the workshop, we will describe and illustrate IBCT treatment strategies and describe special issues in couples therapy, such as infidelity. Treatment strategies will be illustrated with video examples of couples in treatment. As on the first day, there will be a series of role-play exercises in which participants will practice these treatment strategies in groups. The last stage of the workshop will be with therapist Betty Shadish, who will present how IBCT works with high-conflict couples.

goal

General Objective:

Learn the IBCT protocol

Specific objectives:

1. Describe the theoretical and empirical basis of IBCT

2. Differentiating IBCT from traditional and cognitive-behavioral couples therapy

3. Conduct a clinical formulation in IBCT through a DEEP analysis

4. Describe and practice assessment methods, clinical formulation and feedback strategies in IBCT

5. Describe and practice IBCT (Acceptance and Change) treatment strategies

6. Learn strategies for working with high-conflict couples

Methodology

Expository classes, Video Presentation and Discussion of clinical cases, Training of strategies in small groups with guidance from a trained supervisor

Differentials

• It will be an incredible opportunity to see the creators of the approach working together

• There will be supervisors trained to work in small groups, helping with better learning

• There will be supervisors who speak Portuguese and supervisors who speak Spanish

• At the end there will be extra content with another experienced teacher and clinician on how IBCT works with very conflicting couples

• This workshop is the first step towards achieving Official Certification in IBCT

Coordination

Mara Lins

SUPPORT:

Informations

Cancellation policy

until 03/10/26 - 70% refund

until 04/09/26 - 40% refund

from 04/10/26 - there will be no refunds (you can transfer the registration to someone else).