AEDP for Couples Hybrid Course: Immersion + Essential Skills – Boston Area – April 2018

Retreat Style 5-Day Course

at the Walker Center

Auburndale, MA

Monday, April 23 – Friday, April 27, 2018

Seats are limited, register early!

Register Now!

“Because of AEDP and AEDP for Couples, the way that I work has been deeply transformed. My couples are experiencing healing in a more accelerated way along with a more grounded felt sense between them of feeling more deeply connected and in love with each other. Love indeed does feel good!”

— Tami Chelew, LMFT AEDP San Diego

This is a five-day combined Immersion and Essential Skills course in the AEDP for Couples method. The course will be co-taught by David Mars, Ph.D. and Karen Pando-Mars, MFT both senior faculty of the AEDP Institute.  David Mars is the developer of AEDP for Couples who has presented the model in seminars, workshops and conferences nationally and internationally since 2008.  He has been lead faculty of the AEDP for Couples Core Training in the SF Bay area, which is now in its fourth year.  Karen Pando-Mars practices and supervises in the AEDP for Couples method and has been the guest faculty in the AEDP for Couples Core Training since its inception.  For four years she has been the lead faculty for AEDP Essential Skills courses.

This course will present the theory and practice of AEDP For Couples and will provide experiential exercises to help participants somatically track and affectively regulate two people at a time in couple’s treatment.  AEDP for Couples is a powerful, somatically-oriented and affective neuroscience and attachment-based method.  Left-brain and right-brain learning will be combined to equip you to effectively treat couples with greater confidence, enjoyment and ease.

The skill sets necessary to practice AEDP for Couples will be introduced with theoretical foundations and videotape illustrations in the morning, followed by group experiential exercises in the afternoon.   Participants will cultivate accessing the Seven Channels of Experience and will practice methods to most effectively create safety and amplify the felt experience of love in couple’s treatment.

Course Objectives: Participants will learn how to

• Evoke new responses in couple treatment that affirm the felt-valuing of the self, partner and the relationship
• Help couple members melt defenses of intellectualization and hyper-emotionality, to regulate affect and encourage state shifts that create new therapeutic experiences
• Find points of agreement in values and shared longings in couple members that catalyze transformance and affirm safety
• Facilitate couple members to process previously warded-off experiences as the other partner serves as an increasingly secure base to witness explicitly.
• Facilitate metatherapeutic processing as it applies to couple members’ nutritive experiences within the self and with the other
• Explore the core affect of surprise and its emergence during new experiences that lead to freshly falling in love with the partner
• Form bridges between couple members that link meaning in pioneering a new chosen future together
• Mobilize transformance strivings between sessions as daily relational invitations for breakthroughs and relational repairs as a normal way of living every day

Further Objectives: By the end of this program participants will be able to:

• Distinguish the four states of AEDP in couple treatment
• Identify three ways to reduce defenses to build an atmosphere of safety
• Detect and follow the healthiest aspects of each couple member
• Demonstrate skills to regulate emotional reactivity in each couple member
• Define and be able to regulate at least three early signs of dorsal vagal response (Porges’ Polyvagal Theory)
• Select methods to assist couple members to process emotional experience to completion
• Apply three types of healing portrayals to treat trauma in couple treatment
• Utilize each of the Seven Channels of Experience (Sensation, Emotion, Energetic, Movement, Auditory, Visual and Imaginal)

The clinical video featured each day will include heterosexual and same-sex couples in treatment for the following:

• Chronic Dissociation and Distancing
• Sexual abuse and neglect
• Hot and Cold Conflict including the threat of divorce
• Addiction issues
• Infidelity
• Sexual dysfunction

Meet the Trainers:

Karen Pando-Mars, MFT

Karen Pando-Mars, MFT, is a licensed psychotherapist in San Rafael, California. She was irresistibly drawn to AEDP in 2005 and captivated by the depth and breadth of its transformational model. She immersed herself in training and consultation with Dr. Fosha and three years of core training with Dr. Frederick. Ms. Pando-Mars is one of the founders of AEDP West, Co-Director of the Center for Transformative Therapies in San Rafael, and currently is a supervisor for the Bay Area Core Training. She presents AEDP trainings around the San Francisco Bay Area and offers individual and small group supervision to psychotherapists. She is known for her warmth and approachability, and her ability to create safety in the supervisory relationship. Ms. PandoMars' long-time interest in deepening connection between self and other has been grounded through AEDP's precise tracking of attachment principles and related neuroscience, and this influence is woven throughout her work with individuals, couples and groups. Licensed since 1989, her background in somatic and experiential therapies includes Focusing, Process-Oriented Psychotherapy, Sandtray, EMDR, and Authentic Movement. She was a founder of The Sandtray Network and a contributing editor of its journal. As adjunct faculty at Dominican University, in San Rafael, California, she taught AEDP as the overarching theoretical model in her Alternative and Innovative Psychotherapies course.

David Mars, M.F.T., Ph.D.

David Mars, Ph.D. is the developer of AEDP For Couples. He has specialized in the somatically focused treatment of couples and groups for four decades, as an innovator in developing process-oriented, somatically, and empathically focused couple treatment. David has trained, supervised and consulted with Dr. Diana Fosha, the originator of AEDP since 2005.

David develops and presents training seminars and workshops nationally and internationally that focus on the AEDP for Couples model.  He is the lead supervisor of the AEDP for Couples Core Training.  He teaches at AEDP Immersion Courses, the Essential Skills Program and leads two ongoing AEDP for Couples supervision groups.  He is one of the founders of AEDP West. David is also on the adjunct faculty of the California Institute for Integral Studies in San Francisco where he infused AEDP into his teaching of courses on the Clinical Relationship.

David’s style as a presenter is described as inspiring, warm and deeply personable.   He quickly evokes trust from his audiences, which ushers in a deep level of transparent exchange of ideas and points of view about how therapists can more effectively treat the historical trauma and deprivation that underlies marital dysfunction.  Perhaps most importantly, participants are moved to apply what they learn in these training programs, due to the depth of experience they take in while witnessing videos, live demonstrations and engaging in experiential practices.

Course Location, Dates and Times:

Walker Center
171 Grove Street
Auburndale, MA 02466

Dates: Monday, April 23 – Friday, April 27, 2018

Times: 9am – 5pm daily

Lodging options

To save money and keep it simple, stay at the Walker Center in a single or shared-double room:
Rooms at the Walker Center are ~ $60 – ~$80 per night, including breakfast. According to a trusted source these rooms are clean, comfortable and a little “shabby chic.” We expect many experiential assistants and participants alike to stay here and get not only the benefits of the low cost and convenience, but the pleasure of growing friendships and community in off-hours.

For reservations, please email one of our Hybrid Course lodging coordination volunteers:)
Birgitta Gabel or Bob Sugar. (For info but NOT reservations, check out the Walker Center website.) 

Fees, Registration and Continuing Ed Credits

Members please log in to receive an additional $50 off all prices below.

Regular price starts October 1, 2017

• One Payment $1399
• Payment Plan $1599 (first online payment $200 due at registration)

Early Bird Discounts

Early Bird Aug 1 – Sept 30, 2017 – Save $100 off Regular Price