DESCRIPTION:

In the Introductory Session of this Master Class, Perel first lays out the big picture context for understanding new narratives about couples today. She begins with a review of the cultural forces that have changed the institution over the years including:

• the shift from marriage as a child-production and economic unit to the romantic unit it is today
• the shift from marriage in context of the extended family focus to a stand-alone couple-focus
• the de-stigmatization of divorce
• women’s growing economic independence
• an increasingly consumer mindset that rates individual happiness and self-fulfillment above other concerns 

OUTLINE:

The Romantic Model With this romantic model comes an unprecedented set of expectations. Partners want their relationship to be:

• sexually fulfilling
• intimate
• emotionally connected
• safe
• with good communication and cooperation

Perel describes the scope of expectations like this:

There is no other unit that speaks of the one and only, that talks about the soul mate, that wants to combine the soul mate with the same person with whom you raise the children, and the same person with whom you do renovations, and the same person with whom you weather unemployment and storms.

The bottom line, according to Perel, is that the survival of the family unit now depends on the health and strength of the emotional connection between the partners. This Master Class goes inside three clinical demonstrations—that feel like intimate conversations—where Perel works with skill and insight to rebuild and strengthen that all-important connection in the wake of infidelities, betrayal and sexual trauma.

Couples therapists stand at the leading edge of this change. According to Perel, the norms of couplehood have changed even more rapidly than those of the culture as a whole. The last 10 years have seen dramatic shifts in new ideas of what a couple is as well as the novel issues partners bring into the consulting room. These include:

• sexlessness
• polyamory
• emotional disconnection
• shifts in gender roles
• infidelity
• economic imbalance (a woman earning more than a man)
• effects of trauma on the relationship
   

What these changes mean, says Perel, is that therapists today are seeing different kinds of couples than they saw 10 years ago and those couples are wrestling with issues that may be novel for partners and therapists alike. This Master Class offers insights, approaches and preparation that will help therapists with that work.

Perel’s approach to couples therapy is inclusive. Perel trained with Salvador Minuchin and points to his influence in her systems-orientated approach. She also has been influenced by the multi-modal approach of Michele Scheinkman. As she demonstrates in this Master Class—when a problem is before her, Perel does not think only of the brain and neural circuitry or of attachment as the right place to start. She takes a broader view and the flexibility to navigate as she feels her way to the best approach for the specific couple before her. She explains:

I think intrapersonally, the experience, the meaning-making. And I am thinking also interpersonally—about the transactions, the dynamic, sequence and escalations. I’m interested in the ‘what I do that makes you be the way you are that makes me be the opposite of what I really want to be with you.’

Perel believes the freedom to work without a rigid sense of what’s right or limited to a single model holds the greatest possibility of helping couples address today’s issues. She invites couples therapists to go beyond a single model, investigate multiple approaches, choose five clinicians to learn from their work and seek out others whose expertise is different than their own.

Perel practices what she recommends and throughout this class she integrates insights and practices from others who have influenced her, taught her or worked with her. They include Terry Real, Hedy Schleifer, Bill Doherty, Diana Fosha and others.

In the three sessions featured in this Master Class, Perel uses a variety of approaches, interventions and strategies and in the analysis segments, she explains her choices as well as how other therapists can use them in their work. Here are some of them to look for:

• Perel stays in the moment observing voice, body language, facial expression, patterns of interaction and how partners react to and elicit responses from each other.
• She talks about sexuality using the language of pleasure.
• She use exercises involving touch—giving, receiving and taking to help partners reconnect erotically.
• She often works with one partner, then the other which serves the double purpose of moving forward with the focus partner and modeling for the other partner how to relate, empathize, enquire or practice another positive behavior.
• To move a session forward, she frequently puts out a storyline, suggestion or definition, then ask the partner(s) to correct or “say them in their own words.”
• She accepts the couple’s choices and frameworks and spends a minimum of time on detailed histories.
• She frequently uses an intervention and then observes how the system reacts.
• She uses many versions of her signature “say more” strategy to invite detail and revelation following a client statement. This is one of Perel’s few directives: When the client makes a simple statement, ask for more. That’s how you get the intimate meaning. Without that they’re just words. The sessions in this Master Class are full of these “more” moments.
• Perel is not afraid to interrupt, redefine and be directive. She is firmly and nice.
• She is disciplined about not over-engaging in background and side-stepping conflicts.

Her goal in these sessions is to move partners to a moment where they can experience each other in a new way—to give them a sense of possibility and hope for the future and to let them leave with a story that’s different than the one they came in with.   

OBJECTIVES:

Articulate the Romantic Model of marriage, the broad cultural changes that have led to it, and the challenges it presents to the family and partners.