Avant Take: Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen?” Competent couples therapy already requires a great deal of skill, but adding narcissism and emotional abuse to the mix seriously turns up the heat. You need more than incredible clinical skills to navigate these blazing hot sessions – you need composure, courage, and clarity to your approach. Time and again we’ve been impressed by Dr. David Woodsfellow’s depth of experience and well-developed approach to all things couples, but especially by this tricky clinical presentation. Don’t allow your sessions to boil over – get yourself to this workshop!

David Woodsfellow, PhD

Dr. David Woodsfellow is a licensed psychologist whose practice is 100% couples therapy. He has been seeing couples exclusively for 25 years, and teaching other therapists about couples therapy.
Dr. Woodsfellow received his B.A. at Harvard College, his M.A. at UC Santa Barbara, and his Ph.D at Georgia State University. He did his clinical psychology internship at the UCLA Medical School. David has been personally trained by Harville Hendrix, John Gray, John Gottman, and Terry Real. He holds Master Certification in Relationship Empowerment Therapy, and was a Certified Imago Relationship Therapist. He has Advanced Training in Gottman-Method Relationship Therapy and Emotionally-Focused Therapy.

Narcissism and Emotional Abuse

$125.00

Note: This is a 3-hour recorded workshop. After you sign up, you’ll receive a link to stream the video on Zoom as well as instructions for completing a written post-test (required for CE credit). Please note, your order may take 1 full business day to process. 

This workshop will focus on teaching a new way to handle narcissism and emotional abuse in couples therapy. Narcissists can be charming, well-spoken, successful individuals. But when challenged, they can be much more difficult. Their partners are often the impetus for couples therapy as they are often the ones most struggling in the relationship. A narcissist’s lack of empathy and sense of entitlement can be hard traits to live with. At times, these traits can cross over into being emotionally abusive.

Narcissists can be hard for therapists too. While they respond well to support and validation, they can become reactive or rageful in the face of challenge and confrontation.

Historically, the psychoanalytic approach was to meet these difficult clients where they were, support and validate them, not challenge or confront them. But this approach typically took years. Is it ethical to ask a partner to tolerate years of emotional abuse while gradual character change takes place?

Dr. David Woodsfellow’s approach is to get emotional abuse to end as soon as possible by (1) empowering the emotionally abused partner, and (2) joining with the narcissist through the truth. This workshop will give you an overview of how to do that. It won’t be easy. It might be out of your comfort zone. It takes learning and practice, but it is absolutely worth it. These interventions can help to bring a hopeless couple into new healing, growth, and happiness.

Learning Objectives

  • Utilize the Relationship Grid to portray your client’s self-esteem and boundary problems in their relationship.
  • Demonstrate interventions to empower clients who are being emotionally abused by their partner.
  • Discuss two crucial components of effectively joining-through-the-truth when working with narcissistic clients in couples therapy.

Continuing Education Credit – 3 Hours

  • APA – Avant Training is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Avant Training maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
  • GSCSW – This workshop  is approved for Core CE hours through the Georgia Society for Clinical Social Work. Approval #070622.
  • LPC – Avant Training has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7225. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Avant Training is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
  • LMFT- Related hours

72 in stock

Cancellation Policy

Please note that there are no refunds offered for recorded workshops. Send us an email at admin@avant-training.com if you have any questions before you register.