Dr. Evan Imber-Black Presents "Therapeutic Choice Points in Complex Couple Therapy: How and When to Intervene"

The presentation covered and highlighted the moment by moment decisions made by therapists in couple therapy requiring careful thought, cognitive and emotional attunement with each member of the conflicted pair, avoidance of triangulation, and the ability to read verbal and non-verbal feedback occurring in every aspect of the session.
Dr. Imber-Black demonstrated interviewing for expanded openings, redefining and amplifying a presenting problem, selecting a path and correcting it when it proves ineffective, marking a critical subject, leaving it and returning to it at a more optimal time, and challenging a one-size fits all model of therapy, among other key areas.
Dr. Imber-Black examined multiple sessions with a couple coping with life-shortening illness, cross-cultural issues, and years of marital discord. Using these complex cases, Dr. Imber-Black examined therapeutic choice points, formulated direction for couples who present with multiple dilemmas, demonstrated methods to make effective therapeutic choices in a session and across sessions, and how to fashion meaningful questions that provide openings and to shift when these do not.
Evan Imber-Black, PhD, is the Director of the Center for Families and Health and a faculty member at the Ackerman Institute for the Family in New York City. Evan is currently the Acting Program Director of the Marriage and Family Therapy Masters Program at Mercy College.