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Australian Counselling Association CPD: 5 Points (Must be completed before December 9, 2025)

Among PORT’s innovations are the integration of the PORT Relational Brain Model that makes neuroscientific insights accessible for both clinicians and clients; The Presence Bridge Model which incorporates existential and mindfulness into the bridge concept; and the 5 Step Therapy Progress Model (AARNI) which informs intervention and manages client conflict. PORT’s challenge and achievement has been to integrate these diverse insights into an accessible, flexible and powerful approach that empowers clinicians while allowing them to incorporate their own unique insights and experience. Connection, Change and Trust is a brief introduction to Presence Oriented Relationship Therapy.

PORT is an intensely practical couples therapy modality that developed from the ground up out of the challenge of equipping a diverse team, including interns, with the most effective strategies from models as diverse as PACT, EFT, Imago, Gottman and the Developmental Model.  What became clear is that each of these models offered significant strengths but often lacked essential features or flexibilities present in other models.  In addition insights from other modalities including Narrative, ACT, NLP, Psychodrama, Gestalt, Relational Neurobiology were incorporated. PORT is an integrated eclectic approach developed over the last 8 years by the Relate NZ team.  Initially developed in the context of the weekly team training sessions  it was honed over the next 6 years of the intern programme to help distill the core insights of successful couples and relationship therapy to clinicians who had not been specifically trained to work with couples.

PORT is an intensely practical course that coalesce around the challenge of finding the successful common features of therapy models as diverse as PACT, EFT, Imago, Gottman and the Developmental Model.  What became clear is that each of these models offered significant strengths but often lacked essential features or flexibilities present in other models.  In addition insights from other modalities including Narrative, ACT, NLP, Psychodrama, Gestalt, Relational Neurobiology were incorporated.

Port's focus was simple and driven by the clear imperative of research that indicated that untrained therapists working with couples were highly unsuccessful and the therapy process itself was highly stressful for the couple and the therapist.

The challenge of course is that everyone needs to start somewhere and our focus was to support our interns to be successful as soon as possible.

While Steven Dromgool was cross-training in Imago, Gottman and EFT he noticed a recurring pattern underlying their seemingly different methods. Steven adapted the Relational bridge model for interns to use and tested this among the team.  The developmental brain model was the next innovation that made relational neuroscience accessible to clinicians and clients and therapy progress model among other innovations.

The feedback from PORT trained therapists is that they quickly felt confident to hold a relational space for the couple that felt safe for deep intimate connecting work and that they had strategies to help them contain and manage conflict.  Additionally  clinicians could maintain and develop their own unique authentic style and presence and incorporate other training and experience more seamlessly and effectively.  

The Connection, Change and Trust offering is designed to provide a resource and reference point for clinicians who want to learn the basics about PORT. 

We have included two bonus training sessions that therapists have loved to help give you the flavor of PORT: 5 Challenges Couples Face After an Affair Couples: Introduction to Working with Affairs, Betrayal and Infidelity and How to Break  the Pursuer/Avoider Cycle.

In this self paced program, you will learn the origin of PORT and its 3 models: Relational Brain Model, Presence Bridge Model and 5 Step Therapy Progress Model. You will also get access to an introduction to working with betrayal and how to approach the pursuer / avoider dynamic in relationships. 

Objectives:

Describe how the Relational Brain Model helps the therapist know how to intervene with relationships

Describe how the Presence Bridge Model explains the communication process in relationships

Describe how the 5 Step Therapy Progress Model decreases client drop-out and recidivism rates

Therapists who want their clients to trust and form loving relationships, will take a deep dive into how they can ‘lend trust’ to facilitate healing.

In his Book, "What makes love last?: How to build trust and avoid betrayal," John Gottman has noted that trust is a primary factor in relationship happiness. After an affair or infidelity, a couple's ability to create and maintain trust is severely, if not completely, destroyed. Trust within a relationship is constructed from the interaction of each individual's sexual and developmental blueprint, their partner, and the early phases of the relationship cycle. Once trust is lost, couples often require an external trust source, typically from professionals or religious figures. This presentation will include a trust equation to help couples create trust and will explain the basics of Betrayal First Aid to aid the betrayed partner's regulation. Helping couples create trust and minimise the harm after betrayal are key to recovery after an affair and long term individual well-being.

Trust is fundamentally an attachment level construct shaped by an individual's developmental history and subsequent relationships.  This often remains an unconscious neurodevelopmental construct influenced by social, religious, and experiential factors. Limited or faulty trust beliefs and experiences within individuals and their relationships can engender significant negative long-term relational dissatisfaction and behaviour and poor health outcomes.

Enhancing counselors' understanding of trust as both a construct and a process can foster clients' insight into their experiences. Understanding the "trust equation" and how to rebuild trust provides a more measurable way to alter clients' lived experience of trust and help them engage with more efficacy in the work of rebuilding trust. 

For therapists, understanding the power of "borrowed trust" can help them strengthen the therapeutic alliance with the couple.  ‘Borrowed Trust’ also means that the therapist’s presence literally makes the couple feel safer with each other. Intentionally developing the ‘Borrowed Trust’ will dramatically increase the effectiveness of the therapeutic endeavour and help counselors avoid pitfalls like taking sides, making impossible promises, or validating gaslighting.

Discovering a partner's infidelity precipitates a crisis, with the betrayed individual experiencing "betrayal shock" and attempting to reestablish equilibrium—often with unintended consequences. The risk of this shock evolving into trauma hinges on the information received by the betrayed partner, underscoring counselors' responsibility to understand the process and effects of betrayal.  Betrayal first aid is an extension and development of borrowed trust which encompasses targeted brief interventions and psychoeducation to support the betrayed partner in the initial post-betrayal period.

January 15, 2025: 11AM - 1PM NZST

Register to attend the live session or to get a video replay.

Presence Oriented Relationship Therapy is an integrated approach to couples therapy designed specifically to for therapists starting to work with couples for the first time and more experienced therapists looking to integrate other models.

This gives therapists lifetime access to the PORT Level 1 Training and includes the cost for examination for PORT Level 1. 

This training is PORT Level 1 and is focused upon the history of couples therapy and the 3 foundational theories of PORT: the Relational Brain Model, the Presence Bridge Model, and the 5 Step Therapy Progress Model.

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PORT is an integrated eclectic approach developed over the last 8 years by the Relate NZ team.  Initially developed in the context of the weekly team training sessions  it was honed over the next 6 years of the intern programme to help distill the core insights of successful couples and relationship therapy to clinicians who had not been specifically trained to work with couples.

PORT is an intensely practical course that coalesce around the challenge of finding the successful common features of therapy models as diverse as PACT, EFT, Imago, Gottman and the Developmental Model.  What became clear is that each of these models offered significant strengths but often lacked essential features or flexibilities present in other model.  In addition insights from other modalities including Narrative, ACT, NLP, Psychodrama, Gestalt, Relational Neurobiology were incorporated.

Port's focus was simple and driven by the clear imperative of research that indicated that untrained therapist's working with couples were highly unsucessful and the therapy process itself was highly stressful for the couple and the therapist.

The challenge of course is that everyone needs to start somewhere and our focus was to support our interns to be successful as soon as possible.

While Steven was cross-training in Imago, Gottman and EFT he noticed a recurring pattern underlying their seemingly different methods. Steven adapted the Relational bridge model for interns to use and tested this among the team.  The developmental brain model was the next innovation that made relational neuroscience accessible to clinicians and clients and therapy progress model among other innovations.

The feedback from PORT trained therapists is that they quickly felt confident to hold a relational space for the couple that felt safe for deep intimate connecting work and that they had strategies to help them contain and manage conflict.  Additionally  clinicians could maintain and develop their own unique authentic style and presence and incorporate other training and experience more seamlessly and effectively.  

The online offering is designed to provide a resource and reference point for clinicians that can be assimilated at the therapists own pace and is designed to prepare therapists for PORT Level 2 which is 4 live sessions of group skills training with Steven which will give you provide opportunities for interaction and implementation.

You are suggested to subscribe to the Professional Edition of the School of Love to access psychoeducation materials which will make PORT easier to understand (specifically the 5 Secrets of Relationship Champions).

Register now and receive access to the prior version of this training today. Then, participate in the updated version starting February 12. 

Where: Zoom

When: February 12, 26; March 12, 26; April 9, 23; May 14 & 28 at 11 AM - 1:30 NZST.

CPDs via Australian Counselling Association is Pending

CEs for US Social Workers and Counsellors: National Association of Social Workers (NASW)-Iowa Seal of Approval is pending (This means that the Iowa chapter of the NASW has determined that the course has satisfied the NASW requirements for a satisfactory CE course. It is the participants responsibility to know if this course will satisfy their licensing/credentialling board.) 

Ambivalence in a long-term committed relationship can feel like a no-win situation for everyone involved. Neither partner fully benefits from the relationship, and both may grapple with guilt, apathy, and confusion. As a couples counselor, navigating these complex emotions can be a challenging tightrope walk.

This webinar is designed to equip you with the tools and strategies you need to help your clients break free from the cycle of ambivalence. We'll delve into how to identify 'hidden' ambivalence and provide you with practical techniques to guide couples towards greater clarity and commitment.

Join us to deepen your understanding of ambivalence, refine your counseling approach, and empower your clients to build healthier, more fulfilling relationships.

April 2, 2025: 11AM - 1PM NZST

Register to attend the live session or to get a video replay.