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Couples Symposium 2026:
Couples in Crisis
March 19-20, 2026 | Cincinnati, Ohio
When Death Changes Your Life - Guiding Couples Through the Experience of Shared Grief and Loss
Anitra Durand-Allen, LMFT
Best Life Mental Health Services, Louisville, Kentucky
The stages of grief is commonly known and accepted as a leading approach to understanding grief, but it is far more reactive than it is prescriptive. Using a combination of the Tasks of Mourning model, Emotion Focused Couples Therapy techniques, grief and loss Psychoeducation, and a trauma informed lens this workshop will teach clinicians how to help clients conceptualize their grief journey as a fluid experience that is ever evolving, not a stagnant condition to which they have been relegated. Clinicians will learn to deconstruct maladaptive grieving practices and move clients through adaptive ways of coping with loss.
Moving From Secrecy To Accountability: The Betrayer Speaks the Unspoken
Tiffany Bryant, LPCC
University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio
Infidelity is often explored through the eyes of the betrayed. This presentation offers a rare and necessary perspective of the betrayer speaking truthfully about what the affair was and why it happened. It is important for the betrayer to have an authentic narrative from beginning to end without minimizing the pain caused. Using narrative, clinical insight, and therapeutic tools, we explore how truth-telling becomes a turning point for healing and accountability. This presentation is ideal for therapists, clients, and anyone seeking a deeper understanding of infidelity and post-betrayal repair.
Pornography: The Silent Epidemic
Chris Tuell Ed.D., LPCC-S, LICDC-CS
Lindner Center of HOPE; University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, Ohio
Pornography profoundly impacts couples by undermining trust, intimacy, and communication. Its pervasive presence can lead to unrealistic expectations, emotional disconnection, and increased relationship dissatisfaction. Many couples struggle silently, as societal stigma inhibits open conversations about pornography’s effects. Understanding its influence is crucial to fostering healthier relationships, promoting transparency, and encouraging mutual support. Addressing this hidden challenge can empower couples to rebuild trust and deepen emotional bonds, ultimately improving relationship quality and resilience.
Introducing Collaborative Process in Co-Parenting Counseling
Caitlin Yilmazer, LPCC-S
Waybridge Counseling, Cincinnati, Ohio
The collaboration between co-parents is earned from the process of co-parenting counseling. It's a privilege granted by the co-parents over time from their consistent commitment to building trust after the fallout of their previous relationship. The traumatic rupture of decoupling or divorce is typically at the heart of the challenges faced in the co-parenting relationship. While triggers can be useful and informative outside of co-parenting process, relationally they often cascade into a flood of defensive interactions. Adversarial reactions, assumptions, and protective behaviors that discourage the vulnerability necessary to collaborate. Co-parenting counseling should support the co-parents in creating a team where collaboration feels doable.
Swipe Right on Healing: Behavioral Addictions & Relationship Rescue: Reignite connection, Break Harmful Patterns, and Rebuild Trust in your Relationship.
Chris Tuell Ed.D., LPCC-S, LICDC-CS
Lindner Center of HOPE; University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, Ohio
This seminar examines how behavioral addictions like gaming, social media, pornography, and gambling, impact couples. Explore practical tools to recognize unhealthy habits, improve communication, and support each other’s recovery. Whether you are facing challenges or seeking prevention strategies, join us to swipe right on healing and strengthen your bond. Case studies will be presented along with the latest information and research regarding behavioral addictions and the treatment strategies necessary to address the impact these addictions have upon the individual and their partner.
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Examining Generational Differences in Parenting to Find Common Values and Strengthen Relationships
Philip Snell, LPC
Total Wellness 365, Cincinnati, Ohio
Current trends in parenting involve high engagement and attention, patience and attendance to kids emotional needs, and high standards for parents across family, friends, and social media. This represents a large departure from parenting norms for previous generations and navigating these intergenerational differences can lead to conflict among partners, shame, guilt, and overanxious parents. Identifying common values and expectations among parents can be a step forward for counselors seeking to strengthen parenting relationship, or repair and rebuild the relationship after conflict.
Beyond Performance: Sensate Focus as a Pathway to Pleasure and Connection
Emily Lacey, Ed.D, LPCC-S, AASECT CST
Zoe Stallings, M.A., LPC
Aligning Intimacy Therapy, Cincinnati, Ohio
This course offers therapists a modern, evidence-based approach to Sensate Focus, blending the original framework with current research on mindfulness, interoception, and the neurobiology of touch. Participants will learn how to guide clients through structured exercises, reduce performance pressure, and foster presence in intimate connection. Practical strategies will address barriers such as trauma, anxiety, and low desire, while highlighting ways to adapt Sensate Focus for diverse clients. The course also explores integration with other therapeutic modalities, giving therapists a flexible, holistic toolkit to support healing and reconnection in both individuals and couples.
Explore, Calm, Repair: Applying Attachment Theory and Motivational Interviewing to Transform Conflict into Connection
Annie St. Clair, M.Ed., LPCA, NCC
Align Counseling and Consulting, Louisville, Kentucky
High-conflict couples often become stuck in cycles that make communication difficult and repair essential. This workshop integrates motivational interviewing and attachment theory to provide clinicians with practical strategies for breaking those cycles. Motivational interviewing will be explored as a way to increase client accountability by guiding partners to reflect on areas of disconnection and growth. An attachment lens will be applied to help couples establish ground rules for conflict, create safety, and foster trust. Clinicians will leave with concrete tools to support both immediate conflict regulation and long-term relational repair.
Finding Peace Together:
Healing Couples Through Attachment-Focused Care
Troy L. Love, LCSW
Finding Peace Consulting, Yuma, Arizona
When couples face betrayal, withdrawal, or escalating conflict, traditional communication skills alone often fail to restore connection. This interactive workshop introduces the Finding Peace Framework, a trauma-informed and attachment-focused approach to helping couples in crisis. Participants will explore the Six Attachment Wounds and the Shadows of Shame that undermine intimacy, and learn practical strategies to disarm defenses, build attunement, and repair relational ruptures. Through experiential exercises and clinical applications, attendees will leave with evidence-informed interventions they can immediately use to help couples move from cycles of pain to pathways of peace.
A Trauma-Informed Approach to Women's Trauma and Distress Following Infidelity
Lois Curry-Catanese, LPC
Shenandoah University, Winchester, Virginia
The betrayal trauma of infidelity violates an individual’s core belief about trust and safety (Weigel & Shrout, 2021; Jules et al., 2022). Similar to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), betrayed individuals re-experience the betrayal of infidelity through depression, anxiety, hyperarousal, hypersensitivity, rumination, rage, and grief with thoughts of suicide. Women report a geater distress following a partner's infielity than men (Shackleford et al., 2000, SHrout & Weigel, 2018) The constant fear of infidelity happening again leaves women in survival mode (Sauerheber and Disque, 2016). These life-threatening psychological and physiological symptoms and behavioral responses are key components of post-infidelity stress. Many therapists struggle with balancing the needs of the couple versus the betrayed individual (Irvine & Peluso, 2022; O’Rourke et al, 2024). The ethical dilemma comes when the therapist does not recognize the stress and emotional reaction as a traumatic response, therefore misdiagnosing the betrayed client.
Supporting Couples Experiencing Loss as Kinship Caregivers
Leandrea Romero-Lucero, Ph.D., LPCC-NM, ACS, CSOTS
Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania, Lock Haven, Pennsylvania
Research shows the positive impact kinship placement can have for the child (Epstein, 2007; Font, 2015), however there is no consistent way kinship caregivers, specifically couples, are supported once the child is placed in their care. This session will demonstrate how the theory of ambiguous loss (Boss, 1999) can be applied in a group format to provide support for couples who are also kin guardians to address the feelings of loss they face individually and as a couple.
Are You Even Listening to Me?!": Hallmark Communication and Conflict Patterns of Cross-Neurotype Couples Within a Neurodiversity Affirming Lens
Colleen Lehman, MA, LPCC
Colleen Lehman Counseling, LLC., Cincinnati, Ohio
As our collective understanding of ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) evolves, we are invited to explore the role that neurodiversity plays in communication and conflict patterns in cross-neurotype relationships. This workshop highlights, and provides neurodiversity affirming language for, dynamics common in neurodiverse couples. These patterns can be subtle, especially early in a relationship, but the compounding effect of these dynamics over time can lead to immense resentment for both partners, high conflict, and separation/divorce if gone unaddressed. This workshop provides learners with a treatment lens to support partners in working with, rather than against, their unique brains.
Hormones, Desire, and Disconnection: Supporting Couples Through PMDD, Perimenopause, and Menopause
Dr. Mariah Plociniak, LMFT
Sacred Healing Counseling, Orlando, Florida
Hormonal transitions like PMDD, perimenopause, and menopause can upend emotional regulation, sexual desire, and relational connection which is often misinterpreted as purely relational problems. This workshop helps clinicians recognize the intersection between endocrine shifts and attachment dynamics, reframing these changes as shared challenges rather than personal failures. Attendees will gain practical tools for addressing desire loss, irritability, and emotional dysregulation within couples, while strengthening communication, empathy, and safety during this complex life phase.
Waybridge Counseling Services has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7868. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Waybridge Counseling Services is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
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