program and directs the Family and Divorce Mediation Program. A member of the American Family Therapy Academy for more than twenty years, she has presented nationally and internationally, at the annual meetings of the American Family Therapy Academy, the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, the Psychotherapy Networker, the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals, as well as this summer’s Third International Summit in EFT. Ms. Katz was one of the first therapists in New York to become certified in Emotionally Focused Therapy. She teaches and supervises innovative EFT courses at Ackerman and coordinates the annual externship in EFT in New York City. Ms. Katz has published a number of articles and a book chapter and has been quoted by the New York Times, the Associated Press, and other media outlets, including National Public Radio. She is active in professional organizations, currently serving on the Board of Directors of both the New York Association of Collaborative Professionals and the New York Center for Emotionally Focused Therapy. Her private practice is in New York City. Elana Katz 
The Art and Science of Emotionally Focused Therapy: Helping Couples Create Loving and Lasting Connections
August 6-10, 2012
There’s an old song with the painful refrain, “you always hurt the ones you love, the ones you love the most.” We are at our most vulnerable in our intimate relationships, and at the same time, we are mammals, wired to connect, and to regulate in dyads. So no matter how painful marriages and intimate relationships might become, our clients frequently bring us these relationships along with their wish for repair.
Developed by Dr. Susan Johnson during the past 25 years, Emotionally Focused Therapy focuses on the repetitive patterns of couples in distressed relationships and provides a map to use in creating new cycles marked by attunement and responsiveness.
In this workshop participants will learn to apply the premises and the language of attachment to effect change with their most challenging couples. Making extensive use of videotapes, role plays, and experiential exercises, participants will both see and practice the skills of EFT, a model that is getting world wide attention for its ability to create the safe haven and secure base that are emblematic of loving and durable relationships.
Monday
Our Attachments, Ourselves
Understand the foundations of attachment theory and attachment protest What are our own attachment styles, how did we learn them, and how can we use that to understand distress in our clients?
Tuesday
The Negative Cycle of Interaction
Learn to help each partner understand how their feelings and behaviors unwittingly shape and are shaped by the feelings and behaviors of their partner, and learn strategies to help the couple define the problem as the cycle, rather than each other.
Wednesday
Finding the Underlying Emotions that Feed the Cycle
Like the tip of an iceberg, each partner sees reactive behavior (often angry outbursts or withdrawals) resulting in isolation, along with constricted beliefs about each other and sometimes themselves. Learn to help clients touch the underlying feelings that drive the reactivity, even when these feelings are outside their own awareness.
Thursday
Enactments: The Key to Change in EFT
It is great to help our clients speak to us in new ways, yet the key to enduring success is to help our clients share their deeper fears and needs with each other. Practice the skills that will help your clients learn to reach and respond.
Friday
It’s a Wrap! Putting it All Together and Taking it Home
In this highly transparent model, the couple learns to be as articulate about their cycle and the road to change as the therapist. Listen to tapes of couples who can expand upon their own experience, and learn about the use of EFT in an educational program as an adjunct or alternative to therapy.
