Narrative Couples Therapy, Volume 2
Video
with
Tom Stone Carlson, PhD, Sanni Paljakka, MSc., RPsych
Video 3 CE Credits

Narrative Couples Therapy, Volume 2

Understanding one another is only the beginning. In Volume 2 of Narrative Couples Therapy, Sanni Paljakka and Tom Stone Carlson demonstrate how therapists can help couples translate new understandings into everyday actions that communicate love, commitment, responsibility, and relational accountability. Learn how to help partners identify the relationship they hope to create together, navigate the obstacles that inevitably arise, and strengthen connection through intentional acts of care. Length: 3h 02m
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COURSE DETAILS

Overview

Without meaningful actions that embody love, commitment, and care, new understandings can only take a relationship so far. How do therapists help couples translate those understandings into everyday ways of relating? 

In this second volume of Narrative Couples Therapy, Sanni Paljakka and Tom Stone Carlson continue their work with Raysa and Johnathan, inviting each partner to identify everyday actions that embody the relationship they hope to create together. Rather than asking partners to negotiate what the other person should do differently, they help each person identify self-nominated “errands”—actions they themselves can undertake that communicate love, commitment, responsibility, and relational accountability. Along the way, they deepen themes introduced in Volume 1, including Intimate Witnessing, therapeutic documents, and collaborative inquiry, while introducing conversations about relational messages, ethical intentions, and the obstacles that inevitably compete with preferred ways of relating. 

By watching this training, you’ll learn how to help partners identify the messages communicated through everyday interactions, translate shared understandings into meaningful action, and prepare for the obstacles that inevitably arise as couples strive to live according to their preferred commitments. Throughout, Paljakka and Carlson model a collaborative, non-pathologizing approach that privileges clients’ own language while helping partners embody, through everyday actions, the relationship they hope to create together. 

You’ll discover how to…

  • Help partners identify actions that communicate love, commitment, responsibility, and relational accountability.  
  • Guide couples in developing self-nominated “errands” that embody the relationship they hope to create together.  
  • Explore the relational messages communicated through everyday interactions rather than focusing solely on behaviors or intentions.  
  • Help partners prepare for the obstacles that inevitably compete with their preferred ways of relating.  
  • Support couples in translating new understandings into meaningful everyday practices of care and connection.  
  • Maintain a collaborative, non-pathologizing stance that privileges clients’ own language, values, and shared understandings. 

What you'll learn

  • Describe the philosophical and ethical foundations of narrative couples therapy, including the concepts of relational accountability and the shaping effects of therapeutic conversations.
  • Explain the purpose and clinical rationale of intimate witnessing and how role repositioning can help reduce defensiveness while increasing mutual understanding between partners.
  • Apply narrative interviewing practices that help couples move beyond blame and behavioral complaints toward conversations about longing, meaning, care, and relational responsibility.
  • Differentiate narrative interventions that emphasize the relational effects of partners' actions from approaches that focus primarily on intention, explanation, or fault-finding.
  • Evaluate the use of narrative practices—including collaborative inquiry, therapeutic documents, and reflective conversations—to strengthen empathy, accountability, and connection within couple relationships.

About the Experts

Tom Stone Carlson, PhD
Featured Expert

Tom Stone Carlson, PhD

Tom Carlson, PhD, is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Professor and Branch Director of the Couple and Family Therapy Program at Alliant International University, San Diego. He serves as Co-Editor of the Journal of Contemporary Narrative Therapy and is recognized for his contributions to narrative therapy, pedagogy, LGBTQ-affirmative therapy, relational accountability in couples therapy, and pro-feminist approaches to supporting women impacted by patriarchal violence. Dr. Carlson has published and presented extensively in these areas. His recent works include Reimagining…

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Sanni Paljakka, MSc., RPsych
Featured Expert

Sanni Paljakka, MSc., RPsych

Sanni Paljakka is a psychologist and the Director of Training at the Calgary Narrative Collective. Her professional work intersects clinical practice and the training of emerging Narrative therapists. She contributes to the field as a writer and co-editor for the Journal of Contemporary Narrative Therapy with a particular interest in the construction of therapeutic documents, the concept of love and its absence in contemporary relationships, and the complex ethical and therapeutic dilemmas encountered in practice and education. She is the primary…

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