Peter Fraenkel – The Last-Chance Couple: Saving Relationships on the Eve of Destruction

Outline

Four Types of Last Chance Couples

• High conflict couples
• Couples where there has been a value or safety violation
  • Domestic violence
  • Infidelity
  • Gambling
  • Abuse of substances
• Couples where partners have mismatched personal time lines/life goals
  • Explicit Time Problems
  • Implicit Time Problems
• Couples with little to know passionate connection
  • Burned out and conflict avoidant couples

How to Engage the Partner Who is Ambivalent about Staying in the Marriage

• Inviting and validating the partner’s ambivalent feelings
• Creating Comfort and Safety with the Committed Partner
• Self-Disclosing

Techniques that Restore Hope and a Possible Better Future

• Teaching communication and problem-solving skills that restore hope
• Introducing reframes of problem patterns that restore a sense of the positive qualities of the relationship
• Gratitude Writing

Ideas that Encourage Couples to Try New Patterns of Interacting
Communication Techniques

• Brief introduction to research-supported communication and problem-solving techniques
• Techniques for Restoring Pleasure and Passion
• The Sixty Second Pleasure Point activity
• The Silent Shared New Experience activity