Papers & Podcasts with David Mars, Ph.D.

AEDP for Couples and AEDPfC in the articles and papers below apply equally to Transformative Couples Therapy® . Transformative Couples Therapy® was the original name of the method David developed in 2008. Transformative Couples Therapy® and AEDP for Couples are synonymous. The work has been restored to its original name since David moved on from the AEDP Institute after eleven very full years there as a Senior Faculty member.  Transformative Couples Therapy® is taught solely under the auspices of the Center for Transformative Therapy with David Mars, Ph.D. as its founder and Director.

Integrating Sex Therapy into Couple Treatment

by David Mars, Ph.D.

Introduce sex as a topic early in treatment with a question like: “So is your sexual connection part of what you want to improve as part of your work here?”  Or “What would you say your sexual quality and frequency is compared to what you want it to be with each other?”  The theme is to bring it to become explicit that talking about sex is a natural part of couple therapy from early in treatment, often in the first session.  It is not important to be super-specific and detailed, unless either or both couple members invite that.  Almost universally it is true that sexual quality and frequency has declined when couples come into treatment, so when the couple therapist brings it up, then the couple members can go into the sexual realm more fully from early sessions, since we set the tone of treatment.

The transformance strivings (the biological drive to evolve and grow) are the key to increasing the felt experience of eros, the life force, which energizes sexual desire and momentum toward sexual connection.  Complaints about sexual “performance” are quite shaming and demotivating to both anxiously-attached and avoidantly-attached couple members alike, while speaking about what each partner wants is a conversation starter in-session and between sessions.

Since the Seven Channels of Experience include the energetic, sensation, movement and visual channels, there is much we can do to kindle the fire of erotic connection without being overt about it.  Pinkness in the cheeks and reddening of lips are guides to increased arousal in couple relating.  We are all mammals of course and the nerve bundles of the pelvic area are linked to facial pinkening that we can see and the couple members can sense. By bringing attention the inner sensations of warming in the face and drawing the attention of the partners to each other’s brightened eyes, pinkened cheeks and deepened and brightened iris color, we can open up a primal “conversation” with humor and delight amplifying an energetic lightening and stirring that is then shown through couple members movement channel as well.  This movement of leaning in toward each other, curling up on the couch (with shoes off) and hands moving toward hands, feet moving toward feet can then be encouraged, moving beyond the edge of the habitual stopping places into breakthroughs that bring relief and new openings to bring home.

Going Beyond Emotion in Treatment

by David Mars, Ph.D.

In treating couples, often more avoidantly-attached partners show a lesser capacity to perceive, receive and express emotion than their anxiously-attached partners.  This “deficit” area can be shaming for that couple member if we focus the therapy on emotions, especially after years or decades of failing the partner in the area of being able to feel or name emotions.  An over-focus on emotion, can create a thwarting and or even re-traumatizing bottleneck in treatment.  Especially early in treatment, the avoidantly-attached member of the couple often finds that connecting to emotions, especially in the presence of his or her attachment figure, is so threatening as to become nearly impossible because of how quickly dissociation (dorsal vagal response) is triggered. The exception to this difficulty in contacting emotion is the feeling of frustration and irritation, which is not generally a core affect, but a defensive reaction.

In the AEDP for Couples model, we bridge to other channels of bodily experience in order to open and validate alternate pathways as being also “real” and true and valuable, so connection can be made in whatever channel of experience it can be perceived, received and expressed in each evolving moment.  Part of the strategy of AEDP for Couples is for each partner to attune and then receive on the channels on which his or her partner broadcasts and then cross-train with each other to receive the channels of experience that are available as a larger repertoire is built over the course of treatment.

For the above stated reasons and more, in AEDP for Couples, treatment moves forward through moment-to-moment tracking of the co-created intersubjective field in a broadband sort of way.  Because in work with couples we have more than one person to track, by involving the seven channels of experience, we include more of the precious epiphenomena in the room. This is what Allan Shore calls the intersubjective somatic field.   The channels of experience include: sensation (including warmth, tension and tingling), energetic phenomena (expanding and contracting, filling and draining, brightening and dimming) emotion (joy, sadness, anger, fear, surprise and disgust), movement (including micro-expressions, and subtle gestures), auditory (voice tone and timbre and verbally conveyed meaning), visual (visible signs of expression, especially of love and caring) and imaginal (all of the other six channel of experience that appear as imagined that spontaneously or intentionally are called into awareness). For example: imaginal sensation, imaginal energetic, imaginal emotion, imaginal movement, imaginal auditory and imaginal visual experiences.

The intention in AEDP for Couples is to model and to assist each member of the couple to develop deep skills in holding an evolving witness consciousness that leads to a growing awareness and appreciation that a range of modes of experience and expression are valid and necessary within the growing culture of the couple.  This process is about tenderly and respectfully bridging to the experience of each partner to go toward that which is longed for in a mutually welcoming connection.  The natural flow is toward “uncrimping” all of the formerly defensively excluded channels of experience including emotion in a step-by-step process accompanied by affirmation and safety.

Dr Mars explains The Seven Channels of Experience (pdf)

A New Paradigm in Couples Treatment

The underlying difficulty that brings most couples into treatment is a disturbing sense of disconnection. Both individuals feel misperceived and triggered into defensive reactivity and are feeling too unsafe to give and receive comfort and support. In fact, often, both partners feel that their “best self” is “disappeared” by their partner.

Three Articles by Dr. Mars published in CAMFT Magazine (pdf versions)

Click on these Quotes to read selected sections of the article

• From the First Minute of the First Session . . . more​

• In AEDPfC, professional training is oriented strongly to the development of particular brain centers . . . more

• …the therapist identifies key markers of triggers and recognizes opportunities to "slide back in time" . . . more

• …we follow subtle cues about when to move forward, when to slow down and when to stop . . . more

From Stuckness and Reactivity to the Felt Experience of Love (pdf)

This paper describes and demonstrates a somatically focused orientation of tracking the intersubjective field phenomena of both members of the couple. The paper further describes how this method brings explicit awareness to the felt experience of love between the couple members beginning in the first session in order to build a safe container for the transformative work to follow.

Transforming Potential Divorce into Falling Freshly in Love in the Thirtieth Year of Marriage (pdf)

This paper shows the pre to post-treatment journey of a couple who came through an accelerated treatment process of eleven sessions of therapy. In the course of these sessions, they moved from the brink of divorce to freshly falling in love with each other after thirty years of marriage. Key interventions of the method are shown for establishing and deepening safety within the couple dyad. This then facilitates the treatment of each couple member’s trauma and deprivation within the couple sessions.

Meditations

Additionally, Seven Channels of Experience Meditations for Clinicians and for Couples are available as audio downloads on our Products page.