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Diploma: An Integrative Approach to Couples Therapy
Delivered as 8 weekend workshops from April to November 2026. Nottingham City venue.
- Course Leader: Deborah Blagden
- Offered as 8 two-day (Sat & Sun) workshops from April to November 2026
- Venue: In-person training based in Nottingham City.
- Timings: 9.30am - 5.30pm each day
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Fees: £2,400 (Non-Members), £2,160 (SPTI Members) Payable by instalments. £300 deposit required.
About the training
This Diploma is an in depth CPD training over 8 weekend workshops running from April to November 2026. The course explores working therapeutically with couples incorporating a variety of different therapeutic approaches within the couple’s framework.
This long CPD course is designed for people who usually work one to one, and want to work with couples, or those who are doing some work with couples and would like to update their knowledge and develop their skills. Working with couples is very different to working with an individual and not just because there are three people in the room. Psychotherapy with couples requires specific knowledge and skills rather than those applicable to general therapeutic work. On this course we aim to build on delegates’ existing psychotherapy and counselling skills and to widen these to include a range of theoretical approaches and systemic skills.
The course is designed to support you in building on, enhancing and honing your practice when working with couples. Our intention is to enable participants to work with confidence, ethically and at a deep level, incorporating a variety of psychotherapeutic models within the couple framework.
Your course fee includes a personal copy of a core text by Vann Joines. Using this text and knowing the 6 personality adaptations, you will be able to support your clients to become aware of their strengths, possible pitfalls, and areas for growth. Students are taught how to use the model to support them in treatment planning, their interventions, and to enhance contact in the couple relationship.
Who is the course for?
Counsellors and Psychotherapists with a qualification/training at level 6 (or level 5 with extensive clinical experience).
How will I be taught?
The workshops will be taught both didactically and experientially using case studies, small group and role play. Trainees will be invited to use their own experience of being in a couple to develop and integrate the theory and models being taught. Each workshop will be led by two facilitators and supported overall by a team of experienced tutors and administrative staff. You will be provided with academic articles and have access to our well stocked library at 2 Castle Quay, Nottingham to support your learning.
Workshop description and topics covered:
This Diploma, taught at level 7, will look at contemporary themes in working therapeutically with couples from an Integrative perspective, including but not limited to:
- Assessment
- Diagnosis, including Personality Adaptation
- Contracting
- Models of couple-hood - developmental model/object relations/attachment theory/Transactional Analysis
- Script in couple-hood – why we choose our partners
- Transactions and games in the therapy room
- Emotional literacy and problem solving
- Transference and countertransference in the therapy room
- The role of the therapist and therapeutic interventions
- Couple therapy with a sexual focus
- Risk, Safeguarding and domestic abuse
- Working with same-sex couples
- Working with infidelity and forgiveness
- Neuroscience and couple therapy
- Working with endings
- Private Practice, Ethics and Supervision
Assessment
- An in-depth case study of a couple of 4,000 words which is submitted within 12 months of completing the course
- or Viva with a 10-minute tape recording.
- Attendance of no less than 85% is required (14 days) Course Leader and Facilitator feedback Peer and self-assessment
Training Dates
This training is offered as 8 two-day (Sat & Sun) workshops from April to November 2026:
- Workshop 1: Beginnings – Let’s get started 18th - 19th April 2026
- Workshop 2: Conceptualising the work (part 1) 9th – 10th May 2026
- Workshop 3: Conceptualising the work (part 2) 13th – 14th June 2026
- Workshop 4: The therapy process 25th – 26th July 2026
- Workshop 5: The therapy process & Personality Adaptation Theory 5th – 6th September 2026
- Workshop 6: The therapy process: behavioural approach and problem solving 3rd – 4th October 2026
- Workshop 7: Culture and working with same sex couples 31st Oct – 1st Nov 2026
- Workshop 8: Infidelity, repair, endings & new beginnings 28th – 29th November 2026
Course Leader & Facilitator: Deborah Blagden (TSTA)
Deborah Blagden is a UKCP registered Clinical Psychotherapist, Supervisor and Trainer as well as a BACP member. She holds a MSc in Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy and is a Certified Transactional Analyst, undertaking her masters at the Metanoia Institute London in the mid 1990’s. Over the last 20 years she has also trained as an EMDR practitioner, Developmental Couple Therapist and completed training in Clinical Supervision. She is endorsed by the European Association of Transactional Analysts as a (provisional) Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst (PTSTA). She has worked in a variety of therapeutic settings, including the NHS and for the last 26 years in a Forensic setting facilitating therapeutic groups. She also manages a private psychotherapy practice in Derbyshire, working with individuals, couples, and groups.
Please Note: The Diploma in Couples Therapy is offered in partnership with The Sherwood Psychotherapy Training Institute. Participants will benefit from access to the SPTI Library and other resources and use of venue spaces at Castle Quay Nottingham.
The course was previously known as SPTI Diploma: An Integrative Approach to Couples Therapy.
Participant testimonials:
“[the training] has increased my confidence from the first workshop. It was helpful to consider my own frame of reference to check bias and how that might impact on my work with couples. It has helped me to occupy a third position in the room rather than get hooked into the narrative. Instead, I listen for their individual process and how their co-created system works as a couple.”
“[I most enjoyed] the trainer’s wealth of experience and knowledge and their sharing of real case examples to illustrate theory. Throughout there was a good mix of theory and discussion within small and large groups.”
“Couples work is challenging, and the responsibility feels great. It is therefore really important to manage their counter transference to ensure empathic communication is maintained and modelled.”