Weekend Conference April 25-27, 2025, will be offered as a hybrid conference with both online and onsite options. Open to any mental health professional or mental health professional-in-training
Overview
Please join us for the opportunity to study parenting issues in a variety of settings. This weekend conference will explore current issues of diversity and social challenge as couples become parents and navigate unique parenting issues. Experts from the Tavistock Clinic and the faculty of the International Psychotherapy Institute will illuminate parenting issues through a unique object relations framework. Through case material, we will ground theory in clinical practice and witness how conscious and unconscious forces shape the work of parenting.
Damian McCann will highlight the tasks of the couple transitioning to parenthood, exploring the couple’s motivations, both conscious and unconscious, to become parents. Kate Thomson will teach us about the challenges of parents raising a child with a disability, including depression, oedipal anxiety, and narcissistic wounding, and how “stuckness” in the development of the child can disrupt the couple’s functioning. Colleen Sandor will highlight particular social challenges for gay and lesbian couples as they transition toward parenthood, including internalized homophobia, unconscious bias, and the unique decisions these couples make as they consider parenthood.
Through large and small group discussions, participants will have the opportunity to apply the theoretical lens and concepts generated during the conference to clinical situations and examine therapeutic techniques to address parenting challenges faced by individuals and couples. The presenters will close by exploring the breakdown of the couple relationship and how couples can manage to hold the child in mind as a safeguard against their discord.
Participants in the International Psychotherapy Institute’s weekend conference, “Navigating the Rapids: Contemporary Couples and the Journey of Parenthood,” will have the opportunity to engage in stimulating conversations either as a full-weekend participant (April 25-27), or all day Saturday (April 26), or Saturday morning (April 26). This is your chance to connect with leading voices in the field and gain invaluable insights into the complexities of couple and parenthood. Join us at IPI for a transformative learning experience.
Program Date(s):
April 25, 2025 - April 27, 2025General weekend schedule
Friday 9:30am – 6:30 pm US ET
Saturday 9:30am – 6:30pm US ET
Sunday 10:00am – 2:00pm US ET
Please note that the listed times are for planning purposes only; final schedule times will be confirmed closer to the conference date.
April 2025 Conference Session Titles and Learning Objectives
Friday Morning, April 25, 2025:
All Change, All Change! Couples responding to the transition to parenthood.
Presenter – Damian McCann, D.Sys.Psych
- Participants will be able to discuss the motivations for parenthood and its implications for the couple relationship.
- Participants will be able to identify three particular challenges for couples during pregnancy and the birth.
GAM Group Session:
- Participants will be able to analyze the implications of parenthood for the couple relationship and its relevance to the GAM group process.
- Participants will be able to apply the GAM group experience to discuss and process the challenges of pregnancy and birth for the couple, making links with clinical examples, theoretical ideas, and/or personal associations.
Friday Afternoon:
Threats to boundaries around the couple relationship for parents raising a child with a disability
Presenter — Kate Thompson, MA, PgDip
- Participants will be able to identify three ways that pressure is placed on the parental couple when raising a child with a disability including depression, oedipal anxiety and narcissistic wounding.
- Participants will be able to analyze the concept of “stuckness” in a child’s developmental trajectory and the shadow this can cast on the parental couple’s relationship.
GAM Group Session:
- Participants will be able to apply the GAM group to discuss various dimensions of the pressure on a parental couple when raising a child with a disability.
- Participants will be able to evaluate what is meant by “stuckness” in a child’s developmental trajectory, while exploring links to theoretical perspectives, clinical material, and/or personal associations.
Saturday Morning, April 26, 2025:
Same-sex parenting: Choices, choices and more choices
Presenter — Colleen Sandor, Ph.D. (with Damian McCann as a discussant)
- Participants will be able to discuss three challenges for same sex partners as they become parents and to discuss three choices unique to same sex partners as they consider parenthood
- Participants will be able to analyze how internalized homophobia and unconscious bias may affect the couple as they move into parenthood.
GAM Group Session:
- will be able to apply the GAM to explore internalized homophobia and unconscious bias as it relates to their clinical work with lesbian and gay couples who are moving toward parenthood.
- Participants will discuss the many choices and challenges gay and lesbian couples have to face as they move toward parenthood.
Saturday Afternoon:
Case presentation by Jenna Knauss, LMFT
“Enhancing Parental Reflective Functioning: Interventions, Frame, and Impacts on the Child and Family”
- Participants will be able to describe the internalized objects that influence the relational dynamics between the parental couple and their children.
- Participants will be able to identify two therapeutic interventions aimed at helping the couple develop reflective functioning and self-regulation to improve their parenting capacities.
GAM Group Session:
- Participants will discuss how the case presentation, and subsequent discussion by the guest speakers, contributed to their understanding of parental reflective functioning.
- Based on the case discussion, participants will describe challenges to the therapeutic frame when working with a child and parental couple.
Plenary:
- Describe how the large group is affected by and working with the material, particularly in terms of integrating affective and cognitive learning.
- Discuss what the weekend themes around challenging issues facing the parental couple are raising within small group discussions.
Sunday morning, April 27, 2025:
The breakdown of the couple relationship and the forging of shared parenting
Presenters – Damian McCann and Kate Thompson
- Participants will be able to analyze the nature and meaning of conflict in the breakdown of the couple relationship and the importance of holding the children in mind.
- Participants will be able to explain the importance of mentalizing and will describe two therapeutic techniques to help couples manage the fall-out of the breakdown in their relationship.
GAM Group Session:
- Participants will be able to apply the group process to deepen their understanding of the nature and meaning of conflict in the couple relationship.
- Participants will be able to evaluate the unconscious process within the therapeutic relationship when working with couples in conflict, and explore links to theory, clinical material, and/or personal associations.
Sunday afternoon:
Closing Dialogue
- Participants will be able to identify two themes from the conference that will have an impact on their thinking and clinical practice.
- Participants will be able to discuss the importance of mentalization when working with the parental couple through a range of challenges.
Damian McCann, D.Sys.Psych and Kate Thompson, MA, PgDip
Damian McCann, D.Sys.Psych is a psychoanalytic couple psychotherapist working as a visiting clinician at Tavistock Relationships, London; adjunct faculty member of the International Psychotherapy Institute (IPI) Washington, DC; an associate of Queen Anne Street Practice, London; and an editorial board member of Couple & Family Psychoanalysis. He is also a consultant systemic psychotherapist with many years of experience working with children, adolescents, and their families. He has a particular interest in working with gender and sexual diversity in psychoanalytic practice and has published and taught widely on this topic. His doctoral research was concerned with understanding the meaning and impact of violence in the couple relationships of gay men and he is involved in developing approaches to working with couples more generally in which there is violence and abuse. He is the editor of ‘Same-Sex Couples and Other Identities: Psychoanalytic Perspectives’ published by Routledge in 2021 and co-editor of “Couples as Parents: Explorations in Couple Psychotherapy’ also published by Routledge in 2024.
Kate Thompson, MA, PgDip is a couple psychoanalytic psychotherapist with over 25 years of experience working with couples and individuals. She adapted the Couple Therapy for Depression model to work with perinatal services and for couples where there is substance misuse. Having led the Couple Therapy for Depression training project within the NHS for over 10 years, she now supervises for TR within the team.
Alongside running TR’s parenting workshop for over 10 years, Kate co-facilitated Parents as Partners groups for families with disabled children and is particularly interested in how the couple relationship intersects with the parenting one. This interest grew through her funded work in projects focusing on parents caught in conflictual separation.
Kate is co-Editor in Chief of the Journal of Couple and Family Psychoanalysis, co-edited and co-authored ‘Couples as Parents’ (Routledge 2024); ‘Engaging Couples: New Directions in Therapeutic Work with Families’, (Routledge, 2018) and a special edition of the Journal of Couple and Family Psychoanalysis on Divorce and Separation, (Phoenix, 2021). Kate writes for a variety of publications, lectures in the UK and abroad, is registered with BPC and BACP, and has a private practice in South West London.
IPI Faculty Weekend Co-Chairs
Colleen Sandor, PhD
Tuition and Fees
Registration options:
- Full Conference
- $475 up to 21 days in advance; $525 thereafter
- *Full members: $359
- *Associate members: $410
- Full time students: $175
- Saturday All Day (morning and afternoon): $175
- Saturday Morning only: $100
*Login to the website with your member information to access your discounted registration rate
Continuing Education Credit Hours
Full Weekend Conference:
- 14.5 CE credits
Saturday All Day:
- 6 CE credits
Saturday Morning only:
- 2.5 CE credits
Weekend Conference Attendance Policy
Participants can only earn CE credits for each session they attend in its entirety. No partial credit can be given.
Membership Benefits
Become a member of IPI at any level and you will have the option of adding on a Zoom Pro account as one of your member benefits. Associate and Full Members also receive discounted registration fees for most of IPI’s events, a subscription to PEP Web, the online psychoanalytic library, and other benefits depending on membership level.
HIPAA compliant Zoom video accounts are an optional add on for all IPI memberships. IPI has a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement with Zoom, which provides a HIPAA compliant platform for our accounts. HIPPA compliance is strongly recommended for all internet-mediated clinical work and clinical teaching. The “+ Zoom Pro” add-on to the IPI membership gives the user the ability to host online meetings with multiple people at the same time. [Current members can upgrade to the “+ Zoom Pro” account and only pay the difference in price from your current membership level.]
Click for IPI Membership and Zoom Account information
Continuing Education Information
The International Psychotherapy Institute, IPI, is approved by The American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. IPI maintains responsibility for the program and its content. The International Psychotherapy Institute has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 6017. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. The International Psychotherapy Institute is responsible for all aspects of the programs. The International Psychotherapy Institute is authorized by the Board of Social Work Examiners in Maryland to sponsor social work continuing education learning activities and maintains full responsibility for this program. This training qualifies for Category I continuing education units. The International Psychotherapy Institute is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0299.
Participants are responsible for verifying that IPI CE credit is accepted by the licensing boards in their own states.
Should you have any questions about the program or the application process, please feel free to contact:
IPI Administrative Team - contactus@theipi.org
