Trish Purnell-Webb is a clinical psychologist in private practice. Trish was the first therapist in Australia to become a Certified Gottman Therapist. She is also the only person in Australia to hold the title of Master Trainer and Consultant with the Gottman Institute and is only 1 of 22 in the world. What does all this mean? Recently Trish was interviewed by a psychology placement student from Bond University asking her about this.
Trish Purnell-Webb is a clinical psychologist in private practice. Trish was the first therapist in Australia to become a Certified Gottman Therapist. She is also the only person in Australia to hold the title of Master Trainer and Consultant with the Gottman Institute and is only 1 of 22 in the world. What does all this mean? Recently Trish was interviewed by a psychology placement student from Bond University asking her about this.
Interviewer: Hi Trish, thank you for talking to me to today. What does it mean to be a Certified Gottman Therapist.
Trish: It means that I have undertaken a structure course of training certified by the Gottman Institute in Seattle, Washington and have met a range of specified practice criteria that demonstrates I am competent in utilizing Gottman Method Couples Therapy with couples in distress.
Interviewer: Can you be more specific about the training and what it involves?
Trish: The training begins with a 2 day workshop that is primarily an introduction to the research of Dr John Gottman. This is a huge body of work that spans over 40 years of his professional life. John Gottman was really the first researcher to develop a therapeutic approach to couple recovery from the ground up. He first observed and video taped over 3000 couples in everyday situations, fighting, attending special occasions, engaging in family dinner, doing housework and chores, just hanging out together, pretty much anything and everything with the goal to first understand how they function, how they make relationships work and how they destroy their relationships.
From these videos he scrutinized every moment time and time again making various hypotheses and testing them, identifying patterns and direct causal relationships. And from all this data he developed his Sound Relationship House Theory. It was from this theory that he and his wife Dr Julie Gottman, a talented therapist, then developed a range of 50 interventions for therapists to use with couples to help them repair, rebuild and rejuvenate their relationships. In the first level of training into Gottman Method Couples Therapy we learn about all of this as well as begin to understand the use and importance of couple clinical assessment and the application of 9 of the key therapy interventions we use with couples to assist them to develop healthier relationships.
I was fortunate enough to attend my Level 1 workshop with Drs John and Julie Gottman and left feeling excited that I had a strong understanding of an evidenced based, structured process to assess, formulate and plan specific, focused treatment options for individual couples that would work.
The second level of training is a 3 day workshop where we re-visit in greater detail the key concepts introduced at the level 1 workshop, only this time we view them through the lens of working with complex couples. Couples who present with issues like infidelity, trauma, alcohol and drug issues, and domestic violence. During this workshop therapists are also provided with opportunities to practice and experience the power of the interventions through roleplays and with the assistance of coaching from Certified Gottman Therapists who roam around and offer this assistance. This is the beginning of the mentoring, coaching and consultation process that is at the heart of the success of the Gottman Method training.
I attended my Level 2 training in Los Angeles with a wonderful Gottman Trainer, Salvatore Garazini (Sam). Sam and his partner Alapaki Yee founded the Gay Couples Institute in San Francisco and are a testament to the applicability of Gottman Method Couples Therapy to all types of relationships. I left my level 2 training feeling much more knowledgeable and confident of being able to utilise the approach with even the most complex of couples in the most distressing of situations.
The third level of training is another 3 day workshop. This one is different again. In this workshop participants are encouraged to bring videos of their worst couples (with the couples’ consent). These videos are used over the 3 days as case material for practicum workshopping, in other words, therapists watch the video, get a sense of the couple and their issues, patterns and behaviours and then these are formulated through the therapeutic model group consultation. The trainer/s will then provide a live demonstration of how to use a specific intervention to address one of the primary couple issue with participants role playing the part of the difficult couple. Therapists are then provided with an opportunity to ask questions, provide feedback, discuss the approach before they move into roleplaying the situation together while Certified Gottman Therapists again roam around providing guidance, coaching, mentoring and feedback. It is a very positive, experiential, strengths based approach to helping therapists develop their skills.
I completed my Level 3 training in Seattle with Drs John and Julie Gottman. I left this training having learnt and experienced a huge range of new ways of intervening with couples in very confronting situations. As a result of this training my practice with couples certainly moved to a completely new level of competence and my confidence as a therapist increased exponentially.
The fourth level of training is entering the certification track. What this involves is making an application directly to the Gottman Institute to work directly with a consultant to fine tune your skills in the use of Gottman Method Couples Therapy. There is a range of professional and practice criteria that therapists must demonstrate before they can be accepted to certification track which can be found on our website at:
Once your application for certification track has been accepted you are assigned a consultant (you do have the opportunity to select your own consultant and to provide the institute with up to three preferred options). Your consultant makes contact with you and together you set up a schedule of meetings. These are frequently done using web based conferencing platforms, so distance isn’t a problem. During these consultations you and your consultant work through your cases together, you are required to provide video of your work with your clients so that your consultant can provide you with feedback, mentoring, coaching, encouragement and assistance to assist you to fine tune your practice and develop your expertise and a Gottman practitioner.
My consultant was Dr Bill Bumberry from St Louis Missouri. He really helped me to develop my process skills so that I could work at an even deeper emotional level with my couples to create experiential opportunities for them to deeply emotionally connect together in profoundly cathartic moments. Once again my practice with couples moved to a whole new level of effectiveness and confidence.
Since completing my certification I have gone on to continue in the mentoring process offered by the Gottman Institute to become a Certified presenter for the Art and Science of Love Couples Workshop and to become a certified Master Trainer and Consultant. What this means is that I am now able to provide training for other therapists in all levels of Gottman Method Marital Therapy from level 1 right through to certification. It also means that I am one of a handful of people who is invited each year to consult directly with Drs John and Julie Gottman in an on-going mentoring and feedback process to ensure that I stay up to date with new research and developments and that I have an opportunity to provide feedback to them about my experiences and thoughts about all matters Gottman. It is a great community to be part of where support, mentoring, feedback and continuous development the primary focus.
Interviewer: It sounds like a very comprehensive and positive experience both personally and professionally.
Trish: Yes, it is. The time and money I spent in gaining this level of training and expertise has been well worth it and is evident on a daily basis in my clinical practice with couples. It has also connected me to a wonderful network of other professionals who are incredibly supportive and helpful. We even have a FaceBook page where we can connect on a day to day basis and swap ideas, thoughts, ask for help, debrief, whatever we need.
Interviewer: How wonderful to have that on-going connection and support. Thank you so much for your time today. I have learnt a lot.