This workshop is a part of our:
Certificate in Diversity within Contemporary Relationships
Click above to see all modules and an overview of the entire certificate.
Dates : Wednesday 17th March 2027
Times: 10am – 4pm (BST). Please log-in at 9.45am for prompt 10am start.
TRAINER : Bernd Leygraf, Scroll down to see more about the trainer
LOCATION : Online
Cost : £110 if booked by 17th January 2027 ,
£125 if booked by 17th February 2027,
£140 full price
We now offer protection against cancellation. This must be purchased within 48 hours of booking the workshop. Click here for more info
Beyond the Western Couple
Working Therapeutically with Diverse Relationships and Cultures
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A one-day CPD workshop for therapists and counsellors exploring intimacy and relationship diversity across cultures and family systems, including arranged and family-facilitated marriage, polygamous relationships, collectivist approaches to intimacy, and online and geographically dispersed relationships.
Most therapists recognise that the skills of individual therapy cannot simply be transferred to work with intimate relationship systems. In couples therapy, the client is the relationship rather than two separate individuals; the therapist’s position changes, and the clinical skills required are fundamentally different.
But what happens when even our idea of “the couple” becomes too narrow? Much Western counselling and psychotherapy has developed within cultures that privilege individual autonomy, romantic choice, sexual attraction and the self-selected couple. These assumptions can easily become invisible clinical norms.
Yet our clients may organise intimate relationships very differently. They may be in arranged or family-facilitated marriages. They may understand marriage as involving families and communities as much as two individuals. They may practise consensual non-monogamy or polyamory, live within polygamous relationship structures, or sustain intimate relationships primarily or entirely online and across geographical borders.
Our familiar assumption that a significant relationship should be based primarily upon romantic or sexual attraction may therefore serve some clients very well — and others poorly.
Other Loves 2 is an intensive one-day exploration of relationship forms that challenge the idea that there is one universal model of intimacy. The day invites both individual and couples therapists to move beyond simply becoming sensitive to relationship difference and instead to examine the cultural assumptions embedded within our theories of therapy itself.
We will explore:
- Arranged and family-facilitated marriages — including cultural and
religious contexts, family involvement, obligation, choice and different
understandings of compatibility. - Polygamous relationships — examining culturally and religiously situated forms of plural partnership without automatically interpreting them through Western relationship norms.
- Individualist and collectivist understandings of intimacy — exploring what changes when family, community, faith and interdependence are central to relationship decisions.
- Developmental perspectives on relationships — using Bader and Pearson as a lens while asking how developmental models themselves may need adaptation across different relationship structures and cultures.
- Languages of love — moving beyond familiar Western formulations of romantic expression to consider a wider vocabulary for how love, loyalty, responsibility, care and belonging may be communicated.
Throughout the day, participants will be encouraged to examine their own assumptions about what constitutes a healthy, chosen, equal or successful intimate relationship.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this one-day intensive, participants will be able to:
- critically examine the cultural assumptions underpinning conventional Western models of couples therapy;
- differentiate between therapeutic skills required for individual work, two- person intimate systems and multiple-partner systems;
- develop greater confidence in working therapeutically with polyamorous and consensually non-monogamous relationships;
- understand arranged and family-facilitated marriage within different cultural, religious and relational contexts;
- adapt therapy approaches when working with relationships embedded within wider family and community systems;
- explore polygamous relationship structures without automatically imposing monogamous or individualist assumptions;
- distinguish important features of individualist and collectivist approaches to love, marriage, obligation and intimacy;
- apply a developmental lens, including Bader and Pearson, critically across different forms of intimate relationship;
- consider the particular therapeutic challenges presented by online-only and
- geographically dispersed relationships; and
- reflect critically on their own cultural positioning, values and biases concerning love, sexuality, commitment and relationship.
The Central question
Are we helping clients create relationships that work for them — or relationships that make sense to us?
ABOUT THE TRAINER: Bernd Leygraf
Consultant Psychotherapist co-founded a number of organisations (London Men’s Forum, UK Standing Conference on Sexual Abuse of Men, the Centre for Personal and Professional Development, the Whittington Hospital Psychotherapy Clinic, the Hungarian Gestalt Association, NAOS Institute). He co-authored with Judi Keshet-Orr the first MSc in Humanistic Psychotherapy and the first Masters programme in Psychosexual & Relationship Therapy in the UK. He also authored or co-authored, as well as led, several masters programmes in the UK, primarily at South Bank University, Middlesex University, Westminster and the University of Surrey. He was external examiner to various universities in the UK.
A former Chair of the Professional Standards and Accreditation Board at the European Association for Counselling, and Ethics Committee of COSRT, Bernd works currently with trainees, from over 40 countries. He is familiar with and interested in working with issues of cultural difference. His principal influences in sexological and couples work are David Schnarch, Joseph Zinker, Ellen Bader, Judith Hemming, Joan Lachkar, Judi Keshet-Orr and, as ever, his clients.
In 2023 Bernd was given the Liz McElligot Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Profession of Psychosexual and Relationship Therapy and for the support and guidance he has provided to the field.
Bernd is proud to have supported – alongside Judi – a significant number of sex and couples therapists in shaping their own professional identities and careers – both in the UK and further afield; some even have moved into offering specialist sex addiction clinics; others are now trainers in this field in their own right.
Bernd is delighted to be (founder and) Honorary Member of the Hungarian Gestalt Association. Clinically speaking Bernd focuses on working with celebrity clients, and on men in leadership, both nationally and globally.
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We recognise that few of us had the training, the supervision or the experience to work with more than two in the consulting room and yet we are meant to work within our competence. Our view of relationships as always based on romantic or sexual attraction might not serve all client populations. Most therapists will recognise that individual therapy skills are inappropriate to working with dual intimate systems, often referred to as “couples”.
The role of the therapist is different when the client is a couple (rather than two individuals) and the skills are fundamentally different. Many therapists will find the step from individual to couples therapy daunting in itself. This course is suitable for therapists who work one-to-one as well as those who are established as couple therapists.
Furthermore, our clients who identify as culturally different may challenge our way of thinking. Some clients may identify as polyamorous and consider themselves as “multiple partnered”. Others consider polygamy as the norm, and others may have met their partner through an arranged marriage. Each of these require a different skills set.
During the two days, we will explore and learn specific skills for welcoming and working with:
- couples (an intimate dual system)
- multiple partner relationships
- non-eurocentric relationships
- including arranged marriages and
- polygamous ones
- clients from collectivist cultures rather than individualist culture
- erotically marginalised client groups
Participants will be supported in:
- recognising and adjusting our communication which may sound
- discriminatory,
- hostile,
- including micro aggressions and
- overt prejudice
- exploring (counter)transference in this work.
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APPROVED FOR CPD : This course has been approved by NCIP- National Council Of Integrative Psychotherapists. A Certificate of Attendance form for Continuous Professional Development for 10 hours will be sent by email once you have filled in the feedback form.
This training may be taken on its own or as part of a 6-day series leading to a: Certificate in Diversity within Contemporary Relationships, more info can be found here: Certificate in Diversity within Contemporary Relationships
Maximum Number: 30
Something we all need to bear in mind
When powerful feelings are revealed and processed, it is not unusual that our own psychological issues are triggered and flow into the mix. Wilfred Bion is a respected name in the world of group working. He wrote extensively and cogently on issues that invariably occur in groups. We would like to agree basic guidelines with you – based on his findings – to ensure the success of our work together. Bion’s central focus was the disruption (he called it ‘resistance’) that may arise within a group that shifts it away from its agreed task. Our focus, our agreed task for this workshop is NOT therapy for the members or to criticise others.
Our agreed task is to offer teaching and learning related to diversity within contemporary relationships.
To this end, our Certificate in Diversity within Contemporary Relationships welcomes and needs people to be courageous, and examine prejudice with tolerance and a minimum of defensiveness. We need our workshops to be safe spaces, where participants can be vulnerable and supported if they make mistakes, as we all do. We would like to remind you that we work within UK law and ethics (Gender Recognition, Equalities Act, MOU and Race) and will not tolerate non-compliance in any way. We wholeheartedly support people courageously stepping forward, and anyone who is critical of this will not be welcome on this training and may be asked to leave.
OUR EXPECTATION : Is that you will attend this workshop for the full length of the course, have your video on, your mobile off, and fully participate.
There are some online talks on zoom that allow you to come and go, or to choose not to participate in the exercise and breakout rooms. This culture has started to creep into our workshops. We have even had people say they want to leave to go and pick up children from school or walk their dog! People dropping in and out is very disruptive – especially when there may be group exercises that are planned for the same group to participate in a number of times.
Because of this, we want to be clear about our expectations. This workshop has been planned with the assumption that you, and everyone else, will attend for the full time. So please be clear, that if you book on this workshop, we expect you to attend for the whole time, to participate in the breakout rooms and exercises and have your video switched on. Please also put your mobile to one side and on silent – checking your phone or texting will mean that you miss material. So we request that you only check your phone during breaks.
HANDOUTS : You will get a copy of the slides before the workshop
CANCELLATIONS : Any request to change (e.g. defer to alternative dates) or cancel your place at a workshop, that is made at less than 21 days before the course start date will be charged in full. Any cancellation / amendments / requests to defer before 21 days, will be subject to a 12.5% handling charge.
Organised through Sleeping Mountain Ltd