Helping Clients to Navigate the Shock of a Relationship Breakup

In this course, Dr. Michael Acton uses vivid imagery to evoke the pain and confusion associated with a relational break-up. Citing research using CCTV footage to investigate human reactions immediately after terrorist attacks, Dr. Acton explains how human beings’ survival instinct is to be together. However, clinicians need to understand how to be with clients who are in a fragile state after a break-up, navigating a balance of being congruently in our truth with being with the client’s truth (story). Identifying transference, getting extra clinical supervision, and doing clinician self-care are important to ensure similar therapist issues are not triggered by the client’s experience. Dr. Acton shares a model he developed upon doing Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis on his client notes and outlines the difference between this model and grief models sometimes used to deal with break-up issues.