Two-Year Post-Graduate Couples Therapy Fellowships

• The Fellowship is designed to generate highly trained and competent therapists specializing in couples therapy.  Fellows will have the opportunity to fulfill the supervision and clinical contact hour requirements for full licensure in the state of Illinois.

• The Couples Clinic and Research Institute in Geneva, Illinois is the home of an innovative team of therapists and researchers who have generated methods that are known and used by couples therapists around the world (thecouplesclinic.com/our-story). Each year, therapists come to Geneva to learn Pragmatic/Experiential Therapy for Couples. They work hard while also enjoying all that Geneva has to offer (Geneva is rated by World Atlas as one of the 15 most beautiful towns in America.)

• We believe that your personal qualities are more important than your experience.  We do not expect you to have any experience in couples therapy. We are looking for therapists who have a passion for couples therapy and have a strong enough personality to hold the therapy room with distressed partners.  We are also looking for individuals who are able to challenge and support clients at the same time.

• We are the creators of Pragmatic/Experiential for Couples (PET-C). Detailed in our books, Emotional Intelligence in Couples Therapy: Advances from Neurobiology and the Science of Intimate Relationships, and Developing Habits for Relationship Success, our approach has been described by Oprah as “completely counterintuitive and wonderfully effective.” The editor of the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy called it “a tour-de-force of scientific wisdom and sophistication.”  Step-by-step, you will become masterful in implementing this highly integrative and comprehensive treatment model for couples.

• Supervision is most intensive in the beginning, then gradually tapers off as you become more experienced with couples.
• In the first 6 months, you’ll receive 4 ¼ hours of individual supervision and 2 ½ hours of group supervision each week.
• In months 7-12, you’ll receive 3 ¼  hours of individual supervision each week, and 2 ½ hours of group supervision (1 hour during the summer months).
• In months 13-24, you’ll receive 2 hours of individual supervision and 2 ½ hours of group supervision each week (1 hour during the summer months).
• Throughout the Fellowship, your supervisor will:
  • • Listen to audio-recordings of your sessions, giving you moment-by-moment suggestions about how you can increase your effectiveness.
    • Guide you through (and give you feedback on) training exercises that help you…
      • • • Identify key choice points in sessions, when moving one direction vs. another can make a big difference.
          • Learn to use words and phrases that get your client’s attention and help them realize concrete changes they need to make.
          • Develop the ability to give clients critical feedback without them feeling criticized.
          • Examine the automatic reactions you have during sessions, understand where these automatic tendencies come from, and engage in practices that can re-wire them when needed.
          • Understand the highly integrative nature of PET-C, and how it is similar and different to other couples therapy approaches.
    • Teach you how to become adept at helping partners…
      • • • Become willing to drop the upper hand and put themselves on a level playing field with their mates.
          • Understand and assume responsibility for their mutual contributions to the depleted condition of their relationship.
          • Experience genuine regret and remorse for the pain that they have caused each other.
          • Come to grips with their perpetual differences, cut their losses, and get on the same page with a game plan for how to manage these differences more successfully in the future.
          • Rewire the way their nervous systems react in emotionally charged situations.
          • Navigate spontaneous disagreements better – replacing criticism, defensiveness, and dismissiveness with more effective ways of getting their needs met.
          • Avoid rabbit holes that lead to repetitive arguments.
          • Create relational safety, allowing partners to open their hearts to each other, enabling feelings of warmth, tenderness, affection, playfulness, sexual interest and the desire for loving connection to emerge.
    • Help you become skilled and efficient with the electronic medical records system and the fee monitoring and collection process,
    • Help you learn how and when to use our vast collection of tools, exercises, protocols and audio recordings clients can use between sessions to increase the impact of your interventions.
• Throughout the program you will have continuous online access to the full collection of Dr. Atkinson’s teaching videos that give step-by-step guidance on how to facilitate every single aspect of the therapy process. Your supervisor will point you to the right video at the right time.

• Fellows are expected to conduct an average of 44 sessions per month during the first six months of the Fellowship, and a minimum of 40 sessions per month during months 7-24 (40 sessions per month is the minimum during months 7-24.  Fellows are encouraged to conduct an average of 80 sessions per month).
• Fellows are expected to conduct therapy sessions during “prime time” hours: 4-10 PM weekdays; 8AM – 6 PM Saturdays and Sundays (unless some of these hours can be scheduled with clients who are available during daytime weekday hours).
• Fellows are expected to attend all training and supervision sessions as detailed in the Training and Supervision section above.
• Fellows are expected to audio-record their counseling sessions for review during supervision.
• Fellows are expected to engage in role plays facilitated by the clinical supervisors.
• Fellows are expected to be open to understanding their own relational tendencies and the etiology of those tendencies.
• Fellows are expected to read and be proficient with assigned materials prior to the beginning of, and during the Fellowship.

• The Post-Graduate Fellowship is a paid 2-year position. Your total estimated compensation package across two years for a full-time Fellowship  is $174,923.
• In the first six months, you will be classified as an independent contractor, and you will be paid a monthly stipend of $3333/month.  You won’t be expected to carry a full-time caseload.  Rather, you’ll be expected to average 44 sessions per month across the first 6 months.  If you conduct more than the required number of sessions, you’ll get a bonus of $42 per session. If you conduct less than the required number of sessions, you’ll receive a deduction of $42 per session.
• At month 7, you will convert from an independent contractor to a Couples Clinic employee and receive Couples Clinic benefits during the remainder of your fellowship (The Clinic will pay ½ of your Social Security and Medicare taxes and you’ll be eligible to enroll in an optional IRA plan in which the Couples Clinic makes the maximum allowed IRA employer contribution. You will also have the option of enrolling in the Couples Clinic health insurance plan). You’ll also shift from receiving a set stipend each month to getting paid a per-session rate which increases the more sessions you conduct.  Full-time fellows who average 80 sessions per month during months 7-12 (20 sessions per week) receive a monthly pay of about $3975.
• At month 13, your per-session compensation will increase so that if you average 80 sessions per month (20 sessions per week) during months during months 13-24  you’ll receive about $4135 per month.
• The bottom line is that beginning with month 7, after conducting a minimum of 40 sessions per month, you get to decide how much more you want to earn by choosing how full you want your caseload to be.  We always have a waiting list of clients who are wanting our services, so you can add more couples any time.
• In addition to pay for sessions conducted, the Fellowship training, supervision and benefits package is estimated to be worth $81,453 over two years.  See the PDF titled, “2024-2026 Fellowship Compensation Package for more detail.
• Throughout the fellowship, the Couples Clinic provides liability and malpractice insurance.
• The fellowship plan offers the possibility for Fellows to receive all clinical supervision hours and client contact hours necessary for full licensure in Illinois.
• If you perform well during the 2-year fellowship, you’ll receive an invitation to join the Couples Clinic permanent team of therapists. You’ll earn approximately $70 per session. Depending on how hard you are willing to work, Full-time Couples Clinic Therapists can earn over $100,000 per year.)

• The completion of a Master’s or PhD degree in Marriage & Family Therapy, Social Work, or Counseling by July 1, 2024 (special exceptions can be made for those graduating at the end of the summer 2024 semester).
• Completion of Levels 1 and 2 of the Online Training Program in Pragmatic/Experiential Therapy for Couples by the end of May, 2024.
• Interest in becoming a full-time Couples Clinic team member after completing the fellowship.
• An honest and sincere respect for relationships and a commitment to providing the best care possible.

Additional Preferred Qualifications (not mandatory)

• Knowledge of the major models of couples therapy.
• Sex therapy training
• Sex therapy education
• Knowledge of specific trauma models
• Experience with trauma therapies.

1. Record a video introducing yourself and answering the following questions. Email the video as an attachment or upload it to YouTube and send us the link (staff@thecouplesclinic.com .) (You can use your phone to record the video).

Questions:

• What about the Fellowship at the Couples Clinic is exciting to you?
• What are your strengths and weaknesses?
• What adjectives best describe your personality?
• What are you like in a group? How do people experience you?
• In this fellowship, you’ll receive lots of feedback about your personal habits of interacting with others, your habits of expressing yourself, and the way you organize and process thoughts and emotions. Have you ever received feedback on these sorts of things? Can you give an example? What do you think this feedback process will be like for you?
• If you were offered this fellowship – what would be your biggest hesitations in taking the position?
• Where do you envision yourself in 5 years? In 10 years?
• What else should we know about you?

2. Email your resume or curriculum vitae (to staff@thecouplesclinic.com) along with the names and contact information of three supervisors or professors who you are willing to allow us to speak with about your qualities as a learner. In your email, tell us why you are interested in the Fellowship and why you think you would be a good candidate.

The Application Timeline:

• January 15, 2024: The reviewing of applications begins. Applications will continue being received until all fellowship positions are filled.
• February 15, 2024: First fellowship offers are made.*
• July 1, 2024: Fellowships begin.

*Offers will be contingent upon the applicant completing of Levels 1 and 2 of the Online Training Program in Pragmatic/Experiential Therapy for Couples by the end of May, 2024 (Applicants who receive and accept fellowship offers will be reimbursed for the online trainings).

• Couples Therapy Fellowship Flyer
• Overview of Couples Therapy Fellowship
• Fellowship Compensation Package
• Eight Reasons Why You Should Do This Fellowship