Dr. Karen Gail Lewis, MSW, Ed.D.

Dr. Karen Gail Lewis, marriage and family therapist for 50 years, is author of numerous books and professional articles on siblings, marriage, gender communication, women’sfriendships, single women and group therapy. Her newest book is Sibling Therapy: The Ghosts That Haunt Your Clients’ Love and Work. She has presented nationally and internationally on these same topics. For 27 years she ran Unique Retreats for women and for siblings. She's been on four MFT boards and book review editor for two journals. She's been interviewed extensively by all forms of media. She has taught in several MFT programs.

Adult Siblings: A Hidden Resource for Your MFT Practice
Saturday | May 4, 2024
9:45 am - 11:45 am
(2 CEs)

Workshop Description:

Family therapists may see the entire nuclear family, a subset of the family, or even one individual. Regardless of who is in the office, when working from a systemic perspective, it is crucial to see the larger picture. Yet a larger picture often overlooked in helping your clients is the adult siblings.

Why talk about siblings, though, when you are never asked to work with them? Because your clients’ early childhood experiences, their first peer love relationships, are often where they learn or don’t learn skills for dealing in adulthood with lovers, co-workers, friendships.

In fact, people with brothers and/or sisters actually have two sets of siblings: The first are the original, flesh and blood siblings. The second are the left-over perceptions, feelings, and resentments from childhood that, like ghosts, are invisible and never age - even as the original siblings do age and change.

This workshop will help participants understand how the early childhood relationship can be considered a laboratory, or “first marriage,” for adult love relationships. Then, through the process of “sibling transference," your clients may recreate their early relationships -- falling back on what is familiar, from their first marriage. By recognizing and understanding these transferences, you can c onsidering siblings as a hidden resource; this is especially true with intractable problems.

Participants will learn to assess for a sibling connection with your clients, then help your clients make the sibling connection to their presenting problem.

This is an interactive workshop that includes (depending on time) roleplay, small group discussions, and other experiential exercises.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:

• Explain the importance of the childhood sibling relationship on adult clients' relationships
• Identify the four key concepts for understanding the sibling resource for helping your clients: frozen images, crystallized roles, unhealthy loyalty, and sibling transference
• Identify at least one way if there is a sibling connection with your individual/couple clients
• Name at least one way to determine if there is a sibling connection to their presenting problem

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