Dr. Philip Chanin, Ed.D., ABPP, CGP, Ed.D, ABPP, CGP

My work in couples therapy utilizes the theory and practices of Imago Relationship Therapy (IRT), developed by Harville Hendrix. I also draw extensively on the approaches of nationally known couples therapists with whom I have trained, including John Gottman, Ellyn Bader, David Schnarch, Terrence Real, and Esther Perel. Imago theory helps to explain how the choices we make, in whom we fall in love with, almost guarantees that we will eventually find ourselves in difficult and painful power struggles with our partners. As Terrence Real has written, “We marry our unfinished business.”
Successful couples therapy, in my experience, is partly the result of learning new communication skills which interrupt the universal tendency toward defensiveness, enabling each partner to become a better listener as well as feel more heard by the other partner. Also, couples in conflict keep trying to get the other person to change. The coin of the realm in couples work is realizing, “I’ve got to change my own reactions and reactivity, for things to get better.”
I received a Bachelor’s Degree from Amherst College and a Doctorate in Counseling Psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. I am Board Certified through the American Board of Professional Psychology, am a nationally certified Group Therapist, and am also an Advanced Imago Therapist. I formerly served as the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Nashville Psychotherapy Institute. I am an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, for whom I see psychiatric residents for supervision and psychotherapy.