The Attuned Therapist
presented by Rebecca Sears and Caroline Bernhardt-Lanier
Training Details
Thursday – Saturday,
May 7-9, 2026
9:00 am – 6:00 pm Eastern, daily
Bethesda, Maryland
(Washington DC Area)
Pricing & Discounts
Registration cancellations made up to 30 days prior to the start of the course (the date of the first live class) will be refunded in full (less transaction fees). Cancellations made between 30 days and 1 week prior to the start of the course will be refunded minus a $50 administrative fee. Cancellations made less than one week prior to the start of the course will be refunded minus a $100 administrative fee. No refunds will be given for cancellations after the first live class. All cancellations, questions, and concerns can be submitted to info@
Embodied Presence and Attunement in Therapy:
Advanced Skills for Transforming Relational Dynamics
The Attuned Therapist is an advanced clinical training for experienced therapists who want to deepen their relational presence, clinical sensitivity, and capacity to stay grounded in complex couples work.
Rather than focusing on new techniques, this training centers the therapist’s attunement — to self, to each partner, and to the relational field between them. We explore how safety, nervous system regulation, and moment-to-moment presence shape the therapeutic process, especially in sessions marked by intensity, rupture, grief, or uncertainty.
This training is designed for clinicians who already understand the Imago framework and are ready to refine how they use it: slowing the work, tracking process rather than content, and using their own presence as a primary clinical instrument.
You’ll join a community of seasoned therapists committed to practicing with greater clarity, confidence, and relational integrity — even when there is no clear or immediate resolution.
The Attuned Therapist: Advanced Clinical Training Will Support You To:
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Refine your ability to track moment-to-moment relational process rather than content alone
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Stay grounded and relational in sessions marked by high affect, shutdown, grief, or uncertainty
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Use your own nervous system, pacing, and presence as part of the intervention
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Recognize and respond to subtle shifts in safety, connection, and disconnection between partners
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Work skillfully with rupture and repair — including moments when there is no clear or immediate resolution
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Deepen confidence in how you practice, not just what you do
Advanced Training Format & Learning Environment
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An in-person, experiential training designed for seasoned clinicians
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Teaching that integrates theory, live demonstration, guided reflection, and clinical consultation
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Small-group process work to support integration and peer learning
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Emphasis on slowing down, deep listening, and clinical discernment
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A supportive learning environment grounded in respect, curiosity, and relational safety
After this training, you will be able to:
- Define couples who present clinical challenges in therapy settings.
- Define attunement’s clinical implications for therapeutic effectiveness.
- Explain the significance of anxiety within couples therapy, including its impact on relational dynamics and therapeutic progress.
- Define the Relational Paradigm as it pertains to Imago Relationship Therapy.
- Identify the unique role and skills of the Imago therapist in facilitating developmental and relational change.
- Identify their own personal reactive behaviors both inside and outside the therapy office.
- Apply interacting dialogically with couples to foster connection and understanding.
- Apply new approaches to the validation step of Imago dialogue.
- Name the role anxiety plays in the therapist.
- Demonstrate clinical skills for maintaining presence when anxious.
- Demonstrate the importance of embodying attuned leadership in sessions—demonstrating calm, confident presence to support client safety and provide clear, compassionate structure.
- Identify couples at each of the first four developmental stages in relational growth.
- Identify the developmental needs present in adult intimate partnerships and how these manifest in clinical presentations.
- Plan specific ways to use clinical attunement skills learned in the workshop to target these relational needs in couples.
- Discuss the significance of the psychological journey, and its importance in the relational paradigm for both therapist and clients.
- List at least five interventions to support safe sending of messages.
- Lise five interventions to support attuned and connected receiving in couples dialogue.
- Utilize sentence stems and prompts that support positive, forward-moving growth with couples in session.
- Describe the stages of growth in becoming an effective Imago Relationship therapist.
- Explain the Imago Feedback and Supervision model as applied to clinical skill development.
- Identify five key characteristics of an attuned and present Imago therapist.
- Develop a personal growth vision reflecting commitment to staying present and attuned with couples in clinical practice.
- Evaluate and reflect on one’s ongoing professional development in embodied presence and clinical attunement.
This training is intended for Imago Therapists, Imago Professional Facilitators and therapists in general at the advanced level.
CUE Management Solutions, LLC is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. CUE Management Solutions, LLC maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
CUE Management Solutions, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed. psychologists #PSY-0242.
Participants can earn 24 CE credits upon successful completion of this training. Full attendance is required; no partial credits will be offered for partial attendance.
Please note: While APA CE credits are widely accepted, participants should verify with their specific state licensing board to ensure these credits meet their continuing education requirements.
Meet the presenters
Rebecca Sears, PhD, MDiv is a pastoral psychotherapist with nearly four decades of clinical experience. She began her practice in Washington, DC in 1986 and now practices in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Rebecca has been working with the Imago model since 1994 and has served as a Faculty member of the Imago International Training Institute since 2003. As a Senior Clinical Instructor and Senior Faculty member, Rebecca trains clinicians and other professionals in Imago Relationship Therapy in the United States and internationally. Her work reflects a deep commitment to relational healing, clinical excellence, and the thoughtful transmission of Imago as both a model and a way of being.
Rebecca currently teaches and works in Estonia, Romania, Russia, and the Netherlands. Much of her professional focus is now devoted to offering Advanced Imago trainings and mentoring emerging Imago faculty around the world, supporting their development with care, rigor, and relational integrity.
She is a Clinical Professor at Daybreak University and is deeply grateful to have completed her PhD in Imago Relationship Therapy in 2023. Rebecca brings warmth, wisdom, and a lifelong devotion to the healing power of relationship to all of her teaching and clinical work.
Caroline Bernhardt-Lanier, PhD, LPC is a Franco-American therapist, trainer, and faculty member with the Imago International Training Institute. She brings a deeply relational, culturally attuned perspective to her clinical and teaching work, shaped by her experience living and working across the United States and Europe.
Caroline is known for her warm, grounded teaching style and her emphasis on attunement, safety, and the therapist’s use of self as a central clinical instrument. Her work focuses on helping clinicians slow down, track relational process, and cultivate the kind of presence that supports safety, depth, and meaningful connection — especially in complex or emotionally charged clinical situations.
She works internationally with therapists and couples, offering clinical trainings, advanced workshops, and supervision rooted in Imago Relationship Therapy and a nervous-system-informed, relational paradigm. Caroline is particularly passionate about supporting therapists as they grow in confidence, discernment, and relational integrity in their work.
Across both training and practice, Caroline brings a hopeful, humane lens to relational healing — one that honors complexity, values curiosity over certainty, and trusts in people’s capacity to grow when met with presence and care.