Discover a breakthrough model for couples therapy that gives you a roadmap for change and ends imposter syndrome.
You’ll never again have to wonder what to do in your sessions!


Created by industry innovators, the Developmental Model gives you a roadmap for incisive change. And this training includes a community to support your work as a couples therapist.
Gain full confidence to address all scenarios instead of guessing and hoping you’re getting it right.
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Too many training courses give you only behavioral skills and leave you with band aids that don’t heal the deeper wounds or lead to sustained change.
Why not use a model that helps you become the confident leader and guide your couples are looking for?
A model that gives you x-ray vision to see what's really going on, and the skills to help your couples uncover the deep issues. With you as their guide, your couples can finally face and resolve years of damage and tension.

The secret is sitting in the tension. And it works, even in the most complex cases.
An environment for mind-blowing transformation in less than a year, with “aha” moments starting immediately
In 12 weeks or less you will have a completely different mindset when facing tough situations!


Author of Mating in Captivity and The State of Affairs
Three steps to recharge your therapy practice, and the couples that work with you
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02
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Get immediate access to this high-touch,
comprehensive program when you join!

The Hostile-Angry Couple

The Conflict Avoidant Couple

The Passive Aggressive Partner

The Narcissistic Partner

The Self-Absorbed Partner

The Silently Disengaged Partner

The Addicted Partner

Lies, Betrayal, Affairs, and Infidelity

24 lessons are strategically sequenced to build your skill and interventions.
You’ll learn about a wide range of topics including:
- Goal-Setting for a Powerful Start
- Assessment from an Attachment Theory Perspective
- Assessment Tools to Diagnose the Couple’s Developmental Stage
- Understanding Differentiation
- Accessing the Emotional Brain for Rapid Change and Trauma Healing
- Recognizing the Three Types of Motivation
- Developing Empathy in Self-Absorbed or Narcissistic Partners
- Resolving Intrapsychic Impasses
- Navigating Clashing Goals and Values Collisions
- And much more!
In the Members' Area you’ll be part of a thriving community with valuable interactive discussions. After each clinical call you can ask questions, address stuck places, and discuss how to move cases forward. We don’t shy away from difficult issues like:
How to help couples repair and reconnect after infidelity
How to handle sexual desire discrepancy
How to integrate individual sessions into your couples work
How to manage confidentiality
How to integrate couples therapy when one partner is in early addiction recovery
How to handle threats of violence
or divorce

Attachment theory, neuroscience, and differentiation are combined to give you a broad range of targeted solutions, instead of being pitted against each other.
I believe I can help you develop a confident understanding of what to do, when to do it, and why, so you can work with almost every couples. I know this is a tall order.
Here’s why I believe I can make such a promise.
I have done the work – so you don’t have to – by integrating recent findings in neuroscience,
attachment theory, and differentiation! This gives you a foundation to diagnose,
intervene, and significantly change troubled relationships.
“I am sooo loving this course! The differentiation part feels like finding water in the desert of attachment-based approaches for me.”
Nik van den Berg, Amsterdam, MSc
Attachment Theory
The quality of early life experiences profoundly affects couples' relationships. You’ll become skilled at assessing each partner’s primary attachment pattern and learn immediate applications to help couples develop secure attachment.
Differentiation Theory
Understanding this theory enables you to help couples manage their conflicts and differences with a foundation that will last them a lifetime. You will support the evolution of each partner, as well as the growth of the relationship.
Neuroscience
One of the biggest breakthroughs in our profession is our recent knowledge that the mind can change the architecture of the brain. We teach cutting edge techniques and approaches to deal with early life trauma that is stored in the emotional brain and contributes to the pain couples inflict on each other. Changing their interpersonal process becomes much easier when you understand some neuroscience and can share it with your couples.
When integrated, these powerful pillars provide an unprecedented foundation so you can:
Help couples understand the underlying cause of relationship distress.
Apply practical techniques to get healing results.
Motivate unmotivated partners to take action.
Create progress so your couples don’t get discouraged and give up.
The training is the beginning. A community of like-minded therapists is the support you’ve been missing.
Live Clinical Training Sessions
Monthly live clinical training sessions show you exactly how the Developmental Model can work with your actual cases, including theory and interventions. Go more in depth about passivity, narcissism, trauma, the Initiator-Inquirer, attachment and the Developmental Model, diagnosing stages and choosing interventions, getting off to a strong start, and much more.
Client Handouts
Newly Redesigned Client Handouts – including Setting Limits on Conflict, Couples Questionnaire for diagnosing each partner’s stage of development, Self-Assessment After a Fight, Fostering Empathy, and many more reinforce what you’re learning and help your couples progress faster.
Members’ Case Consultations
You’ll have a special area to post your own cases for ongoing consultation. You’ll get feedback from me and your colleagues on specific challenging topics. These are just a few examples of past cases the group has worked on together: The No-Orgasm Secret, Narcissist Having an Affair, Are We Best to Separate?
Referral network
List yourself and your practice in our Members Directory. You can use the directory to find therapists around the world to refer to — as well as therapists who can refer to you. Your network of professionals and possible future friends just expanded!
Weekly drop-in calls
Join our trainers every Thursday at 9am or 1pm Pacific Time to learn in real-time how to apply the model to your actual cases.
Post your own gnarly clinical questions
Do you have a case that has stumped not only you, but everyone you’ve turned to? Bring all your cases and questions – no holds barred – and get effective feedback that you can use immediately.
36 CE Hours
For most licenses in the United States, this course fulfills the CE requirementsfor a whole licensing period Click here to read course objectives and information before registering. Some international bodies also recognize these credits.

Live clinical sessions

Client Handouts

Case consultations

Referral network

Weekly drop-in calls

Post your own gnarly clinical questions

36 CE Hours
And it doesn’t stop there! Join today and unlock...
Deep dives and demonstrations of specific techniques
Become better prepared for anything that your sessions might bring up by joining a deep dive into the best and latest techniques for handling any topic that comes your way.
Real client video sessions
Exclusive Video Demonstrations (including 2-chair Gestalt work, managing infidelity, confronting jealousy, and more) show you exactly how to implement what you’re learning.
Calls with guest experts like Dan Siegel, Esther Perel, Janis Spring, and Peter Pearson
You’ll access multiple experts in couples therapy, whose experience, knowledge, and skill set span the entire field. It’s like being part of several programs all in one!
Specialty training on topics like neurodiverse couples, addiction in couples therapy, infidelity repair
Topics like these require a broader skill set and more refined expertise. Go beyond average and get training in more speciality topics so that you can better serve a larger community of couples.
24/7 access to a supportive community of therapists
This Supportive Community of Therapists around the world is open 24/7 for you to get suggestions that could completely change the way you work with a tricky couple. And best of all, you will be supported and encouraged if there are days when you feel like giving up and quitting couples work.
Live tech support
Technology brings us together and connects us from all over the world, but sometimes it can also fail us in epic proportions. Don’t worry – we’ve added live tech support to help get you through any and all online roadblocks to make sure that you can get – and stay – connected.

Deep dives and demonstrations of specific techniques

Real client video sessions

Calls with guest experts like Dan Siegel, Esther Perel, Janis Spring, and Peter Pearson

Specialty training on topics like neurodiverse couples, addiction in couples therapy, infidelity repair

24/7 access to a supportive community of therapists

Live tech support
Who endorses The Developmental Model? The best of the best, and those who aspire to join them.

Creator of DARe - Dynamic Attachment Repatterning experience



Receive These Bonuses When
You Join Before Saturday
July 6 at 11:59PM Pacific.
BONUS VALUE $366
BONUS #1 You’ll receive a booklet with 21 of our most popular handouts. Your couples will love them too!
BONUS #2 Get off to a powerful start with a red carpet welcome!

AND… if you enroll by January 29th at 11:59 Pacific Time, you’ll get THREE MORE BONUSES!
Join the Developmental Model Training Program before September 29 11:59pm Pacific and you’ll receive $1,110 in bonuses.
1
Obsessing After Infidelity
- Learn how to know when obsessing is valuable and when it’s not
- Discover how to use the unrelenting questions and the search for more evidence to move partners forward
- Support the positive aspects of uncovering details while discouraging the processes that are destructive
- Guide your sessions in positive ways

Included are 3 handouts: a transcript of the webinar, Deep Empathy: One Partner Suspects an Affair, the Other Denies It, and Guide to Working with Infidelity: Self-Assessment, Evaluation, and the Three Stages of Infidelity Treatment.
1
1 Free month $189 Value

1
$150 Gift Certificate

$150 to spend in our online store any time throughout the length of your first year membership!
2
21 of Our Most Popular Client Handouts
As a bonus, you’ll receive 21 of our most popular PDF handouts. Your couples will love them too! Use these immediately to demonstrate new techniques, concepts, or ways of thinking without having to break open a textbook.
“I keep coming across a super helpful new handout that elicits a happy yelp of delight from within me, because I just know that it will shine light onto an insight or concept that I want to communicate to my client.”

3
Stepping Stones to Intimacy

Stepping Stones to Intimacy highlights the natural stages all couples go through, so you can make sense of why things feel the way they do right now. You’ll receive a PDF handout to give to your couples.
3
PATH to Success Calls

Extra Bonus #1:
One Month Free

Extra Bonus #2:
Tell Me No Lies book

couples or individuals
Extra Bonus #3:
Stepping Stones to Intimacy

These additional bonuses are ONLY available when you sign up BEFORE January 29th at 11:59 PST! After that, they’re gone for good.

$189 Value

book sent to your door

Client Handout

a one-to-one VIP experience with our program concierge, Ruth.
About Ellyn
This Program is a Magnum Opus Created by one of the Leading Innovators in Couples Therapy, Dr. Ellyn Bader

Ellyn has co-authored two books. The first one, In Quest of the Mythical Mate, was awarded the Clark Vincent Award by the California Association of Marriage & Family Therapists for its outstanding contribution to the field of marital therapy and has been reprinted more than 20 times. She has been featured on over 70 radio and television programs including The Today Show and CBS Early Morning News, and she has been quoted in The New York Times, The Oprah Magazine, Cosmopolitan and many more.
Sounds great, but what’s the data on the Developmental Model?
88% of therapists say they use it every week
96% say it gave them a roadmap for couples work
94% apply practical techniques to get healing results
95% say it also helps them with individual clients
95% say it’s easy to integrate with what they already know
Over 3,000 therapists in 72 countries have adopted The Developmental Model
Developmental Model Trainees in 72 Countries Worldwide
The Developmental Model is the foundational training you can build on for your whole career.
This can be your launch pad to:
- leading intensives
- becoming a trainer, speaker, or consultant
- writing a book
- leading couples retreats and workshops
This can be your launch pad to:
- leading intensives
- becoming a trainer, speaker, or consultant
- writing a book
- leading couples retreats and workshops
This can be your launch pad to:
- leading intensives
- becoming a trainer, speaker, or consultant
- writing a book
- leading couples retreats and workshops
Run, don't walk, while it's less than $6 a day!
You get everything on this page for about $6 a day.
11 Monthly Payments
$189
Annual
$1809 $1,997
- A $460 savings when you pay for the year over the monthly option
How do I know if the Developmental Model is right for me?

This community is for you if you want to…
- Make lasting impact and transformation with your couples
- Feel confident to address difficult situations without feeling burnt out
- Be supported by expert trainers and like-minded peers so you’re not alone
- Access endless resources, interventions and solutions for every situation
- Become a grounded leader and guide instead of subconsciously siding with one partner
- Enjoy your sessions instead of guessing how to uncover root issues
- Advance your practice to include ideal clients and a waiting list
We have all the answers. We know that’s a bold promise.
See what our students and advanced therapists have to say…







FAQs about the Developmental Model Training Program
Less than $6 a day! You can subscribe to this program for $189/month for 11 months (First month free) OR make one annual payment of $1,809 (a $460 savings!)
The program starts about 4 minutes after you enroll! Once you join, you can immediately log into the site and find answers to your questions. Our students say our search tool is better than Google, so you can find answers to implement in your own practice right off the bat. We will have a limited opening June 28 – July 6, 2024 so don’t wait too long to join. If you aren’t able to join this month, be sure to get on the waiting list and we’ll notify you of future enrollment opportunities.
Because we've offered this very special discount since you enrolled in the Change that Lasts course, there are no refunds to the monthly option because the 1st month is free.
If after 30-days you aren't finding the value you were expecting, email ruth@couplesinstitute.com and you can cancel the balance of your 11 monthly payments.
If you pay for the year in full, simply email ruth@couplesinstitute.com within 30 days and she will refund you payment in full.
Live 90-minute training calls usually happen on Mondays or Fridays between 9 am to 1 pm Pacific. That is in response to surveys we take regularly to find out members' preferred days and times.
We survey all members whenever new groups begin. All calls are recorded so even if you miss the live calls, you will have access to video & audio recordings.
We've also added a Thursday 9am or 1pm Pacific Drop-In call once per week that works well for people in various time zones. These calls are designed to further support your learning, Q&A, and give you the opportunity to connect with other members.
Here are a few of the upcoming live orientation and clinical calls:
- July 1 (Monday), 11am-12:30pm Pacific – Clinical Call (Recommended)
- July 19 (Friday), 11am – 12:30pm Pacific – Orientation Call (Recommended)
- Aug 5 (Friday), 11am – 12:30pm Pacific – Clinical Call (Recommended)
- Sept 6 (Friday), 11am – 12:30pm Pacific – Clinical Call (Recommended)
Optional Thursday Weekly Drop-In Calls:
- July 11, 1pm-2pm Pacific
- July 18, 1pm-2pm Pacific
- July 25, 9am-10am Pacific
- Aug 1, 9am-10am Pacific
- Aug 8, 1pm-2pm Pacific
What You Receive In The Developmental Model Training Program
Value Per
Item
Total
Value
12 Live Training Sessions & 8 Special Training Sessions
$350
$7,000
8 Live Bonus Training Calls (Including 100+ Archived Bonus Calls with Guest Experts like Dan Siegel, Esther Perel and others!)
$79
$8,532
8 Videos of Real Client Sessions by Dr. Ellyn Bader and Dr. Peter Pearson
$75
$600
100+ Archived Clinical Training Calls and 39 Special Training Sessions with Dr. Ellyn Bader
$89
$12,371
32 Client Handouts to Support Your In-Session Work
$30
$960
Being part of a Supportive Therapist Community
-
Priceless!
Investing in your Professional and Personal Growth
-
Even More Priceless!
Value of the Program
-
$29,463
Total cost of The Developmental Model Training Program with Dr. Ellyn Bader
-
$189 a month OR one payment of $1809 (save $460)
Iron Clad Guarantee - Zero Risk to You:

Our Iron Clad Guarantee promises 100% satisfaction. If you sign up for the monthly plan your first month is already free, so you will have 30 days before your first payment.
If you sign up for the full payment for the year (a $460 savings over the monthly plan) you have 30 days to decide if the program is right for you.
Simply email ruth@couplesinstitute.com within 30 days to either:
- Cancel your 11 remaining monthly payments
- Get a full refund for your annual payment
You can accomplish all this before 30 days:
- Have a clear, non-pathological way to describe to your couples why they are stuck
- Feel more confident in your ability to conduct first sessions
- Have diagnostic and assessment tools ready to use
- Look forward to Monthly Training Calls
- Find value in the Development Model of Couples Therapy
- Become comfortable knowing how to take charge in your sessions
- See clients respond better, make more progress, return with enthusiasm
- Imagine getting referrals for more couples
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