Imago Advanced Training - The Attuned Therapist

Imago Advanced Training – The Attuned Therapist

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.

$750.00

Places Still Available

Places
Category:
FACILITATOR
Caroline Bernhardt- Lanier, PhD, LCPC (she/her)
Email Caroline
DATE

Thursday, May 7 through Saturday, May 9, 2026
TIME

9am to 6pm Eastern

 
LOCATIONBethesda, Maryland
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The Attuned Therapist: Advanced Clinical Training Will Support You To:

  • Refine your ability to track moment-to-moment relational process rather than content alone

  • Stay grounded and relational in sessions marked by high affect, shutdown, grief, or uncertainty

  • Use your own nervous system, pacing, and presence as part of the intervention

  • Recognize and respond to subtle shifts in safety, connection, and disconnection between partners

  • Work skillfully with rupture and repair — including moments when there is no clear or immediate resolution

  • Deepen confidence in how you practice, not just what you do

Advanced Training Format & Learning Environment

  • An in-person, experiential training designed for seasoned clinicians

  • Teaching that integrates theory, live demonstration, guided reflection, and clinical consultation

  • Small-group process work to support integration and peer learning

  • Emphasis on slowing down, deep listening, and clinical discernment

  • A supportive learning environment grounded in respect, curiosity, and relational safety

About Caroline Bernhardt-Lanier, PhD, LCPC

Caroline Bernhardt-Lanier 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.

About Rebecca Sears, PhD, MDiv

Rebecca Sears 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.

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