Name: When Love Meets Money: Financial Conflict in Couples Therapy—Live
SKU: WLMM-261005
Availability: InStock

In this experiential two-hour training, therapists will explore how unconscious beliefs and early messages about money shape the ways couples connect, argue, withdraw, and repair. Participants will learn practical Imago-based sentence stems and approaches they can use directly in clinical sessions.

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We offer a self-selected pricing structure to support greater access to professional learning. Please choose the rate that best reflects your current financial circumstances.

Continuing Education Credit

2 APA CE credits are available for an additional $30. Participants who select the CE option must attend the full program and complete all required evaluation and documentation requirements to receive credit.

When Love Meets Money: Financial Conflict in Couples Therapy—Live
Working with the Hidden Emotional Life of Financial Conflict

Presented by Michelle Bohls, LMFT

In this experiential two-hour training, Michelle Bohls will guide therapists in exploring what lies beneath financial conflict: the beliefs and money narratives each partner carries, the early experiences that shaped them, and the protective strategies that develop around safety, worth, trust, autonomy, and love.

Drawing on research related to financial socialization, money beliefs, relational patterns, and couple conflict, participants will explore how early experiences and messages about money shape each partner’s beliefs, emotional responses, and defensive patterns. These dynamics can contribute to reactivity, withdrawal, polarization, and recurring conflict between partners.

Through clinical reflection, experiential exercises, and structured relational dialogue, participants will practice questions and sentence stems that help partners identify money-related beliefs, emotions, needs, and defensive patterns. These interventions can help therapists move beyond the surface content of financial disagreements and support greater understanding, emotional safety, and collaborative problem-solving.

Teachings are appropriate for healthcare professionals as well as the general public. Healthcare professionals will be able to incorporate the tools and practices offered in this program in ways beneficial to clients or patients.

Participants will leave with:

A clearer framework for understanding the emotional roots of financial conflict
Practical sentence stems for helping partners explore money-related beliefs, emotions, and needs
An experiential understanding of how Imago Dialogue can deepen conversations about money
Clinical language and tools that can be used with couples immediately

Learning Objectives

By the end of the program, participants will be able to:

Identify how unconscious money beliefs and defenses contribute to recurring financial conflict between partners.
Apply Imago-based sentence stems to help partners explore money-related beliefs, emotions, and needs.
Explain how unmet needs and early messages about money can shape reactivity, withdrawal, and conflict between partners.

About Michelle Bohls

Michelle Bohls, LMFT, is an Imago Clinical Instructor, Certified Imago Relationship Therapist, supervisor, and workshop presenter with nearly two decades of experience working with couples, individuals, and groups. She teaches internationally and has developed extensive training on the psychology of money, including Money Matters: Our Relationship with Money and Money in Our Relationships. Her writing and presentations explore the emotional dimensions of money, including shame, deprivation, vulnerability, envy, and the ways financial beliefs affect relationships.

Michelle brings together her clinical experience, background in organizational leadership, and expertise in group psychotherapy to help therapists understand the deeper relational dynamics beneath financial conflict. She currently lives in Costa Rica, where she balances teaching and clinical work with her love of surfing.

Information on Continuing Education Credits (CECs) for Health Professionals

CE credits for psychologists are provided by the Spiritual Competency Academy (SCA) which is sponsoring this program. The Spiritual Competency Academy is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Spiritual Competency Academy maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

The California Board of Behavioral Sciences accepts CE credits for LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFT license renewal for programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association.

LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFTs, and other mental health professionals from states other than California need to check with their state licensing boards as to whether or not they accept programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association.

For questions about your certificate or the content, logistics, or other support issues regarding this course, please contact Imago Center of Washington DC at info@imagocenterdc.com. For questions about whether APA CE is valid for you, contact your licensing board directly. For general questions about APA CE, contact SCA at ce@spiritualcompetencyacademy.com.

Join Imago International Faculty member Michelle Bohls as she shares at the Imago Center DC’s monthly speaker series!