Name: When Love Meets Money: The Hidden Emotional Life of Financial Conflict in Couples Therapy
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.

Choose Your Registration Rate

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. No documentation is required.

Community Supported Rate
For participants for whom the Standard Rate would create a financial barrier.
Standard Rate
Reflects the core cost and value of offering this program.
Sustainer Rate
For participants with greater financial flexibility who would like to help support reduced-rate access for others.

Continuing Education Credit

Continuing education credit is optional and available for an additional $30. Please select either Registration Only—No CE Credit or Registration + CE Credit when registering.

CE approval is currently pending. Participants who select the CE option will receive continuing education credit only if the program is approved. Participants must attend the full program and complete all required evaluation and documentation requirements to receive credit.

Presented by Michelle Bohls, LMFT

In this experiential two-hour training, Michelle Bohls will guide therapists in exploring what lies beneath financial conflict: the unconscious beliefs and money narratives each partner carries, the early experiences that shaped them, and the defenses that develop around safety, scarcity, worth, dependence, and control.

Participants will reflect on their own relationship with money and practice Imago-based sentence stems that can be brought directly into clinical work. Through experiential exercises and an Imago Dialogue, Michelle will demonstrate how early messages and unmet needs can fuel reactivity, withdrawal, polarization, and recurring conflict between partners.

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.

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