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Part 1

• Romance (Lust) and Attraction Stages of Love
• What drives individuals to expend enormous energy to seek another person and begin an intimate relationship?
• The Brain systems that drive us to find and choose the right person, reproduce, and enjoy our partner.
• The Hormones that energize us, drive curiosity, push us to mate, and make us feel rewarded.
• Levels of Brain Operating Systems Driving Behavior
• Primary emotions: our hormonal and neurological reaction to our environment
• Feelings: our interpretations of emotions in the context in which they occur
• Thoughts: how to deal with feelings in social context
• Evidence based therapeutic interventions for new relationships
• Premarital Therapy and Communication Training
• Attachment Stage of Love
• What leads two people to form a lasting bond that nurtures emotional homeostasis and leads them to feel loved?
• The Brain systems that help us find safe partners, learn about them, come to care for them, and feel rewarded by their presence
• The Hormones that help us feel calm around, bond with, and trust our partners
• Evidence-based therapeutic interventions to help couples maintain satisfying relationships and deal with relationship problems
• Enhancing long term satisfying relationships
• Therapies for commonly recurring couple interaction problems

Part 2

• Parenting Stage of Love
• What leads two people to spend even more energy to reproduce; an undertaking that can be very stressful but also satisfying?
• The Brain systems that drive us (1) to be concerned about and care for our children and (2) cause us distress when our children are in danger or behaving inappropriately.
• The Hormones that help us bond with and attend to our children or motivate our nervous system to act.
• Evidence based therapeutic interventions to help families deal with parenting and child development problems
• Therapies for commonly occurring family problems
• Play therapy for children and Adult Therapy for Attachment Disorders
• End Stage of Love
• What happens to our emotional and physical systems when relationships are stressed, a couple divorces, or a partner dies?
• The Brain systems at work when our relationship experiences stressed
• The Hormones that keep us alive long enough to relieve distress.
• Stages of divorce and therapy for the couple and their children
• Grief counseling for widows and widowers

Learning Objectives

1. Describe brain systems and hormones involved in the Romance (Lust), Attraction, and Attachment stages of love.
2. Outline evidence-based interventions designed to help couples prepare for relationships/marriage.
3. Outline evidence-based interventions and therapies designed to help couples maintain satisfying relationships and deal commonly occurring relationship problems.
4. Describe brain systems and hormones involved in the Parenting stage of love.
5. Outline evidence-based interventions and therapies designed to help families deal with commonly occurring parenting and child development problems.
6. Describe brain systems and hormones involved in the End stage of love (divorce or death).
7. Outline evidence-based therapies for dealing with the end of relationships (divorce therapy and grief counseling).
8. Describe how the information in this course can be utilized to improve patient care and patient outcomes.