The Relational
Crucible

When a couple comes into the room, the client isn't either of them. It's the relationship: the argument that always goes the same way, the withdrawal that invites pursuit, the desire that faded without anyone quite deciding it should. Most of us were trained to work with one person at a time, and couples work asks for something different.

This two-day course brings together three ways of seeing. Transactional Analysis helps you understand how each partner's script fits, often uncomfortably well, with the other's. Gestalt gives you a way to track contact as it happens between them. And a biopsychosocial frame supports you to work with sex and intimacy, which is where relational patterns often show most clearly and where many therapists feel least confident.

The course is led by Lohani Noor, founding director of the Institute for Relational and Sexual Therapies (ThIRST). Lohani trained first in TA psychotherapy and then in psychosexual therapy, so the integration at the heart of these two days is one she has lived in her own practice.

Day one: Scripts, contracts and the relational field

We start with the couple as a system of interlocking patterns. Using TA, we look at how life scripts shape partner choice and conflict, how two scripts can lock together so each partner reinforces the other's, and how ego states and life positions show up in a couple's transactions. You'll also reflect on your own script and how it might shape your work with couples.

We then turn to contracting at more than one level: initial, therapeutic and process contracts, including how a couple defines itself, monogamous or not. We look at the "invisible water" of heteronormative and mono-normative assumptions therapists can carry without noticing, and at how a couple's dynamics get re-enacted in the relationship with the therapist.

The afternoon brings in Gestalt. The infinity process offers a way of seeing partners as continually moving between self-regulation, contact, withdrawal and return, and the cycle of contact helps identify where that movement gets interrupted. We finish with the drama triangle, intergenerational patterns and triangulation, and practise in triads: spotting a script-based interaction and offering a Gestalt experiment to interrupt it.

Day two: The body, sexuality and integration

Day two works through a biopsychosocial frame. We look at how biological, psychological and social factors all play into a couple's sexual life, how to avoid settling on one explanation too soon, and how to take a sexual history that is thorough and trauma-informed. We also explore the parallels between the sexual response cycle and the Gestalt cycle of contact.

From there we look at how relational patterns show up sexually. Low desire as a sign of relational distress rather than individual pathology. Desire discrepancy, erotic deadness and the loss of separateness. Gendered scripts and the exile of the Free Child. Infidelity as a script-based enactment. Aggression and power in a couple's sexual life.

The afternoon draws it together: using script analysis to inform psychosexual formulation, Gestalt experiments for sexual avoidance and disconnection, and the therapist's own script. We also cover co-therapy, working with gender, sexuality and relationship diversity (GSRD), high conflict couples, supporting couples who choose to separate, and the ethics of competence, supervision and referral. There's time to bring your own cases for group formulation.

By the end of the course you'll be able to

• Apply TA concepts, including interlocking scripts, ego states and contracting,      to couple dynamics

• Use the Gestalt infinity process to track and intervene in relational contact      patterns

• Carry out a comprehensive biopsychosocial assessment of psychosexual issues in      couples

• Recognise how scripts and unfinished business show up in a couple's sexual and      intimate life

• Formulate integrative interventions that address both relational and sexual distress

Who it's for

The course is for trainee and qualified therapists who work with couples, or would like to. You don't need to have trained in TA or Gestalt; the key ideas are introduced as we go. Qualified therapists will find room for more advanced formulation with complex cases, and trainees will get a solid grounding in the foundations. The trainer adapts the balance to the experience in the room.

Much of the learning is experiential, including looking at your own scripts and relational templates, so we agree a group contract at the start to keep the work contained. Personal therapy and supervision alongside the course are encouraged.

How the course runs

Short teaching inputs with case illustrations, experiential work in triads, case vignettes, small group work and time for your own cases.

Everyone receives a course handbook with summaries of the theory, assessment tools and protocols, case vignettes and formulation templates, a reading list, and guidance on supervision and practice development.

Recommended reading

• Brownell, P. (2017). Gestalt Psychotherapy and Coaching for Relationships. Routledge.

• Visnes, V. and Jacobsen, K. M. (2026). Gestalt Integrative Couple Therapy: A Clinical Approach. Books on Demand.

• COSRT Training Standards: Biopsychosocial Framework

• Foundational TA texts on script and ego states

Your trainer

Lohani Noor is the founding director of ThIRST, the Institute for Relational and Sexual Therapies. She is a UKCP registered psychotherapist and an accredited member of COSRT, and holds a four-year diploma in Transactional Analysis psychotherapy and an MSc in Psychosexual Therapies.

Lohani regularly delivers training for COSRT members and sits on its board of trustees. She is the author of Rationale for Psychosexual Therapies: 100 Key Points and Techniques (2026) and the audiobook 12 Steps to Sexual Connection, and runs a private practice in Manchester.