Engaging Taboo Conversations in Couples’ Work: Relational Identity Questioning | Hugo Kamya, PhD

This lecture is part of the Ackerman Distinguished Family Therapy Lecture Series, designed to contribute to conversations on advancements and opportunities in family therapy training.
This presentation by Hugo Kamya, PhD, explores ways to engage taboo subjects in couples therapy. Taboos are prohibitions. These prohibitions, whether self-imposed or other-imposed, can pose challenges for couples and practitioners who work with them. For couples whose relationship narratives are filled with taboo stories, there are voices and counter voices and discourses that underlie the dominant plots to their self-expression.
Facilitating alternative stories around taboo subjects, couples’ work offers skills in challenging and honoring the effects of taboos in couple relationships while critically examining larger stories. Through use of relational identity questioning (Freedman & Combs, 2002) and deconstructive questioning (White, 2011), discussion, exercise, video and case vignettes, we will experience ways of relating to taboo subjects in couples’ work. 
Following this session, participants will be able to: 
● Identify challenges in addressing issues with couples.
● Critique key discourses and taboos in couples’ work.
● Demonstrate and assess key strategies in working with couples through the use of relational identity questioning.
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