Healthy Connections Knoxville (KMI) is committed to providing high-quality training and support to area churches and therapists who are interested in improving and serving community marriages. Many of you are already partners with us in providing empirically supported and effective relationship education workshops to church and community couples. (If you are not yet a partner and would like to learn more, please see our website: knoxvillemarriageinitiative.org or contact us at kmi@compassioncoalition.org).
To expand on our services, we would like to offer a series of targeted workshops that will help to better equip pastors and therapists to address difficult issues that couples today are likely to face. Our first workshop will be on how to understand and address betrayal and infidelity in relationships. This issue is one of the most challenging issues that people who treat couples encounter and many people feel overwhelmed by the complex and conflicting emotions and problems that these couples bring into their meetings. However, Dr Kristina Gordon, KMI’s Executive Director, has developed and researched an effective approach to treating these couples and would like to share what she has discovered with the Knoxville community. We are hosting a 3 hour lunch and learn workshop on Aug. 29th from 10:30-2 at Fellowship Church, 8000 Middlebrook Pike Knoxville, room 601.
A certificate for three hours of continuing education will be provided for all therapists, social workers, counselors, and psychologists in attendance. Lunch will be served at the workshop for all participants who register in advance through our website. For partner churches, this workshop will be free to all pastors and therapists who are members of the church. For non-partner churches and community therapists, the cost will be 50$.
To register for the workshop, go to https://rbknox.org/calendar/ or contact us at kmi@compassioncoalition.org.
Brief Presenter Bio
Dr. Kristi Gordon has spent her entire career seeking to help couples have healthy, vibrant relationships (Really, check her vita: http://web.utk.edu/~kgordon1/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/CV_Gordon.pdf). Dr. Gordon received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and completed her clinical psychology internship at the Brown University Consortium. She is currently Full Professor and Director of Clinical Training in the Department of Psychology at the University of Tennessee. She has served on two multi-million dollar government grants seeking to understand and support couples relationships. She is the co-author of two books on how to help couples recover following infidelity published by Guilford Press, and of numerous articles on forgiveness, infidelity, and general couple distress. She was elected a Fellow in the Society for APA’s Couple Family Psychology and was recently President of that Division. She serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Family Psychology, Family Process, and Couple and Family Psychology: Research and Practice. Her work regarding infidelity has been cited in national media outlets such as the New York Times, USA Today, Psychology Today, and the APA Monitor, and in regional and local TV and news media. Dr. Gordon is passionate to see the university community and the church work together to nourish and protect healthy relationships all over the greater Knoxville area. In addition to her research, teaching, and service activities, she also maintains a private practice and is mom to two fantastic daughters and wife to a very patient and understanding husband.
