Dates:
Module 1 - 2: Jan 15-17, 2026
Module 3 - 4: April 9-11, 2026

Time:
 9am-5pm PST

Location:
First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley
2407 Dana Street Berkley Ca 94704

EFT Core Skills Training

If you have completed the EFT Externship, are legally allowed to practice psychotherapy in your state, and are looking to deepen your understanding of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) while strengthening your confidence in practicing EFT, we invite you to join us!

Why Join Core Skills Training?

Our Core Skills Additional Training in EFT offers therapists a supportive, hands-on learning experience in a safe, positive, and engaging environment. You will learn to:

  • ✔️ Focus on clients' emotions—access, explore, deepen, and expand emotional experiences.
  • ✔️ Facilitate new couples therapy conversations that foster secure attachment, closeness, and connection.
  • ✔️ Engage in role-plays, experiential exercises, and video observations to strengthen your clinical skills.
  • ✔️ Receive direct feedback and guidance from experienced EFT Therapists and Supervisors.

What You’ll Learn

In this Core Skills Training, we focus on the core strengths of EFT and Attachment Theory, helping you naturally integrate these concepts into your unique therapeutic style.

  • 🔹 The Attachment Lens: Learn to attune to your clients’ emotions more deeply, creating greater emotional connection in therapy sessions.
  • 🔹 Emotion as the Main Show: Discover techniques to access, track, and deepen emotions in a way that enhances your clients' relational bonds.
  • 🔹 Understanding Relational Patterns: Identify how couples co-create and maintain negative patterns, and develop strategies to help them change.
  • 🔹 Changing the Music of the Dance: Couples need help shifting the underlying emotional dynamics of their relationship. You will gain tools to tune into the emotional "music" of their dance and help them create new, secure, and lasting connections.

Interactive Learning Approach

  • ✔️ Small group training with personalized attention.
  • ✔️ Video-based learning (optional): Watch examples of EFT in action and receive feedback on your own sessions.
  • ✔️ Live case consultations: Participants may present a 10-minute audio/video segment of a couples therapy session for review.
  • ✔️ Hands-on practice: Engage in role-playing exercises to refine interventions and techniques.

Who Should Enroll?

📌 This training is only for therapists who currently see 1-3 couples regularly. If you do not currently work with couples, this program may not be a good fit.

Optional EFT Certification Path: If you are pursuing EFT Certification, completing two Core Skills modules will fulfill part of the ICEEFT requirements. However, we highly encourage participation in all four modules to develop mastery of EFT. More certification details can be found at ICEEFT.com.

What You’ll Gain

  • ✔️ Feel more confident in your ability to help distressed couples.
  • ✔️ Develop a deeper passion and enthusiasm for your clinical work.
  • ✔️ Have the tools to create real change in your clients’ relationships.

🚀 LIMITED SPACE AVAILABLE – Register Today!

Cancellation Policy

Administrative Fee: A $50 flat administration fee applies to all refunds for Externship and/or Advanced Core Skills courses.

Refunds:

  • Up to 14 days before the event – Full refund minus the $50 administrative fee.
  • 8-13 days before the event – 50% refund minus the $50 administrative fee.
  • 7 days or less before the event – No refunds will be issued.

Trainers

Lisa Palmer-Olsen & Sam Jinich

Lisa Palmer-Olsen

Dr. Lisa J. Palmer-Olsen, Psy.D. is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist practicing in San Diego, California for over twenty years. She is also a Certified International Emotionally Focused Therapy Trainer and AAMFT approved Supervisor. Dr. Palmer-Olsen’s primary clinical and research interests are in the area of family systems and high conflict couple work, specifically with clients dealing with trauma and attachment related injuries. As a founder and Co-Director for Renova San Diego Inc, a non-profit 501(c)(3) based out of San Diego, she is committed to providing quality San Diego services accessible to all who seek it. Dr. Palmer-Olsen is passionate about providing affordable, high caliber training to mental health clinicians around the world. Dr. Palmer-Olsen completed her dissertation research on how to train and teach Emotionally Focused Therapy to professionals. Lisa was trained directly by the founder of the EFT model Dr. Susan Johnson.

Sam Jinich, PhD

Sam Jinich, PhD is a Certified Trainer in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT). He has been a clinical psychologist in private practice since 1995, specializing in working with couples from diverse backgrounds. Dr. Jinich was born in Mexico City and received his PhD from the University of California/San Diego State University’s Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology where he focused on couples and family therapy. He did his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine’s Center for AIDS Prevention Studies. In 2013, he founded the San Francisco Center for Emotionally Focused Therapy where he is the Director. More recently, he co-founded (with Natalia Gilabert,EFT trainer for Argentina) EFT Academiain Argentina, providing EFCT Master Classes, workshops, webinars, and supervision to clinicians around the world. As a bilingual and bicultural trainer in EFT, Dr. Jinich has been responsible for establishing EFCT in Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, Brazil, Chile and Spain through mentoring and supervising therapists in these countries toward becoming EFCT practitioners, supervisors, and trainers. He was involved in the planning and supervision of therapists in the first-ever multi-national randomized clinical-trial research study in Spanish on the effectiveness of couples therapy in general, and specifically of EFCT. Dr. Jinich is particularly known for his creative and passionate presentations on EFCT.