Betrayal Recovery Center Presents
Before Discernment Counseling
How Safe is Your Therapy Room?
Critical Clinical Questions
Working with couples impacted
by betrayal and deception
Discernment Counseling can help couples decide whether to repair or separate. Couples Counseling can help show them how to make the repairs.
This training guides you through the necessary pre-counseling work strategies to determine whether the client is ready for rupture repair, discernment counseling or couples therapy.
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Assessment
Couples often arrive in therapy after betrayal, secrecy, or escalating conflict.
In these moments, therapists are asked to hold intense emotional realities while trying to assess readiness for meaningful work. -
Framework
This training introduces a practical framework that helps therapists listen differently. You will learn how language patterns reveal motivation, avoidance, accountability, and power dynamics inside the couple relationship.
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Goal
The goal is not to become a detective.
The goal is to become a better listener to what the language is telling you. -
Friday April 17th
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11am-1pm EST
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2 Hours Continuing Education Certificate of Attendance
Before Discernment Counseling: How Safe Is Your Therapy Room?
Using Critical Discourse Analysis to Assess Readiness in Couples Work
This continuing education training provides clinicians with a structured, evidence-informed approach to assessing readiness for couples therapy using principles of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The program focuses on identifying markers of psychological safety, accountability, and relational readiness prior to initiating discernment counseling or couples treatment.
Couples frequently present with mixed agendas, high-conflict dynamics, or unresolved betrayal, requiring careful evaluation before engaging in conjoint therapy. This training equips participants with clinical tools to analyze client language as a means of assessing underlying power dynamics, avoidance patterns, and capacity for engagement in therapeutic work.
Participants will learn to identify and assess key discourse features, including agency, pronoun use, modality, metaphors, and presuppositions, as well as power-based communication patterns such as denial, minimization, and DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender). The training also addresses the role of logical fallacies in couple interactions and how these patterns may indicate limitations in emotional regulation, accountability, and readiness for treatment.
The course integrates CDA with the Discernment Counseling framework to support clinical decision-making about whether to proceed with couples therapy, initiate discernment counseling, or recommend individual stabilization. Additional content includes the role of neuroception and interoception in assessing perceived safety within the therapeutic environment, as well as cultural and contextual considerations that influence communication patterns.
In This Training You Will Learn
• How discernment counseling helps couples clarify whether to repair, separate, or remain undecided
• How language patterns reveal readiness for therapy
• How Critical Discourse Analysis can be used as a listening lens in couples sessions
• How to recognize linguistic markers of avoidance, blame shifting, and accountability
• How therapists can assess safety and psychological readiness before beginning repair work
• How to integrate discourse analysis with discernment counseling for trauma-informed couples treatment
Learning Objectives
At the conclusion of this program, participants will be able to:
Describe the role of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) in assessing client readiness for discernment counseling and couples therapy, including how language reflects power, safety, and accountability.
Identify specific linguistic markers that distinguish avoidance from accountability, including shifts in agency, modality, pronoun use, metaphors, presuppositions, discursive control, and DARVO patterns.
Apply CDA findings to clinical decision-making in discernment counseling, including determining when safety concerns warrant individual stabilization prior to couples work.
Who This Training Is For
This training is designed for:
• Couples therapists
• Marriage and family therapists
• Psychologists
• Clinical social workers
• Counselors working with betrayal, infidelity, or high conflict couples
If you work with couples where one partner is leaning in and the other is leaning out, this training will give you tools to assess what is actually happening in the room.
If you need special accommodations or have questions, please contact us.
Why This Matters
Many betrayed partners report leaving therapy feeling misunderstood, dismissed, or responsible for managing the session themselves.
Language reveals power, accountability, and emotional safety.
When therapists learn to listen for these markers, therapy becomes safer and more effective for both partners.
Before repair begins, the truth must have language.
LaDonna Carey, MA, Senior Psychological Examiner
LaDonna Carey, a licensed Senior Psychological Examiner in Tennessee, has over 35 years of experience specializing in attachment wounds, betrayal trauma, and Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM). She earned her master’s degree in clinical psychology from East Tennessee State University in 1989 and later returned as an adjunct instructor from 2014 to 2020.
Based in Kingsport, TN, LaDonna runs a private practice offering in-person and virtual therapy, with a focus on helping individuals and couples heal from betrayal trauma through personalized sessions and intensives. Trained in Partner Trauma Therapy and multiple couples therapy modalities—including Gottman (Level Two), Developmental Couples Therapy, Relational Life Therapy, Discernment Therapy, PACT, EFT, and IFS—she integrates trauma-informed approaches tailored to each client. She is also the author of Healing from Betrayal, a workbook for rediscovering Self after betrayal.
LaDonna provides continuing education for psychotherapists nationwide and, as a seasoned CISM responder, has supported industries such as manufacturing, banking, retail, and nuclear through crisis recovery and employee support.
