Course Details
Below is an overview of the classes included in the Marriage Coach Certification Course.
The Seven Developmental Milestones for Marriage
Explore the essential stages of growth that every couple must navigate to build a strong and fulfilling relationship. This course introduces the seven key milestones that help couples transition from prioritizing their family of origin to creating a thriving family of procreation. Gain insights into establishing clear roles and responsibilities, balancing independence with connection, and fostering healthy communication to minimize misunderstandings. Learn strategies for respectful conflict management, setting boundaries that protect individuality while fostering closeness, and building a healthy sexual relationship rooted in intimacy and trust. By mastering these milestones, couples can create a lasting foundation for a thriving, balanced, and meaningful marriage.
Key Highlights:
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Transition from prioritizing your family of origin to focusing on your new family of procreation.
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Establish clear roles and responsibilities to prevent conflicts and strengthen teamwork.
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Balance personal independence with emotional connection to avoid isolation or over-dependence.
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Master effective communication techniques to minimize misunderstandings and enhance intimacy.
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Develop conflict resolution skills that prioritize respect and mutual understanding.
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Learn to set and maintain healthy boundaries that foster individuality and closeness.
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Build a healthy and fulfilling sexual relationship rooted in trust and emotional connection.
Listening as a Coach
Unlock the power of intentional listening to transform the way you connect and coach others. This course equips you with the skills to truly understand what others are communicating—not just through their words, but also their emotions, intentions, and non-verbal cues. Learn how to foster trust and connection by creating a safe, judgment-free space for growth. Discover techniques for asking meaningful questions that inspire self-reflection and empower individuals to find their own solutions. By staying fully present and resisting the urge to jump in with quick fixes, you’ll develop the ability to guide others toward deeper insights and transformation.
Key Highlights:
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Learn to identify cognitive errors and their impact on emotional regulation.
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Understand how to listen for underlying fears and guide individuals to address them.
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Recognize and nurture passion while helping clients align it with their goals.
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Explore recurring communication patterns to uncover unspoken needs and desires.
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Master tools for understanding emotional dynamics and empowering meaningful growth.
Talking as a Coach
Discover how to use language as a powerful tool to motivate, inspire, and connect with clients. This course provides practical strategies for understanding and adapting your communication style to meet the unique needs of those you coach. Dive into the core principles of motivational interviewing and neuro-linguistic programming to enhance your ability to guide meaningful change. Learn how to craft questions and conversations that challenge unhelpful thought patterns, evoke self-reflection, and empower clients to take actionable steps toward their goals. With advanced techniques like Socratic questioning and emotional impact analysis, you’ll gain the skills to make every conversation transformative and impactful.
Key Highlights:
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Master techniques to adapt your talking style to fit your clients’ needs.
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Explore the core principles of motivational interviewing to inspire change.
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Learn how to elicit change talk and help resolve ambivalence in clients.
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Understand and apply the foundations of neuro-linguistic programming to deepen your communication impact.
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Develop the art of Socratic questioning to challenge limiting beliefs and foster growth.
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Discover how to assess the emotional impact of your language for more meaningful conversations.
Theories of Motivation
Discover what drives human behavior with this comprehensive course on motivation theories. From basic needs to complex cognitive processes, these insights equip you to inspire and guide others toward meaningful change. Explore foundational models like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Goal-Setting Theory, alongside key frameworks such as Self-Determination Theory, Expectancy Theory, and Social Cognitive Theory. Learn how internal drives, external rewards, self-beliefs, and perceptions of fairness influence motivation. Whether it's understanding the impact of arousal, managing equity, or leveraging the dynamics of temporal discounting, this course gives you actionable strategies to unlock potential and achieve sustained success.
Key Highlights:
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Gain a deeper understanding of the psychological and emotional factors that drive motivation.
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Learn how to apply proven strategies to inspire and sustain meaningful change.
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Explore techniques for aligning motivation with personal and professional goals.
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Discover how to balance intrinsic and extrinsic factors to maximize engagement.
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Develop skills to identify and address barriers that hinder motivation and progress.
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Understand how to tailor motivational approaches to individual needs and circumstances.
Approaches to Coaching
Discover the foundational frameworks and techniques that shape effective coaching practices. This course introduces a variety of coaching approaches, each offering unique perspectives and tools to guide individuals toward growth and transformation. Whether you're looking to deepen your understanding of human behavior, focus on solutions, or tap into an individual’s strengths, this course equips you with the skills to adapt your coaching style to meet diverse needs.
Key Highlights:
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Learn how to address personal and existential challenges to foster purpose and meaning.
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Explore strategies for building awareness and promoting growth through client-centered techniques.
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Develop skills to focus on practical solutions and empower clients to take actionable steps.
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Understand the role of mindset and beliefs in driving behavior and overcoming obstacles.
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Discover how to identify and amplify individual strengths to inspire confidence and motivation.
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Gain tools for transformational coaching to help clients achieve deep and lasting change.
Relationship Dynamics & Repair
Relationships are complex, requiring intentional effort to navigate challenges, improve communication, and foster healthy connections. This course delves into the intricacies of relational dynamics and provides practical tools to repair and strengthen relationships, whether in marriage, family, or parenting. Designed to help you understand the core components of relationships and provide strategies for addressing common challenges, this course equips you to guide others—or yourself—through the most difficult moments toward growth and harmony.
Relationship Dynamics & Repair
This section equips marriage coaches to understand the patterns, pressures, and relational dynamics that shape married life. It covers core areas such as communication, conflict, trust, intimacy, roles, parenting, finances, and the deeper personal and psychological influences that affect a couple’s relationship. The goal is to help coaches recognize what is happening beneath the surface and respond with wisdom, clarity, and practical support.
Relationship Theory
This section introduces major ideas and frameworks that help explain how relationships form, function, struggle, and grow. Students learn to view marriage through a deeper relational lens so they can better understand couple dynamics and guide meaningful change.
Communication (Coding & Decoding)
This section explores how messages are sent, received, interpreted, and often misunderstood within marriage. Students learn how breakdowns in communication happen and how to help couples communicate with greater clarity, accuracy, and emotional awareness.
Communication Stages
This section examines stages or levels of communication within marriage and how communication patterns can reveal the health of a relationship. Students learn how to identify where couples are struggling and how to help move them toward healthier, more productive interactions.
Infidelity
This section addresses the impact of betrayal on trust, attachment, emotional safety, and the marriage relationship as a whole. Students learn how to understand the complexity of infidelity and how to support couples as they process pain, truth, accountability, and possible restoration.
Divorce
This section explores the emotional, relational, and practical realities surrounding divorce. Students learn how to approach this area with wisdom and sensitivity, while understanding its effects on spouses, children, family systems, and future relational functioning.
Parenting
This section examines the role of parenting within marriage and how raising children can strengthen or strain the relationship. Students learn how parenting responsibilities, stress, and family structure can affect unity, communication, and partnership.
Parenting Styles
This section reviews major parenting styles and how they influence children, family culture, and marital harmony. Students learn how differences in parenting approaches can create tension between spouses and how to help couples pursue greater alignment.
Understanding Conflict in Marriage
This section helps students understand why conflict happens in marriage and what conflict often reveals about needs, expectations, beliefs, fears, and relationship patterns. Students learn to see conflict not only as a problem to manage, but also as something that can expose deeper issues requiring attention.
Conflict Resolution Interventions
This section focuses on practical tools and strategies for helping couples navigate disagreement in healthier ways. Students learn intervention approaches that promote listening, de-escalation, problem solving, mutual understanding, and repair.
Understanding Roles and Expectations in Marriage
This section explores how personal beliefs, upbringing, faith, culture, and life experience shape what each spouse expects from marriage. Students learn how unmet or unspoken expectations often contribute to disappointment, frustration, and relational tension.
Cultural Influences and Family Backgrounds
This section examines how family of origin, culture, traditions, and learned relational patterns influence marriage. Students learn how a couple’s background can shape communication, conflict, values, gender expectations, emotional expression, and decision-making.
Financial Management in Marriage
This section addresses the role money plays in marital stability, stress, trust, and long-term partnership. Students learn how financial habits, priorities, beliefs, and disagreements can affect the relationship and how to help couples build healthier financial unity.
Trust and Forgiveness in Marriage
This section explores how trust is built, damaged, and restored, as well as the role forgiveness plays in healing relationship wounds. Students learn how to help couples work through hurt, rebuild safety, and move toward stronger relational repair.
Elements of Emotional Intimacy
This section focuses on the foundations of emotional closeness in marriage, including openness, safety, empathy, responsiveness, and connection. Students learn what helps emotional intimacy grow and what causes couples to feel disconnected, guarded, or alone.
Psychopathology and Marriage Counseling Part 1–3
This section introduces key mental health concerns that can affect individuals and marriages, along with the ways those concerns may show up in the relationship. Students gain a practical understanding of how psychological struggles can influence communication, trust, regulation, intimacy, and daily functioning.
Psychopathology and Marriage Counseling Part 4–7
This section continues the study of mental health concerns and their relational impact, helping students build a broader understanding of complex issues that may affect couples. Students learn how to recognize concerns, respond appropriately within their role, and understand when additional care or referral may be needed.
Counseling (Coaching) and Psychology Theories
This section introduces major counseling, coaching, and psychological theories that help explain human behavior, growth, emotion, and relational patterns. Students learn how these frameworks can strengthen their understanding of couples and improve the way they guide conversations and support change.
24 Preplanned Sessions
Session 1: Alone — Focuses on aloneness, companionship, and readiness for marriage, helping couples think about personal space, shared connection, and the routines and rituals that shape life together.
Session 2: Helpmeet — Explores the wife as a fitting helper and looks at complementarity in marriage, including how male-female differences function in real life.
Session 3: The Rib — Centers on closeness, value, and meeting one another’s needs, using the “flower” activity to help couples identify and care for those needs.
Session 4: One Flesh — Teaches covenant union, leaving and cleaving, boundaries, blended-family considerations, and the work of creating and protecting a new marital culture.
Session 5: Recognition — Helps couples understand the desire to be seen, valued, and acknowledged, with attention to listening, communication, and validation.
Session 6: Family of Origin — Examines how family messages, values, and past experiences shape expectations, patterns, and emotional responses inside marriage.
Session 7: Expectations, Acceptance, & Pleasant Surprises — Helps couples identify hidden expectations, rethink rigid assumptions, and grow in acceptance and gratitude.
Session 8: Empathy — Focuses on understanding a spouse’s inner world through empathetic conversation and clearer emotional awareness.
Session 9: Mutual Submission & Responsiveness — Explores yielding, answering one another well, and developing healthy responsiveness in the marriage relationship.
Sessions 10 & 11: Communication — Covers practical communication skills, including defensiveness, listening, negotiation, resolution, and tone.
Session 12: Individuation — Examines how a husband and wife can remain distinct persons while still belonging fully in covenant, including identity, sacrifice, and communication.
Session 13: Husbands — Applies the framework to husbandhood, focusing on love, leadership, and avoiding harshness.
Session 14: Wives — Applies the framework to wifehood, focusing on the wife’s role and related reflection questions.
Session 15: Trust — Addresses trust as a core part of marital safety and includes activities to help couples assess and strengthen it.
Session 16: Divorce — Looks at divorce seriously within the framework of trust and security, including prevention planning, emotional regulation, and interrupting destructive cycles.
Sessions 18 & 19: Vulnerability & Spiritual Connectedness — Focuses on being fully known and spiritually connected, with questions and activities that deepen openness and shared spiritual life.
Sessions 21 & 22: Intimacy — Covers relational and sexual intimacy, including affection, sexual rejection, talking about sex, and practical ways to connect more intimately.
Session 23: Parenting — Explores parenting beliefs, discipline, developmental guidance by age, and the shift from child formation to adult-to-adult influence with young adults.
Session 24: Financial Stewardship — Focuses on money, budgeting, saving, stewardship, and the impact of financial trauma on marriage.
Starting Your Practice
Building your own practice is a rewarding journey, but it requires careful planning, organization, and execution. This comprehensive course provides a step-by-step roadmap to help you navigate the process of launching a professional practice, whether in counseling, coaching, or therapy. From understanding legal requirements to creating a strong online presence, this course equips you with the essential tools and knowledge to establish a successful and sustainable practice. You’ll learn how to set up your practice with confidence, handle administrative responsibilities, and create a welcoming environment for your clients—whether in person or online. Along the way, you’ll also develop key documentation and processes to ensure your practice runs smoothly and ethically.
Key Highlights:
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Gain a clear understanding of the essential steps to establish and launch a professional practice.
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Learn how to navigate legal and compliance requirements with confidence.
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Discover strategies to protect yourself, your clients, and your practice through proper planning and safeguards.
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Build a professional online presence to attract and retain clients effectively.
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Understand how to create a welcoming and functional space for both in-person and virtual sessions.
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Develop the tools and documentation needed to run your practice efficiently and ethically.
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This course provides a comprehensive roadmap to help you confidently start and grow your practice while ensuring long-term success.
Sex Education and Intimacy
This course provides a comprehensive exploration of sexual intimacy and education, designed to empower individuals and couples with the knowledge and tools to cultivate deeper, more fulfilling connections. It focuses on the interplay between emotional, physical, and relational intimacy, emphasizing that true connection begins with understanding and communication. From foundational topics like “What is sex?” to more advanced techniques and addressing sensitive issues like sexual rejection, this course offers a safe and open approach to navigating intimacy and sexual health. Participants will learn practical strategies to build confidence, enhance satisfaction, and foster respect and mutual understanding in their relationships.
Key Highlights:
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Discover how to build emotional and relational intimacy as a foundation for physical connection.
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Gain a deeper understanding of sexual health, anatomy, and functions to enhance your knowledge and confidence.
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Learn techniques to improve communication around desires, boundaries, and expectations in sexual relationships.
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Explore ways to handle challenges such as sexual rejection and concerns about body image or performance.
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Understand the role of tools like sexual aids and massages in enhancing connection and satisfaction.
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Equip yourself with strategies to foster healthy, fulfilling, and respectful sexual relationships.
Final Exam (Case study)
This course does not include a traditional final exam. Instead, participants will complete a comprehensive case study that will be reviewed to assess their proficiency and understanding of the material. The case study serves as a practical application of the concepts and skills learned throughout the course, providing an opportunity to demonstrate your ability to integrate theory into real-world scenarios. Certification will only be granted upon successful completion and review of the case study, ensuring that participants are fully prepared and equipped to apply their knowledge professionally.
Benefits of certification
Access to Professional Database & Community
You will have access to hundreds of counseling, psychology, and theology resources and videos. All In One Place! Also, access to support you!
Also gain access to our New Support Community.
Affiliation
Affiliation with ALCC gives you recognition, accountability, and communicates to the public that you are part of a larger organization.
Certification grants you recognition and credibility, while also increasing your knowledge and skills.
Training
With certification you will have access to ongoing counseling training.
We schedule ongoing web-based training throughout the year that you will have access to. This allows you to become a better at what you do.
Once you enroll, become part of our New Facebook Community Page. A place where you can receive ongoing support for your business!
