Live Webinar: The Friend Frustrated Client: An Attachment-Informed Intervention for Adult Friendship Concerns

Includes a Live Web Event on 11/17/2026 at 12:00 PM (EST)

Live Webinar

Date & Time: November 17, 2026 | 12:00–1:30 PM ET

Presenter: Stephanie Cox, LMHC

Learning Objectives:

Learners will identify how attachment theory extends beyond romantic relationships to platonic bonds, and the core components of a Secure Base of Friendship. Learners will apply the Seven-Step Secure Friendship Arc to a client experiencing friendship friction who is on the precipice of a failed friendship but has the option to save it.
Learners will differentiate between healthy relational maintenance behaviors and protective behaviors that lead to friendship conflict and loss. Learners will apply a structured questionnaire on “productive conflict” vs “Harmful tension” to a case vignette involving a client deciding how to address a friend they have friction with.
Learners will identify how friendship expression and expectations vary across culture, neurotype, and other individual differences. Learners will apply this cultural sensitivity when assessing a client's friendship patterns and tailoring use of the Secure Friendship Arc.
Learners will recognize friendship grief as a legitimate clinical presentation requiring dedicated intervention. Learners will apply a grief-processing framework adapted from the Dual Process Model of Grief to a case vignette involving a client navigating the end of a significant friendship.

CE Credit: 1.5 NBCC Hours; 0 CRCC Hours; 1.5 WA Hours; 0 APT Hours; 0 NAADAC Hours; 1.5 NY Hours; 0 Ethics Hours

Stephanie Cox, LMHC

Stephanie Cox, LMHC, Qualified Supervisor (FL), Certified Emotionally Focused Couples Therapist, Certified EFT Supervisor Stephanie Cox, MS, LMHC is a Qualified Supervisor in the State of Florida, Certified Emotionally Focused Couples Therapist, Certified EFT Supervisor, and Private Practice Owner. She works exclusively with couples in her practice using the attachment based EFCT model. She also coaches and consults with licensed therapists who are working to become certified in EFCT or simply improve their couples counseling skills in session. Stephanie is the author of the forthcoming book Friendless: Why Adult Friendships Keep Failing, published by the American Counseling Association and slated for a Spring 2027 release date. In her book she uses the latest research on adult friendship to provide clinicians a comprehensive framework with which to view adult friendship struggles that present in our clients in session. Using attachment theory with the research she lays out the importance of a Secure Base of Friendship, as well as her Seven Step Secure Friendship Arc intervention to use with clients working through interpersonal platonic friction. Stephanie believes that attachment issues are not relegated to romance alone, and the therapy field, and the therapists in it, need more robust ways to intervene in the world of friendship friction that our clients bring in session. Her hope is to contribute to the growing clinical field of better adult friendship awareness, research, and practical application in therapeutic work so that our clients can engage in stronger, more secure platonic bonds, and experience less friendship failures and community isolation.