Educational Workshops
Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work
Drs. John and Julie Gottman have revolutionized couples counseling and I'm excited to introduce you to their work! Dr. John Gottman gained prestige in the mental health field by conducting over 40 years of groundbreaking couples research that identified the good and the bad patterns in relationships. He used this research to accurately predict divorce with over 90% accuracy. The Seven Principles Workshop is based on his 40 years of research to help couples gain practical tools and insights needed for a strong, lasting relationship. It supports and repairs damaged relationships, and strengthens healthy ones. This workshop isn't based on opinion, it's based on science! It is for couples at all stages of their relationship, premarital, newlywed, or decades into marriage.
In this workshop, you will develop skills to:
Deepen intimacy and build trust in your relationship
Make conflict work for your relationship
Identify your solvable vs. perpetual issues
Strengthen your friendship with your partner
Communicate clearly and effectively with your partner
Bringing Baby Home (BBH)
Even the strongest relationships are strained during the transition to parenthood. Lack of sleep, never-ending housework, and new fiscal concerns can lead to profound stress and a decline in marital satisfaction – all of which affect baby’s care. Not surprisingly, 69% of new parents experience conflict, disappointment, and hurt feelings.
The Bringing Baby Home program prepares couples for life with the baby and helps them be the best parenting team possible. In a relaxed and supportive environment, parents learn to strengthen their relationship and foster baby’s development during this challenging time. These skills build on what Dr. Gottman and colleagues found is the best predictor of marital adjustment after baby arrives: the quality of friendship in the marriage.
This workshop combines scientific research and public education to improve the quality of life for babies and children by strengthening their families. It teaches new parents how to gain relationship satisfaction and create healthy social, emotional and intellectual development for their children. Click here to learn more about Dr. Gottman’s parenting research.
Marital First Responders
For the everyday real conversations you have with friends and family.
The Marital First Responders training is a cutting edge, innovative way to help marriages by tapping into the power of support networks - the people who care about those in marriages. Research suggests that 73% of people have had a friend confide in them regarding their marriage. The Marital First Responders workshop will equip you with more confidence and effectiveness in helping the married people in your life when they tell you about their problems or complaints. We all have the power to assist or harm our friends and the marriages. This workshop teaches you you how to be more intentional in conversations with others and be more useful to the person you’re talking with when they confide in you. It will also help you to keep your own sanity and boundaries so you don’t get exhausted or annoyed at a never-ending barrage of marital complaints. It helps you to create boundaries when you find yourself in the middle when both partners are telling you their one-sided story. It also helps you to steer someone to professional help when they are stuck or in crisis.
Presentations for Professionals
Working with divorce ambivilant clients
When an individual client is struggling with chronic ambivalence about whether to stay in a marriage or a long-term commited relationship, the therapist may also struggle with how to be helpful. Research shows that up to 22% of married individuals in any given year have serious divorce ideation. Most won’t divorce in the short run, but use individual therapy to process their ambivalent feelings about staying married. These therapy sessions are often dominated by the ups and downs of a stuck relationship, making it difficult to work on other therapeutic issues that may be closer to your clinical expertise. This workshop provides tools and strategies that therapists can use with their individual clients who are unsure about whether to stay in, seek couples therapy, or leave their marriage. This presentation also provides concrete skills for making referrals, when appropriate, for discernment counseling, a brief model designed specifi cally for couples when one partner is leaning out of the marriage but unsure about divorce or seeking couples therapy, and the other partner wants to preserve the relationship. This is an intensely practical workshop that is backed by research on divorce ambivalence. Participants will receive many sample lines of communication to use with clients as well as key strategies to avoid bad-story-of-the-week individual therapy or premature referrals to couples therapy with clients who are not motivated to work on their marriage right now.
Learning objectives
Participants will be able to:
Define divorce ambivalence in clients
Identify the main challenges for working with divorce-ambivalent clients in individual therapy
Discuss the principle clinical strategies and skills for treating divorce-ambivalent clients
Describe skills for referring these clients for couples’ work