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WORKSHOPS
Attending one or more of our workshops is a great way to get a condensed, but potent, dose of the assistance that we are able to provide to our counseling and coaching clients.
 Based in beautiful Ojai, California, The Center for Conscious Relationships offers the following types of workshops:
Couples
Intensive Retreats for Couples
Premarital Couples
Advanced Couples
Parents
Step-Families & Blended Families
Click here for a complete schedule of upcoming workshops.
We also offer "retreat-style" workshops in some of our favorite destinations where attendees can enjoy a relaxing and romantic environment while engaged in this important transformative process. Generally, the workshops take place over a two-day weekend period.
Click here for a complete list of upcoming workshops.
Click here for more information on workshop locations.
It is important to select the workshop that is right for you. We offer separate group workshops specifically designed for couples, and for individuals. The group setting can be fun and lively, completely safe and confidential, and you have the opportunity to learn from the experiences of others who are going through much of what you are struggling with. It often really helps to understand how common your particular relationship problems may be, and to see how others are able to integrate the lessons available at the group workshops. However, we are also available for "intensive" one-on-one workshops for couples outside of the group setting. This may be preferable if you feel uncomfortable in a group setting, or believe you are in need of private assistance targeted toward your own issues.
 Workshops for Couples:
GETTING THE LOVE YOU WANT: A New Way of Loving
Based on the best-selling book, Getting the Love You Want by Harville Hendrix Ph.D.,, this workshop grapples with the age-old question: Why is it that that special person you fell madly in love with seems to have overnight become a source of pain and hatred? And, how is it that the more you want to get close to your partner, the more you seem to fight?
This workshop teaches you how to defuse the power struggle by understanding that your frustrations derive from unmet childhood needs, and that you may be unconsciously trying to resolve them by resorting to your own childhood tactics. An extraordinary weekend experience for couples who want to become conscious of both the positive and negatives that drive the dynamics of their relationship, this workshop teaches you step-by-step dialogues and processes that release old self-defeating behaviors and focus energy on meeting your partner’s needs while honoring your own. After the workshop you will have a toolbox of communication skills that you can use to gradually reverse the downward spiral of animosity and conflict and co-create a relationship characterized by deeper compassion, respect for each other’s differences, and the capacity to be authentic.
Click here for a complete list of upcoming workshops.
Click here for more on this workshop.
Intensive Retreats for Couples:
An Intense and Private Experience of Emotional Intimacy
We have found that a traditional private couple's coaching does not provide the right combination of personal time with a coach and intense focus on one's relationship for more than an hour at a time. Work and a family's schedule may make it difficult to commit to weekly sessions. Many couples have found our private couples retreats to be just what they need.
Our Private Couples Retreat is in a workshop format created specifically for an individual couple with one or both of us. The couple moves between sessions with us as their coach, private writing time and dialogue time with each other. The personal retreat usually starts with an hour and a half with a coach. Following the coaching session the couple will go to a separate office for quiet reflection and to write about the challenges in their relationship and to envision their goals. After an hour or so, the couple will spend time in dialogue alone. After this, they will spend another hour or so with one or both of us. Our coaching will help a couple through any stuck spots, assigning the couple additional writing and a dialoguing assignments for the next period of time.
A given couple may have 2-3 sessions with a coach in any one day. One or more days of this process may be scheduled. Couples will only pay for the time spent with the coach. There is no charge for time spent writing or in dialogue alone.
Cost:
Our fee is based on $250 per 75 minute coaching session per individual coach.
(Fees may be slightly higher on weekends and on evenings after 6:00 p.m.)
A minimum six hour - eight hour session is recommended initially.
Intensives can be customized for work partners, executive teams, and families, and family-owned businesses. We can also travel to your site and location.
Contact Us for More Information.
Workshops for Premarital Couples:
HOW TO PREPARE FOR A CONSCIOUS AND INTENTIONAL RELATIONSHIP
We are often asked the question: Does Imago Relationship Therapy Work for premarital couples? Our answer is, yes indeed, these principles are valid for couples at all stages of relational commitment. In order to take the journey from romantic love, power struggle, through recommitment and awakening to a truly conscious and intentional relationship that we call “real love”, you must learn how to become more conscious and intentional in your relationship. In our workshop designed specifically for premarital couples we teach you how to create emotional safety by following closely the principles of the Imago Dialogue, also called the “Intentional Dialogue,” or in the Workshop for Couples, the “Couple’s Dialogue.” Like married couples, as you grow into feeling the emotional safety created by the dialogue, you will begin to discover your potential mate at deeper levels never imagined during the throes of “falling” or “being” in love. In this workshop, however, you will learn how to put emotional money in the bank, so to speak, whereas experienced marrieds are often painfully struggling with emotional bankruptcy. You will do this by preparing yourself and your partner to anticipate, even welcome, the inevitable arrival of the power struggle. You will come to understand that the power struggle is a natural process, Nature’s way of showing you and your partner that growth is trying to happen; but first you must understand how heavily the past weighs on the present, learning that the challenge and pain experienced is intensified to the extent that you and/or your partner suffered deep emotional experiences in the past: pain in childhood, and pain in previous relationships. A goal of this workshop is to help you and your partner make a commitment to take the journey to awareness, which means opening to each other and the awareness that you each have old pains and wounds that trigger reactive behavior. In this workshop you and you partner can learn behaviors that become less triggering and provocative and learn how each of you can gradually become more compassionate toward each other's past wounding, thus co-creating mutual healing in your relationship.
Whether you come to Imago with a religious background or not, you will relate to the sacredness and spiritual nature of your work in the Imago process; you can become “wounded healers” for each other, and know that your journey to wholeness is the journey of holiness.
Contact Us for More Information.
Workshops for Advanced Couples:
Deepening Loving Connection:
An Advanced Workshop for Couples inspired by "Keeping the Love You Find" and "Receiving Love" by Drs. Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt.
An advanced couple's workshop. Completion of Getting the Love You Want workshop required. Continue the journey of restoring passion, compassion and emotional intimacy. Define your relationship mission/vision as you clarify the secret to creating, and keeping lasting love. Contact for more information on this continuing-education workshop.
Enrollment requires previous experience with the Imago Relationship Theory and Therapy.
Contact Us for More Information.
Workshops for Parents:
"New Paths to Conscious Parenting"
Parenting & Step-Parenting Children for a Peaceful World
Based on the best-selling book, Giving the Love that Heals by Harville Hendrix Ph.D. and Helen LaKelly Hunt, Ph.D.,, this workshop teaches you how to defuse the power struggle with your children by understanding that your frustrations derive from unmet childhood needs. You will discover how painful experiences with original caretakers and repressive socialization in childhood have unconsciously shaped your character structure, and that these experiences can impede your relationship with your child(ren) as well as intimacy in your adult relationships. You will learn how your personal childhood experiences come into play in your capacity to be a good enough parent.
An extraordinary weekend experience for individuals and couples who want to become conscious of both the positive and negatives that drive the dynamics of their parent-child as well as their intimate relationships, this workshop teaches you step-by-step dialogues and processes that release these behaviors and focus energy on meeting your child’s needs while honoring your own. At the same time that you are encouraged to respect your own needs, while honoring those of your children, containing your own reactivity, you will be taught a toolbox of skills, powerful communication processes that will enable you to overcome self defeating behaviors you have developed to defend yourself and survive your particular childhood. You can use your new-found methods to gradually reverse the downward spiral of animosity and conflict and co-create a relationship characterized by deeper compassion, respect for the unique personality of your child(ren)., and the capacity to be authentic.
Contact Us for More Information.
Workshops for Step-Families & Blended Families:
Stepfamilies: Bringing Peace to Shattered Pieces
A Stepparenting workshop exploring what works
You’re in a relationship with someone who has children. You know how to parent—afterall, you were parented. You may even be a parent yourself. Yet, things are not running smoothly and you can’t figure out why. Usually it is because you try to apply first family roles and expectations to stepfamilies. Doing this can often set us up for failure because there are important differences between stepfamilies and first families, especially in the beginning.
Learn about stepfamilies together.
We assist you in discussing your parenting plan and philosophy. We help you discuss and develop your individual role's in the family. Our educational offerings provide important implications for promoting resiliency in your family and children. Raise your awareness! Learn strategic “homework” assignments for your couple time Our relationship/marriage education programs address core skills (friendship building and conflict management) that will help your family to not only survive but thrive!You’re in a relationship with someone who has children. You know how to parent—afterall, you were parented. You may even be a parent yourself. Yet, things are not running smoothly and you can’t figure out why. Usually it is because you try to apply first family roles and expectations to stepfamilies. Doing this can often set us up for failure because there are important differences between stepfamilies and first families, especially in the beginning.
The following are important recommendations and considerations that should help your stepparenting:
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Develop realistic expectations for a stepparent-stepchild relationship. Don’t expect instant love from stepchildren. You can expect respectful behavior and your partner should help you emphasize this, but you cannot expect a child to care for you the way they care for a parent that they have spent many years with. In turn, behave respectfully towards your stepchild by acknowledging his/her feelings, concerns, and desires. Modeling this behavior usually results in a stepparent being treated respectfully.
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Sometimes stepparents see their partners as too easy on the children and want to enforce stricter discipline in the home right from the beginning. A discussion is necessary. Biological parents need to take time to hear and understand the stepparent’s input, which may represent a very different (usually more disciplinarian) point of view. Stepparents need to take a more gentle, non-judgmental stance, and to hear the bio-parent’s point of view, which will generally be more feeling-oriented. A helpful model is that the stepparent gives input into how things go, but the bio-parent retains the final say until children are ready.
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As children get more comfortable, a stepparent can become more of a primary disciplinarian. Follow the child’s lead—do not force parental status. As time goes by, you and your partner can help the children to understand that just as a parent can have more than 2 children and care for each in a special way, so can a child have more than 2 parents and can respect and care for each in a special way.
Discuss your role with your partner.
Stepparents sometimes feel pulled to step in as “savior” for the parent who has been having a hard time with the children, taking over to provide order and discipline. Children are often not ready for a stepparent in a disciplinarian role, so this is usually doomed to failure.
Strengthen the couple relationship.
The couple relationship creates the family, yet it is the newest relationship in the family and therefore, the most vulnerable. One of the main reasons couples re-divorce is due to problems with stepchildren. To avoid becoming part of this statistic it is important that you build in time to nurture your couple relationship and that you communicate well with each other. Although this is important in every family, it is especially important in remarried families.
Trainings can be customized for work partners, executive teams, and families, and family-owned businesses. We can also travel to your site and location.
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