If you are struggling in your relationship, but don't have the time or the opportunity to attend weekly relationship-building sessions, or your relationship is at a crisis point and immediate, intensive attention is needed, Intensive Couples' Enrichment Weekends offer you a great option, providing improvement comparable to several months of weekly sessions. These weekends are designed with each individual couple in mind and tailored to individual needs. This is why you won't be in a group with other couples, but your partner and you will be the entire focus of the weekend.

The ♥ of conflict weekends are aimed at getting to the heart of what creates and maintains stress and tension between you and your partner in a very short time, reducing the tension and hostility in the relationship, and rebuilding intimacy and emotional safety together.

These weekends do not provide temporary band-aids to the problems, but offer permanent changes in an atmosphere that is safe and thus encourages partners to open up and share with one another without fear of vulnerability.

This experience is very empowering for couples who were previously unable to negotiate and integrate different ways of seeing things and each other.

Who benefits from the Intensive Couples' Enrichment Weekends:

Couples who are willing to invest the time and work to make their relationships stronger and healthier, be they romantic partners, business partners, siblings, parent/child pairs and other people experiencing relational problems who are unable to resolve them on their own and need coaching to achieve a healthier way of being together.

A ♥ of conflict enrichment weekend consists of 2 ½ days of relationship-building experiences in a relaxed and emotionally safe environment. It provides a lot of benefits packed in a weekend of intensive individual and interpersonal work and is subdivided into four sub-sections: the present state of conflict; the role of the past in contributing and maintaining the current conflict; how to address the "perfect storm" that keeps couples to the crossroads, and how to maintain progress in the future. When not in session, couples are encouraged to get away from their daily stressors and concentrate on each other in order to re-establish mutual emotional commitment and apply the new ways of being together. We discuss activities and ways of being together that reinforce our work.

1. The Perfect Storm. The weekend begins on Friday afternoon, when couples meet to discuss the reasons why they are there. This first meeting allows couples to make the initial contact with me and hear each other describe the problems as each sees them. The focus of this first meeting is to identify areas of stress, as partners experience them in their interactions with one another, and to begin to work on developing healthy ways of interacting and communicating with each other. It is also the time when individual and couple assets and strengths are identified and discussed.
   
   
2. The Role of the Past. On Saturday morning each partner is seen individually to evaluate the role of the past in current difficulties. This is the first step toward making each partner reflect on his or her role in maintaining stress and tension in the relationship, as well as understand how current difficulties are often tied to past experiences and emotions that continue to exert their influence.
   
   
3. The ♥ of conflict. After a lunch break, couples are provided with information about how they got to where they are right now in their relationship. Connecting the present and the past allows each of them to have a better and deeper understanding of the dynamics, patterns and conflicts that maintain tension and disconnection between them. They are helped to change the current cycle of anger, misunderstanding and disappointment in which they are both trapped by creating emotional safety and by identifying, addressing and processing together key emotions – fear, hurt, sadness, disappointment, shame among others – and the dynamics responsible for the current dysfunction. In this way, partners are helped to understand and make sense of behaviors and feelings previously felt confusing, chaotic and scary. This process allows for a new awareness and understanding. When they are able to move away from feeling attacked from each other, partners' ability to reflect and empathize is heightened. This leads to more collaboration and mutual support, as well as experiencing loving feelings for one another.
   
   
4. Progress maintenance. On Sunday morning we focus on the future, making sure that the progress achieved by the end of the intensive enrichment weekend is maintained throughout the life of the relationship. We consolidate the work done, encouraging and modeling healthy communication. We discuss the value of listening more, withhold judgment, being less defensive and expressing love and empathy for one another in ways that are healthy and appropriate.
   
   

By the end of the ♥ of conflict weekend, couples like you will:

• Better understand why they felt angry together, disengaged, and insecure in their love relationship.
  
  
• Be more comfortable with personal disclosure and sharing.
  
  
• Feel empathy for each other's position and feelings.
  
  
• Be able to make positive changes in their interactions with one another.
  
  
• Develop a common purpose and joint goals.
  
  
• Experience less stress and more joyful feelings when together.
  
  
• Experience more emotional safety together.
  
  

Couples Enrichment Weekends are held in my Carefree office only. My office is easily accessible from Phoenix, yet distant enough to relax, reflect and facilitate healing.