Getting the love you want couples workshop basics

Based on the theory and exercises described in the NY Times Bestselling book by Harville Hendrix, Ph.D. and Helen LaKelly Hunt Ph.D, the Getting The Love You Want® Couples Workshop will help attendees to learn the concepts and skills they need to co-create a safe relationship, experience and sustain deep connecting, and experience joyful aliveness. These skills include:

1) learning a new way to talk;

2) removing all negativity (i.e. shaming, blaming, criticizing and judgement), and

3) practicing daily connecting behaviors which activate the innate healing powers of intimate partnership, transforming conflict in any relationship to connecting.

Create your dream relationship by restoring the passion and hope to your relationship. Breakout rooms will be used throughout the weekend to enable couples to practice, share their experiences, and, if needed, to receive guidance from Imago therapists. This workshop is designed for couples of all gender and sexual orientation.

How the Workshop is Different From Therapy

Though Imago weekend workshops are said to be the equivalent of three to six months of therapy, the workshop is NOT therapy.  The workshop offers a 'distraction-free space’ to focus on you and/or your relationship for an extended period of time. It also gives you the opportunity to explore the key principles of Imago and the Imago Dialogue processes.  Participants will be invited to do written exercises, guided imageries and practices with their partner that are designed to explore how their past impacts their present behavior.  Each participant is encouraged to partake in these activities in a way that makes sense for them.  The workshop is intended to help you and your partner create the safe space needed to restore and/or deepen the connection you have.  The benefits can certainly be cathartic, but the workshop is educational, not therapeutic, in nature.

​Though you will have the benefit of hearing other couples and seeing that you are not alone in your relationship challenges, this is not group therapy.  You are not required to share any personal information about yourself at any time.  You will be invited to introduce yourself and there will be opportunities to participate in demonstrations as well as to ask questions and give feedback about your experience, but you are never required to share.

The workshop presenters are Certified Imago Relationship Therapists, but their role is different than when they are providing therapy to couples in the office.  In the workshop, the presenters will provide education about why we fall in love with who we fall in love with, what the power struggle is and how couples end up in it, the brain's role in romantic love and the power struggle, along with much more.  Presenters will also teach exercises, using the Imago Dialogue format, and couples will have the opportunity to practice on their own.  If they need help, the workshop presenters will take on more of a coaching role, rather than that of a therapist, offering support and guiding couples to be able to complete the exercises in a way that makes sense to them.