If you are in pain but don't have the time nor the opportunity to attend weekly sessions of couple counseling, Enrichment Weekends offer you a great alternative to weekly therapy sessions over the course of several months. They are designed with each individual couple in mind. 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 conflict, stress and tension between partners, preventing intimacy and emotional safety together.

A ♥ of conflict enrichment weekend consists of 2 ½ days of relationship-building experiences in a relaxed and emotionally safe environment. It provides similar benefits to the ones offered by a more conventional treatment approach, packed in a weekend of intensive individual and interpersonal work.

Enrichment weekends consist of four sections, which cover the four areas that create and maintain conflict in relationships:

1. It 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 the therapist and hear each other describe the problems as each sees them. The focus of this first meeting is to identify the symptoms, as partners experience them in their interactions with one another, and to begin a collaboration with the therapist that facilitates opening up, sharing and understanding. A package of tests and questionnaires are given each partner to fill out.
   
   
2. On Saturday morning each partner is seen individually to evaluate the role of the past in current difficulties. Each partner is encouraged to go as far back as possible and discuss how it was like growing up in their families of origin. They discuss who they were close to, or not, and examine relevant intimate relationships up to the present. The past continues to affect current ways of relating, unconsciously influencing how each other's behaviors are interpreted and how partners emotionally respond to them. Each partner brings the assessment package filled out at their individual sessions.
   
   
3. After a lunch break, sessions resume in the afternoon. Couples are provided with feedback about the assessments and information about what needs to be done to change the dysfunctional cycle of anger, misunderstanding and disappointment in which they are both trapped. The ♥ of conflict is the focus of conjoint work on Saturday afternoon. Here we connect the present to the past, so that a deeper understanding of what is happening can be achieved. This process involves helping partners understand and make sense of behaviors and feelings previously felt confusing chaotic and scary. This is also where key emotions – fear, hurt, sadness, disappointment, shame among others – are identified and shared. This process allows for a new awareness not only of behaviors, but of motivations and intentions. When we move away from feeling attacked, our ability to reflect and empathize is heightened. This leads to collaboration and mutual support.
   
   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.
   
   
4. 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, furthering couples' understanding of the underlying causes of their difficulties, and 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.
   
   

These weekends do not provide temporary band-aids to the problems, but 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.

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

• Grasp the underlying causes of anger, disengagement, and insecurity in your 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 your 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 Carefree, in the High Sonoran Desert. It is easily accessible from Phoenix, yet distant enough to relax, reflect and facilitate healing.