In 2016 I got frustrated with the state of the art of my field. A New York Times article declared: “MARRIED WITH PROBLEMS? THERAPY MAY NOT HELP.”

A summary of that New York Times article is that “traditional” therapy doesn’t work and when it fails, therapists often send clients to the divorce court because they don’t know what else to do. There is a lot of research, however, on new techniques in therapy, such as Sue Johnson’s Emotionally Focused Therapy. This goes beyond behavior contracts to get at underlying emotions.

This seems to be excellent – until she encounters an abusive spouse. Sue Johnson states, “The emotionally abusive behaviors of those partners were not evident or reported at the time of intake and would have been considered a contraindication for EFT” (Journal of Marital & Family Therapy, July 2008).

Sigh.

Take a look, if you haven’t already, at the “What We Value” section of this site. We don’t believe in calling people “abusers.” We believe that people’s protective parts which may act abusively can be “tamed” once the parts believe that the Self of the person can handle the stresses they’re under.

We believe those parts will gladly give up their unacceptable behavior when they’ve experienced the joy of being in Self. For more on this, keep reading.

The Times article reported on Dr. John Gottman, an eminent researcher and clinician, who believes that if you help people learn to fight better, you will have happier couples. I agree with him there, but there must be more. What about joy, intimacy, and happiness?

What if people can’t seem to change their behavior because their emotions get in the way? To that, Gottman does not have an answer. Maybe it’s “keep trying”? mmmm, not so sure that works.

What about group marriage programs that are so popular?

Many marriage programs have come about using this group-coaching format. But the problems with those are that they are

• too short
• lack sufficient follow up
• lack sufficient one-to-one contact

What if an Immersion Experience were created that kept the emotional focus of Sue Johnson’s EFT, the common-sense piece of John Gottman’s learning how to fight, the positive orientation of solution-focused therapy and coaching, covered all the skills needed to become truly happy with ONESELF – which is the key that everyone else seems to miss – and had an automatic healing component that guaranteed you would FEEL differently?

That guaranteed that you would not need to grit your teeth when triggered but rather, you would no longer be triggered?

So I created it.