The Seven Principles Workshop for Couples

The Gottman Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work Couples Program was developed using the book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, by John M. Gottman, Ph.D. and Nan Silver. The relationship skills contained in this program are applicable to couples who are engaged or contemplating marriage, all the way through couples who have been together for a lifetime but desire to deepen and enhance their relationship.

The hope is that providing The Seven Principles Couples Program based on the latest research about what makes marriages succeed, and what happens when relationships deteriorate and fail, will encourage couples to get help, and get it much sooner, in order to avoid the pitfalls of delaying or avoiding seeking assistance. The aim is to provide couples with practical tools to enhance and improve their relationships while understanding the research-based foundation from which the tools and skills are derived. This program does not provide psychotherapy nor is it intended to take the place of marital therapy, but it does provide practical skills in a psycho-educational format that can help couples strengthen their relationships.

CLASS GOALS

To Strengthen Relationships

The main goal of The Seven Principles Couples Program is to help couples strengthen their relationships in a variety of ways, including deepening their love maps, fostering fondness and admiration, facilitating turning toward each other, accepting influence, solving solvable problems, overcoming gridlock, creating shared meaning, and maintaining gains.

WORKSHOP DETAILS AND COSTS

The cost for the 8-week program, including the couple’s set (which will be mailed to your home), is $450. (Non Refundable)

WHO THE CLASS IS FOR

Appropriate Couples

The Seven Principles Couples Program is appropriate for couples contemplating engagement, for pre-marital couples, for couples living together, and for couples who have been together or married for decades.

Inappropriate Couples

Psycho-educational classes are not appropriate for all couples, including those with severe relationship distress, significant emotional or physical abuse, serious emotional or mental health problems, relationships where one or both partners are actively addicted to drugs or alcohol, and relationships with serious compulsive behavior with gambling, sexual acting out, and other disruptive behaviors.

BENEFITS OF PARTICIPATING IN THE PROGRAM FOR COUPLES

There are many benefits of offering The Seven Principles Couples Program. These include:

It provides structure, motivation, and accountability to continue working through the book. With busy schedules, it is easy to let reading the book and working through exercises slide, while a class format encourages more active involvement and ongoing participation by following a schedule.
It can be encouraging to work on one’s relationship in the context of other couples that are doing the same thing.
It may be less threatening than seeking couples therapy and fits into an enrichment model that couples may be familiar with. While The Seven Principles Couples Program is not a substitute for therapy, it can soften the entry into working on their relationship and getting help without the stigma that some still have toward seeking therapy. It can also become a bridge into therapy for those couples who desire more personal assistance than the class can provide. Reading the book and working through the exercises can provide a strong foundation for pursuing therapy from the Gottman perspective, as the basic concepts and methods are already familiar to the couple and have been tried and tested, which may enhance and expedite a therapeutic process later.
Signing up for a class on marriage and relationships also eliminates some of the uncertainty and hesitation some couples have about working on their relationship on their own, or about seeking therapy because there are often no clearly defined goals, expectations, structure, or duration. In contrast, a class format does have clearly articulated goals, expectations, and time frame.
A class format encourages both partners to work on their relationship rather than one partner alone reading the book without the other partner’s participation.
The Seven Principles Couples Program provides a great opportunity for pre-marital couples to learn skills that can enrich their relationship through a lifetime together

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE CLASS

Will we have to share our personal problems and issues with the class?

No. The class does not include sharing problems or issues publicly. Couples Exercises are done privately.

Must both partners attend or can I come alone?

Since the class involves couples doing exercises together, both partners must participate. If the class is offered over a period of time and one partner must miss a particular class meeting, then the other partner is encouraged to attend the lecture portion of the class. He or she may use the Couples Exercise time to do part of the exercises and then do the full exercise with their partner later. They may also use exercise time to read the Seven Principles book.

My partner isn’t a reader. Can we still come to the class if he/she won’t read the book?

Yes, still come to the class. While the book provides very valuable information, the class lectures will summarize the content of the book. Each person will need a Couples Guide, however, to do the Couples Exercises efficiently.

Should we do the exercises in the book at home or save them for class?

The class will involve doing some of the exercises from the book so doing them first at home would duplicate some of them. In some cases, the directions for doing the exercises in class have been revised and updated from those presented in the Seven Principles book. The Leaders also role-play how to – and how not to – do some of the exercises in order to help participants get the most out of each exercise. There are some exercises in the book that the class will not have time to do, and couples are encouraged to do them at home after that chapter has been covered in class.