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How I work

MY SPECIALTIES

COUPLES THERAPY

Utilizing Imago theory and tools to improve and heal couple's relationships. 

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Typical session is 90 Minutes.

IMAGO WORKSHOPS

"Getting The Love You Want" - IMAGO most popular multi couple's workshop.

This is a 2 - days workshop.

Parent and Adult Child Dialogue

Using Imago techniques and other methods to improve relationships between parents and their adult children.

Typical session is 90 Minutes.

COUPLES THERAPY

I usually only see individual client as part of couple therapy or part of the parent and adult child dialogue. 

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Typical session is 50 Minutes.

In the Hebrew language, there’s a saying: “Life and death are in the hands of the tongue.” In other words, the way we talk to each other matters.

 

As Dr. Harville Hendrix points out in his foundational work on Imago Therapy, talking is often the most dangerous thing that people do, and listening is the most infrequent thing we do. In order to truly communicate, we need to do both, to talk and to listen. We need to talk in a way that allows the other person to listen. And we need the person we are talking to, to listen to us.

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In my work with relationships—both with couples and with estranged families (parents and adult children)—I have come to realize that the main complaint all parties have is this: “They don’t listen to me, they don’t hear me, they ignore me or what I’m saying, or what I’m asking for or what I really need…they don’t see me.” In order for a person to be able to open up and talk and share what is going on in their world, they need to feel safe. They need to feel seen. They need to be listened to and understood.

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The real need for true listening guides my work with both couples and estranged families (parents and adult children).​

FAMILY ESTRANGEMENT

Over the last several years, I have come across what seems like a silent pandemic of family ruptures, cut-offs, alienations and estrangements. Families are dealing now, more than ever, with issues like political differences, conflicts around sexuality and gender issues, and differences in values. These are only a few of the triggers for alienation or estrangement in families. 

 

It is only natural for a parent, whose love for their child is the greatest love of all, to suffer enormously from their child’s estrangement or alienation from them; to feel tremendous pain, grief and loss, fear, shame, social isolation, envy, and more.

 

Often parents can’t stop blaming themselves and yet they are angry at their child for cutting them out, feeling that they don’t deserve to be estranged, cut off, severed.

 

I never judge, criticize, blame, or shame any parent or any adult child. I believe that both parents and children suffer when there is estrangement, and if there are grandchildren, they are victims as well.  My goal is to bring families together by developing empathy for each other’s feelings and situations. With empathy comes the hope that a door will open to a new way of being together.

 

In my work with estranged parents and adult children, I combine Dr. Joshua Coleman’s approach with the Imago Relationship Therapy. The methodology I’ve developed allows for real communication between adult children and their parents in a way that is very open but also emotionally safe. It allows the adult child to share their hurts and experiences with their parent(s) in a way that makes them feel heard, listened to, and understood by their parent(s) for maybe the first time in their lives. It also allows the parents to listen to their adult child like they never have before. I work with parents so that they can show up for their adult child in new ways.

 

I usually see the adult child alone for a session or two to get a sense of their pain and hurt with their parents, and I also see parents alone for a few sessions before I bring everyone together for family sessions. If need be, as we go, I will sometimes schedule some sessions alone with either the parents or the child (or both) in between family sessions.

 

The results are in the many, many reconciliations that I’ve witnessed with many of my cases, often right in front of my eyes. It takes work, especially from the parents, but most are willing to do this work in order to be reunited with their estranged child. If the adult child is not willing to start a process of reconciliation, I work with the parent(s) on how to find a way to live with the pain, side by side with a meaningful life and with joy. 

COUPLES THERAPY

I was introduced to Imago Relationship Therapy about 25 years ago, and I have found that it is still the most transformative mode of repair in a relationship. When couples go through an Imago process together, in each other’s presence, the relationship becomes stronger and more intimate immediately.

 

We are all creatures who are looking for connection. When we experience being heard and listened to, when we feel seen, when we experience our partner being there for us, accepting and respecting what and who we are, when our relationship with our partner is safe and satisfying, we recover, we grow and make changes.

 

One of the principles that guides me in my work is making sure that both people in the relationship feel understood, and that they really feel that both of their experiences are important to me. I don’t see one as being right, and one as being wrong. I don’t look at one who is injured and one who isn’t. Both partners come into the relationship with baggage that "froze in their freezer," and with defense mechanisms that they have developed throughout life that helped them cope and survive difficult times. Therefore, both are equal participants in my eyes: I accept, contain, understand, and respect both. I do not serve as a judge between them, I do not take sides or a position, I do not determine who is right, because both are right. There are two truths, two separate experiences of the relationship that co-exist, even as they diverge. No one truth is better or more correct than the truth of the other.

 

In my work with couples, I see the relationship as the "patient", and throughout the therapeutic process we examine and understand what each partner does or does not do for the good relationship they desire. We ask what each contributes to the “nightmare” (if they feel that way about it), and what each can do to bring the relationship to where they want it to be. We do all this without shame, blame, criticism, or judgment. We create safety in the space between the two partners, so that both come out rewarded and get to see, hear, and understand each other more deeply so that intimacy can (re)emerge.

"GETTING THE LOVE YOU WANT" WORKSHOPS

The Imago Workshop for Couples, “A New Language for Love,” is based on the book Getting The Love You Want by Dr. Herville Hendrix and Dr. Helen Lackley Hunt. 

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In this workshop couples work together to gently get to a deeper connection. Through short lectures, demonstrations, self-guided exercises, and practices, couples get to experience a greater understanding of themselves, of their partner and of the dynamics in their relationship. They develop a new level of empathy, safety, and appreciation. Couples leave the workshop viewing their conflicts as an opportunity for growth and with tools that fundamentally change the way they approach and resolve conflicts in the relationship. Thousands of couples around the world who have experienced the workshop report that they have left it with a sense of hope, of closeness, with a deep connection, a stronger relationship, renewed intimacy, and tools that help them communicate.

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 The workshop is for any couple!

  • For couples who are experiencing difficulties in their relationship and unresolved conflicts, crises, power struggles and confrontations, who are looking for a quick way that will get them to a better constructive communication between them. In the workshop they will acquire tools that enable such communication. With the Imago way of communicating (the Imago Dialogue), they will understand the source of the conflicts between them and the fact that each of them hurts and needs to be seen, understood and heard. Communication that allows for healing a rupture, for feeling safe with each other and for intimacy.

  • For couples who are at the beginning of a relationship and want to avoid past frustrations while building a strong foundation so that they avoid situations that can harm their connection and closeness.

  •  For couples who experience the routine as something that can cause them to disconnect and want to devote special time to the relationship without interruptions.

  • For couples who enjoy their relationship and want to enrich it with extra depth, closeness, experiential intimacy, insights about their relationship, and with learning additional ways to talk to each other.

  • For couples who have a great relationship but want it to be greater.

  • For couples who feel that the only thing that is left for them is to break up and want to decide if they can save the relationship

  • For any couple in any situation and at any age.

 

Keeping it private

Getting the Love You Want Workshop is a unique experiential workshop that allows each couple to work privately and does not require exposure. Couples who want to share with the group their experiences, have opportunities to do so during the workshop. It turned out that many couples who attended the workshop benefited from hearing other couples. It helped them a lot in their relationship. They suddenly realized that what was happening between them was happening to most of the couples, and that they were not an unusual couple walking around frustrated and disappointed with a relationship in which they had hoped to feel different.

 

What happens in the workshop?

  • Short lectures related to relationships according to Imago theory.

  • Demonstrations of different imago dialogues through videos or volunteer couples. These dialogues allow for a new understanding of your partner, a new way of listening to your partner and a new way of seeing and be seen like you never experienced before.

  •  Each couple experiences these dialogues privately and separately from the rest of the group. The dialogues are printed and easy to implement.

  • A personal booklet that allows you to gain in-depth insights about yourselves, your behaviors, your choice of that partner, and your vision for the relationship with your partner. The booklet stays with the couple, as a source for continued work on the relationship even after the workshop.

  •  Screening of videos adapted to the topics of the lectures.

  • In the workshop you will acquire tools that will allow you to:

    • Talk to each other in a way and language that you have not used before.

    • Create a dialogue in which each of you will feel seen and will be present to listen to the other in a way that will create intimacy in the space between you.

    • Observe differently the effect of your behavior on the relationship.

    • Look to the future together and create a common path to achieving your vision as a couple.

    • To leave at the end of the workshop with a feeling that the bond between you has strengthened, that the intimacy between you is deep, the hope in your heart is great and strong, and with tools that will ensure good communication, romance and mutual joy in the relationship.

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The workshop:

  • Shortens the processes of couple therapy using the Imago method but does not constitute a personal couple therapy.

  •  In the workshop, while practicing the dialogues privately, you will receive help in case that you encounter a problem so that you can continue to progress in the practice privately.

  •  There is no close accompaniment of assistants throughout the dialogues in the workshop.

INTENSIVES FOR COUPLES THERAPY

In my work with couples, I also offer Intensive Sessions. An Intensive Session is longer than the standard hour-and-a-half couples session. The length of an Intensive allows a couple to get to the root of their issues more quickly, and thus also to more quickly move towards the results they wish for. With Intensive Sessions, couples can restore safety between them and feel a deeper connection at a faster pace. 

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There are a few ways I do Intensives:

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A. When a couple is in the midst of a session and we all realize that we don’t want to lose a critical momentum that has the potential to bring them closer together and help them navigate a way out of a crisis. I always leave myself enough time between sessions so that in case I believe the couple would benefit from extra time, I am available.

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B. When a couple asks ahead of time for a longer session because they feel that an hour and a half will not be enough for the issue they want help with. It can vary from 2 hours to a full day or two full days, with a break for lunch. We discuss it ahead of time and decide together how much time they will need.

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C. One or two days of a structured plan that I come up with for:

  • a couple in crisis that needs a more immediate and longer intervention

  • a couple looking to “clean out” past experiences and wishing to start a new chapter in their relationship equipped with relationship tools

  • a couple satisfied with their current relationship, but wanting to make it even stronger by acquiring a new toolbox that will make them closer and happier together.

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