MORE than Imagined! Marriage Intensive

MORE than Imagined!  

Marriage Rescue and Restoration Intensive 
"Getting to the heart of the matter..."

An E3 Educate Empower Entertain Training System


Spiritual Solutions for Relational, Emotional and Psychological Problems in Life, Love and Marriage!

Joe Whitcomb, M.A. a MFT Intern and doctoral student in Psychology at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology holds a Masters in Clinical Psychology from Pepperdine University and Todd Spath and Jennifer Konzen,  both PhD Candidates from Alliant University, are all marriage and couple consultants and founders of the Imago Dei Relationship Institute have launched a new three-day intensive program designed to powerfully impact and fortify marriages. Entitled “MORE than Imagined: A Marriage Rescue and Restoration Intensive,” this three-day, 18 hour marriage boot camp promises to radically improve marital dynamics by focusing on what Joe calls The E3 Training System (Educate, Empower and Entertain) based on Attachment and Emotionally Focused Therapy:


•       Educate – The MORE than Imagined Marriage Intensive (Marriage R&R) will educate couples based on the best practices and finest materials available in the marriage counseling field today-- but also on what has been proven to work. We base our marital training on results.
•       Empower – Empowering married couples through God’s word means more than giving them knowledge. The key is to teach them how to take effective  action upon what they have learned.

•       Entertain – In today’s world, most people want to be entertained while being educated. The Marriage R&R capitalizes on this fact, and engages them on an intellectual, spiritual and emotional level.  Secondly, when couples are being entertained, they become more emotionally engaged in the dynamic process of change that energizes from within and between, and are more likely to retain and act on what they have learned . To carry out this part of the program, video clips, music and other experiential exercises will be employed.


From Alienation to Connection and Forgiveness – Bridging the Gap:

James 4:1-3 asks us to think about our conflicts:
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

Our Desires, Frustrations and Reactions:
According to Joe, "when couples disagree, most repeat the following disruptive pattern: blame, criticize, defend, express contempt, distance, and emotionally or physically withdraw. Distress is not about how many fights you have or even if you resolve the fights. Distress is about how you fight, and whether you can retain some sort of emotional connection after the fight. While traditional types of marital counseling tend to be open-ended and seek to solve immediate problems, such as continual arguing, by focusing primarily on behavior change and communication skills, the Marriage R&R approach hones in on increasing a couple's appreciation for how each partner feels in order to build trust and a secure base they can each rely on. In this approach, couples learn to recognize the negative cycle they are stuck in, where one person criticizes and the other responds defensively or withdraws. Couples learn to identify the needs and fears that keep them in that cycle. They learn to identify and express their underlying emotions. Partners learn to empathize with each other and become more supportive of each other. Partners come together through the emotional needs they are each expressing, and can begin to comfort each other's needs."

Joe concludes, "Until a couple is able to identify, acknowledge and ultimately forgive injuries, an emotional gulf persists between them. No matter how dissatisfying things have become and how unhappy or angry partners may be, they each need to feel safe in coming together to work out their problems. Each partner needs to understand the emotions dictating their actions. The emotions behind perceived problems are the key to understanding each other."
  

If you don’t want your marriage to end in divorce, but you don’t know how to keep it together, then our Marriage Rescue and Restoration Intensives are the solution you are looking for. The Marriage Rescue and Restoration Intensive is based on over a decade of intense clinical research by the Smalleys proven to increase marital satisfaction and significantly decrease your chances of divorce.

What is a Marriage Rescue and Restoration Intensive? A One-day, two-day or three-day MORE than Imagined! Marriage Rescue and Restoration Intensive is designed for one couple and one couple counselor and/or a small group of 12-20 with two highly trained and qualified marriage counselors. These are scheduled at your convenience and are available upon request. You can call us during business hours at 310-560-0726 to schedule a Marriage  Rescue and Restoration Intensive to fit your schedule.

What makes MR&R different from other counseling programs? Our program is unique because it focuses on a spiritually based modeling of working with couples developed by the Smalleys. This model has been utilized all over the country and has been found to be successful with the vast majority of attendees. Experience a profound change No matter what state your marriage is in, our intensives will make a profound impact on your marriage. Couples who are stressed will learn why they are stressed and actually be able to significantly increase their marital satisfaction. You might be experiencing:
  • “There’s no hope for us.”
  • “My husband says he doesn’t love me any more.”
  • “My wife has had an affair.”
No marriage is too hurting or too conflicted to be restored through our Marriage Restoration Intensive.
  • 99% of the couples who’ve attended our Marriage Restoration Intensive would recommend it to other couples.
  • When couples were asked how they would rate their satisfaction with our retreat, in terms of how it helped their marriage, on a scale from 1 (meaning that it didn’t help at all) to 10 (meaning that it was very helpful) the average couple ranked our Marriage Restoration Retreat at a 9.5.
What is the intensive like? In today’s society it is difficult to commit an hour a week for several months to anything, let alone the health of your marriage. Typically, this is what you are asked to do when you seek marriage counseling. Often, you find yourself experiencing more stress just trying to get into counseling because you have to take off work early, find a baby sitter, coordinate each other’s schedules, etc. In the end, counseling becomes more of a hassle than an asset.Our intensives are focused help for your marriage. There are no awkward exercises during the intensive but rather focused and individualized help to move you forward in love and harmony. The time is flexible yet purposeful. You will learn specific key concepts that are proven to revitalize even the most stressed and wounded couples.

Proven success for our intensives The Marriage Rescue and Restoration Intensive is based on the wildly successful Couples Intensive program by The Imago Dei Relationship Institute that was over 92% successful in keeping couples together and satisfied in their marriage!

Because the average divorce, at least in Los Angeles, CA costs nearly $70,000! 
  • Because nearly every possible negative behavior for a child increases after a divorce.
  • Because of the brilliant work of some of the most respected marriage and family researchers today, we now know what it takes for a marriage to over come most any conflict it will face.
For this reason, the Imago Dei Relationship Institute believes you can survive whatever conflict or hurt your marriage is suffering from! Our MORE Than Imagined!  Marriage Rescue and Restoration Intensive is proven to turn even the most hurting or devastated marriages into thriving and committed ones!
So how can you know if you need to attend one of our Marriage Restoration Intensives? Signs of a couple in crisis:
  • Difficulty communicating well, especially when you disagree.
  • Avoidance/Withdrawal-one or both partners choose to avoid or withdrawal from conversations as a result of negative discussion.
  • Invalidation-when one talks negatively about the beliefs, feelings, thoughts, looks, etc. of the other partner.
  • Negative Interpretations-when one partner believes that the other partner is constantly behaving/speaking in a more negative way than is actually the case.
  • Escalation-when in a discussion, one or both partners begin to escalate the conversation to hostile levels.
  • Not handling disagreements as a team.
  • Unrealistic beliefs about marriage.
  • Difference in beliefs about important issues.
  • A low level of commitment to one another (infidelity, no long-term goals, etc.)
  • Not practicing faith/spirituality together.
A snapshot of our content
  • Why do couples get into trouble
  • The greatest act of love no one wants to try
  • Creating a marriage worth being in
  • LUV Talk: the key to resolving conflict
  • The most important thing to do every week for your marriage
  • Building a community of support in to your marriage
If you want to talk with someone about attending one of our Marriage Rescue and Restoration Intensives, then please call us at 310-560-0726 .

Cost of the MTI Marriage Intensive: The cost can vary:   CANCELLATION POLICY Once an intensive is purchased, there can be a 50% refund of the total purchase price up to a month in advance of the date of the retreat. There are no refunds accepted within a month of the date of a scheduled retreat for any reason.

Call 310-560-0726 to book an MR&R here at joe@joewhitcombtherapy.com.   Once your payment is received, you will be contacted via phone to schedule the date for your MR&R.