Encounter Centered Couples Session

This 4 hour couples intensive is based on Steven's training in Encounter Centered Couples Therapy.

Although this work implies the word “therapy” in the name, it is really more of a relational mindfulness experience which supports a couple to be deeply present with each other. Steven will be working as a transformational guide. The focus is on discovering what blocks encountering each other in the present rather than processing content and story.

Aside from ourselves, it is probably most difficult to see our romantic partners with the “naked ordinary mind”. Since we so routinely and efficiently recycle our relational history into our adult love relationships, they present us with an exquisite opportunity in which we can collaboratively explore both samsara and present moment wakefulness. 

Our lives as a couple exists in the relational “space between”. We are each 100% responsible for nourishing that space. As we learn to claim and practice this understanding with our partners, we are in a much better position to see the inevitable pull into our relational histories as opportunities to practice being compassionately present to feelings in both ourselves and in “the other”. 

CONTENT AND IMPORTANT NOTES:

This 4 hour block of time is ideal for a committed couple who in general feel connected and would like the opportunity to explore their connection as a deep practice opportunity.

This personal couples workshop will take place in Steven's office in downtown Brunswick, Maine. We are the last stop on the Downeaster Service from Boston.

This service is offered on a Saturday, most likely in a format of 2 hours, lunch break, then final 2 hours, i.e., 10AM - 3PM.

To be scheduled at a mutually agreed upon time between Steven and the winning bidder. 

It will in no way be able to meet the needs of a couple in significant distress where there is active substance abuse, an ongoing or recently disclosed affair, untreated trauma or where one person is considering leaving the relationship.

"The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another…” (from Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past) 

BIO: Steven & his wife Leslie have been specializing in couples work since 2004 when they became Certified Imago Relationship Therapists. Their continuing education together has been focused primarily on couples work including the work of the Gottmans, the IFS work of Toni Herbine-Blank, Deb Dana’s adaptation of Steve Porges' Polyvagal Theory and Janina Fisher's work on Trauma. It has also been and continues to be informed by the evolving fields of Neuroscience and Attachment. 

Steven & Leslie began studying with Hedy Schleifer, the creator of Encounter Centered Couples Therapy (ECCT) in 2013. They participated in Hedy’s 3 year Master Class from 2014-17. They have worked personally with Hedy and assisted her in Florida, Connecticut and in Washington DC. 

Steven has been a student of Buddhism since the early 1980’s when he began sitting retreats at the Insight Meditation Society. He has also sat retreats in the Korean Zen Tradition, with Thich Nhat Hahn and with Anam Thubten. He is currently enrolled in Wonderwell’s Margha program. He is an avid swimmer, Irish musician and passionate student of life.

• Name : Steven Klockow LCSW