The Over-whelming Experience at the Adventure in Intimacy by Kris Ang, Malaysia This is a letter that Kris sent us after attending our workshop in Malaysia that was sponsored by a private member organization

On September 22 in Vancouver, BC, a new documentary was screened for the first time. This film about Hedy and Yumi, their life, message, and work was fully funded by one couple who attended our workshops. A limited number of DVDs will be available before the end of the year.

The recent documentary made about Hedy and Yumi will be shown at the the La Femme Film Festival in Hollywood, California on October 15, 2009. More information on the new website www.HedyAndYumi.com

2-day training open to all therapists, coaches, etc.

Using live demonstrations, practice, processing of techniques and lecture, Hedy will lead you through a 2-day experience, in which you will learn in body, mind, and spirit, how to become an even more effective, more relaxed, and more joyful guide for couples.   

CONTACT FOR THIS TRAINING IN DENMARK

Lone Algot Jeppesen at lalgot@hotmail.com 

2-day training open to all therapists, coaches, etc.

Using live demonstrations, practice, processing of techniques and lecture, Hedy will lead you through a 2-day experience, in which you will learn in body, mind, and spirit, how to become an even more effective, more relaxed, and more joyful guide for couples.   

CONTACT FOR THIS TRAINING IN ISRAEL

Tali Schiffer
Israel Assn. for Marital & Family Therapy
Tel: (09) 746-7064
E-mail: venezia@netvision.net.il
Website: http://www.mishpaha.org.il/

2-day training for relaionship therapists with 14 CEUs

Using live demonstrations, practice, processing of techniques and lecture, Hedy will lead you through a 2-day experience, in which you will learn in body, mind, and spirit, how to become an even more effective, more relaxed, and more joyful guide for couples.

The Art of Relational Couples Therapy is open to all therapists.  CEUs available for Family and Marriage Therapists, Social Workers, Licensed Professional Counselors, and Psychologists 

The Adventure in Intimacy workshop is based on 7 principles and 7 rituals (essential skills), that will allow you and your partner to reboot your relationship, reconnect with each other more deeply than you have ever thought possible, and rediscover the joy of being together.

Registration is $895/couple

You may register with only a $200 Deposit

Previous graduates of an Adventure In Intimacy workshop, a Getting The Love You Want workshop, and Imago Therapists are invited to attend for only $695/couple

Print this form if you prefer to register by mail or fax

Print this form if you are in need of a partial scholarship

We have a group rate of $154 per night at the hotel until February 24, so make your reservation soon. We STRONGLY recommend staying at the hotel to get the full value of the workshop…even if you live locally. Couples often report they wish they had stayed at the hotel to experience the weekend retreat atmosphere.

The Adventure in Intimacy workshop is based on 7 principles and 7 rituals (essential skills), that will allow you and your partner to reboot your relationship, reconnect with each other more deeply than you have ever thought possible, and rediscover the joy of being together.

Registration is $895/couple

Read more »

By Hedy Schleifer

 ” . . .I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore, choose life, that both you and your children shall live. . .” Deuteronomy 30:20

What I remember most about my Dad is his shining, radiant spirit.I will always remember him as a holy man who loved to study the Torah, who delighted in God, in his wife and children, in Shabbat, in life, and in his heritage as a Jew. He and my mother “chose life” over and over again, through the Holocaust and beyond, and they passed it on to their children — and to anyone who came into their lives.

When my father died this past June, I experienced in a new way the infinite richness, wisdom, and healing of my tradition as a Jewish woman. I came to appreciate more than ever, the truth of living life deeply — fully present to each moment of life. The Hasidic image of a human being is a person bringing all of his or her passion and the full possibility of response into every event and relationship. And my Dad, coming from that view of humanity, gifted me once again with its great truth through the experience of his death.

When we received the call that my father was hospitalized with a heart attack, we flew to Israel immediately, but my father died the evening before we arrived. My Dad’s soul, in a perfect expression of his life, had left with the Sabbath and I can still envision the Sabbath Queen carrying him in her arms.Turning into my parents’ street in Tel Aviv, I saw the car carrying my Dad enter the street at the same time. It was my father’s way of greeting us as he always loved to do. I was so touched that the street was filled with people who had heard of his death. My father’s life was lived within a community and his death was a communal event.

Death Tears the Fabric of Life

With my Mom and other family members, we went directly to the cemetery. As we entered, my cousin cut and then tore my dress and the clothes of my family. Hearing, seeing, feeling my dress being ripped over my heart, I felt fully that the fabric of my life and of my family had indeed been torn. In the United States we often cut a ribbon which ‘sanitizes’ it somewhat. In Israel, however, nothing about death is ‘sanitized’ in any way. Instead, the stark reality of loss is held in front of you over and over again so that you have the opportunity to grieve it completely. And that is what makes it such a healing experience — the permission, encouragement, and framework to express fully that profound pain and loss.

As we stood at the grave, relatives picked up my father’s body wrapped in his tallis and tenderly laid him into the arms of the land that he loved so dearly. There was no wood or concrete to separate him from the warmth of the earth. There was no machinery — nothing artificial.We all covered him with the earth until the grave was filled — we, his family and friends, buried him.

After we said Kaddish, a man prayed out in the ancient language that seemed to echo through the centuries that my father would find complete unity. And standing there, seeing the rare alignment of the three planets just before sundown, hearing the voice of 5000 years, I knew that my father’s soul had found his complete unity and was also with us. Everything was aligned and flowed as part of the current of life and I experienced powerfully my Dad’s presence in his leaving.

A New Life to be Lived

Everything that followed was a continuation of that experience. Returning to the house, we were given an egg to eat, a symbol of new life. We were beginning a new life without my father in it. That symbol also said to me, “Your Dad is dead. You have just placed him in the earth.You, however, are alive — you can claim life!” It was such a powerful place from which to enter the shiva, to grieve his death from a place of complete life.

Doing the Work of Grief

Throughout the shiva we got up every morning to do the work of grieving. We wore the same torn clothing that immediately confronted us each day with the reality of my father’s death. All reflective surfaces in the house were covered. We were not to look at our selves or our image as others saw us, only at our pain and grief. We took no notice of the details of daily life. Our work was to mourn and everyone supported us completely in doing just that.

As people came to the house, they did not talk about weather or politics, only about my Dad. I heard about his life from the postman, from his friends, from neighbors, from a man who took his 3 year old son to the park every Shabbas and talked to my father, from a 90 year old Russian man that he visited every day. To hear the fullness of his life and how he had touched so many others was so precious to me, and so important for my grieving. No one told us that we should feel ‘better’ or ‘move on.’ They stayed with us in our pain and assisted us through their presence and their remembering of my father. The seven days were a true tribute and celebration of his life.

At the end of the shiva, I made the decision to stay in Israel for the remainder of the full 30 day period of mourning. My cousin proclaimed the end of the shiva and we changed out of our torn clothes to go to the cemetery. Through a brief service at the grave we said, “We have grieved tremendously for you these days and now we are going to begin to resume life, a life without your loving, caring presence in it. . . We will do all the things of daily living for the first time without you being with us.” It was not a matter of ‘getting on with our lives’ so that we didn’t have to think about and feel our pain anymore. Instead, it was a getting on with life from the view of missing my father deeply in every detail of our living.

From Full Life, Feel the Pain of Death

When we returned home from the cemetery that evening, we walked to the beach where my Mom and Dad had walked so often. The sun was just setting and my mother was enthralled with the beauty, with the sun, the air, the ocean. She kept saying excitedly, “Look at it!! Look how beautiful it is!!!” And suddenly it hit her that she would never again share that with my father. I again marveled at how extraordinary my mother is. She went to that beach not as someone who is missing part of herself, but as a woman with her soul completely open to the beauty of Creation, a woman fully alive. From that place of deep life, she felt profoundly the pain of death.

People continued to come or to call to talk about my father throughout the 30 days. We gradually resumed the tasks of living– going to the market and to the lawyer, cooking and cleaning — all with the awareness of each one being done the first time without my father. Had this all not been set in the framework of an ‘official’ grieving period, we may have easily become task-oriented, but the 30 day period made it clear that each action was in the service of our real task, which was grieving.

During this time we also talked with the Israeli Arab doctor who had treated my father with such amazing care and respect. He patiently told us about the events of my father’s heart attacks and death. He took us to the hospital room where my Dad died. I had learned that when my Mom, who had been at home for a short rest when my Dad died, came to my father, she had uncovered him, caressed him and told him all the things she needed and wanted to say to him. No one whisked her or my father’s body out of the room. On the contrary! The doctor had encouraged her to take all the time she needed. And my mother, trusting her inner voice, went back and forth twenty times to say her good-bye to my father.

The Wisdom of Judaism Honors the Work of Grief

I continue to be completely awed and profoundly grateful for Judaism that centuries ago recognized intuitively the needs of a person in grief. The tradition not only respects the process, it honors it and encourages it. It also encourages me in so many ways to live deeply each moment, including the deepest anguish, and to express the truth of my soul. It sets before me a way to “choose life” in every moment of my life. I have heard people say many of our rituals belong to another time. Yet, as a therapist, I am amazed at how attuned our ancestors were in creating this framework for so profound an experience.The rituals were a container into which I could pour all of my anguish, that welcomed me with all my pain and provided a secure, safe space for my grieving. They gave us complete permission to scream, to cry, to wail, to laugh, to feel and think everything that we felt and thought.

I felt intolerable pain in losing my father, in realizing that I can never again hug him, touch him, hear his voice and his laughter. And at the same time, I feel a deep peace in the awareness that I am totally connected to him soul to soul in an even more profound way. I now share even more with his soul that I feel so present to me. I have grieved tremendously and yet, I also feel lightened and enlivened in a way that I cannot explain.

Our tradition recognizes that tension of holding on to those we love and letting go of them so that we can live with new depth. To the extent that we shut ourselves off to our pain, we diminish our ability to feel joy and to live fully. My Mom showed me so clearly that welcoming with open heart the joy of being alive, allows us to feel our pain deeply, not from a sense of deprivation of life, but from an abundance of life that ultimately heals the wound.

My father’s death and the process of grieving it from within the safe and sacred space created by ancient rituals has given me the ability to truly live more deeply, than ever before. It is the second time my father has given me the gift of life. Thank you, Papi. And thank you God — for truly “preparing me, sustaining me, and bringing me to this moment” so that I can celebrate what is at each and every moment — so that I can wholeheartedly “choose life!”

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Copyright 1996-2008, Hedy Schleifer, MA, LMHC. Miami Beach, Florida Copies of this article or parts thereof may be reproduced for personal use but must contain copyright information. Reproduction for financial gain is prohibited.

By Hedy Schleifer, MA, LMHC

 Our relationships live in the “relational space” between us

There is an invisible bridge that CONNECTS  us to our partner and that allows us to visit and get to know them.

Our total 100% presence to the other, creates a genuine encounter with them

Our relationship is a small laboratory for the creation of two adults.

Gift your partner with at least 100 small Gestures of Love and Caring every day

Carry a picture in your wallet of your partner as a young child.

Remember 90-10 formula in any conflict: 10% of the energy comes from the present; 90% comes from past frustrations and hurts.

“Incompatibility” is a boost to your relationship!

Transform our point of view from: “The two of us are one and I’m the one!”, to “The two of us are two (individuals) on a joint journey”

Create a safe harbor for the “other”, in order to free our passion.

The mission of committed relationship is to complete the unfinished childhood developmental issues and become relationally mature adults.

When things are very difficult, growth is trying to happen.

Keep the fire going through romance: All day is foreplay.

Make the Divine Presence a partner in your relationship.

With increasing consciousness and intentionality it gets better all the time.

 

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Copyright 1996-2008, Revised April, 2010: Hedy Schleifer, MA, LMHC. Miami Beach, Florida.
Copies of this article or parts thereof may be reproduced for personal use but must contain copyright information. Reproduction for financial gain is prohibited.

 

By Hedy Schleifer, M.A., LMHC

 Experts agree that nurturing, supportive parenting that provides firm but fair limits assists children in becoming healthy, well-functioning adults. However, a seven year study by Dallas’s Timberlawn Psychiatric Institute found the one factor that was the most important in helping children become healthy, happy adults, was the quality of the relationship between their parents. This one factor was more important than giving kids hugs, providing good discipline, and building their self esteem, or any other aspect of what is traditionally considered ‘good parenting.’ In light of these and other similar findings, our concern for the ‘best interest of the child’ in marital dissolution cases rests with helping parents communicate and work together after the divorce.

Children Do NOT Just “Get Over It”

Many of us used to assume, and some still do, that children will ‘get over’ their parents’ divorce after an initial period of adjustment . The Timberlawn study, as well as landmark studies by Judith Wallerstein and others, found that divorce not only hurts both parents and children, but that children suffer long term consequences including emotional difficulties, poor school or job performance, and difficulty achieving intimacy in their own relationships as adults. Wallerstein reports that one third of the children experienced moderate to severe depression five years after the divorce. Fifteen years after the divorce, many of those children were still experiencing the consequences of their parent’s break-up as they began love relationships and marriages of their own. Every child in her study feared repeating a failure to maintain a loving relationship in adulthood, all feared betrayal and rejection, and all remained very vulnerable to loss.

Continual Battles Worse than Divorce

What these and other studies have also found is, that while divorce hurts children, living with parents who continually wage embittered battles is even worse. Research shows that the children who suffer most are those whose parents divorce, and then carry on the battle for years through legal challenges, arguments, or refusal to cooperate with orders regarding visitation, custody, and child support. As Wallerstein points out, the courts have often believed that awarding joint custody would force parents to put aside their anger and cooperate for the sake of the children. However, often, the opposite occurs. The children become either the weapons or the trophies in their parents power struggle, or the unintended victims of their rage. Moreover, the chaos and emotional (and sometimes financial) strain that the divorce process puts on parents often makes it difficult for them to provide the security and availability for their children, further leaving the child’s emotional and physical needs unmet.

Does Counseling Help?

How can attorneys, mediators, and judges, then, assist a couple in repairing their relationship in order to either stay together and create a fulfilling relationship for both, or, at least, to communicate and work together after a divorce for the best interest of their children? Legal professionals often refer or order parents to marriage counseling, but many times, little seems to change. The same dynamics of conflict and discord continue throughout the legal process and long after agreements and orders are made. Successful marriage counseling teaches the couple practical skills to effectively move beyond the power struggle in their relationship and to heal the causes of that power struggle.

Negotiation and Contracts is Basically More of the Same

Many counselors are taught to use negotiation skills and contracts to help resolve conflicts. While these methods sometimes help, their benefit is often short-term. Using contracts and negotiation tends to civilize the power struggle for a period of time — until those very contracts become another expression of the basic power struggle. Focusing on ‘tit for tat’, or on the content of the issues (money, children, sex, etc.) is at best a band-aid, and at worst, in contractual form, fuel for the fire. Therapy in which each partner tells their story to the therapist with the therapist acting as a kind of mediator also tends to have short term benefits. Long after a couple leaves a courtroom or a therapist’s office, they continue to interact with each other and their children. Court orders, contracts, or agreements, in or outside of therapy, set parameters for the power struggle, but do not give couples the tools to move through and beyond it. Learning those skills is an important key to the parents’ ‘best interest’ and especially, to that of their children.

Learn Skills that Help You Step Out of the Power Struggle

Over the past 20 years, we have learned that teaching couples concrete, practical, skills that help them use frustration and conflict as an opportunity for growth and healing for both partners, instead of a weapon for more wounding, results in long-term improvement in the relationship. Instead of the tools remaining in the hands of the therapist, they are taught to and practiced by the couple. In this way, couples can move from automatically reacting to each other in ways that are hurtful or hostile, to intentional, safe, and healing communication and behavior.

Tikkun

A method that I use and that has proven to be very effective in helping couples repair their relationship, and in helping those who divorce communicate and act toward each other in a productive and healthy way, is Tikkun.

Overview of Tikkun

Tikkun is a unique integration of the philosophy of Martin Buber, Imago Relationship Theory, the Positive Change relational skills of Appreciative Inquiry, the peer co-counseling methods of Re-evaluation Counseling, and Relational Neurobiology. It is intended to be a short term therapy that teaches couples tools to discover the wounds underneath their power struggle and learn how to heal them. There is also a three day Adventure In Intimacy workshop for couples based on the same model of therapy.

In the Tikkun model, couples learn that the power struggle between them is a normal part of any relationship, and that while divorce is one way out of it, it is not the only way. Divorce, couples learn, gets rid of the partner, but not of the problem. Couples learn the ‘unconscious’ reasons they chose each other, and why they would tend to choose the very same qualities in their next partner.

While insight in therapy is important and helpful, it is not enough. Unless couples learn to do things differently in their interactions, they will never get beyond the same difficulties they have already encountered. Tikkun focuses on learning and using practical tools to move through and beyond the power struggle.

One of the key elements is learning how to create emotional safety for one’s partner, which ultimately leads to increased safety for oneself. Often people have very good intentions in attempting to change their behavior, but feel like failures when they revert to their old patterns. Creating safety empowers both partners to invite each other out of those protective patterns in positive, specific, and measurable ways. In Tikkun, partners learn how specific things they say or do (or fail to say or do) trigger the fears and pain associated with wounds that their partner received long before their marriage. They learn to hear, understand, validate and empathize with their partner’s experience, whether or not they agree with it. They can then identify and ask each other for very specific requests to heal that area.

What If the Decision to Divorce is Already Final?

If a couple remains firm in their decision to divorce, Tikkun offers the tools to communicate and interact in ways that are healthy for both parents and their children during and after the divorce. It also provides a good-bye process that helps create an emotional closure for both parties. A legal document does not mean that a couple is divorced on an emotional level, particularly when one or both parties is ambivalent about the divorce. Wallerstein’s study found that after ten and even fifteen years after divorce, close to half of the men and women had not given up the hopes and disappointments attached to their previous marriage. Half of the women and one third of the men still felt intensely angry with their former spouse ten years after their divorce.

What is the “Best Interest of the Child?”

Chapter 61 of the Florida Statutes, in discussing the ‘best interest of the child’ in divorce proceedings, emphasizes the ability of a parent to allow and encourage continued contact and a close parent-child relationship with the ex-spouse. (F.S. 61(3) (a) and (j). The court also considers factors such as maintaining continuity and a stable environment for the child and the mental health of the parents. (F.S. 61 (3) (d) and (g). Without learning specific ways to navigate and move beyond the power struggle which has brought the couple to divorce proceedings, those significant aspects of the child’s ‘best interest’ seem to be, in many cases, wishful thinking. Tikkun Relationship Therapy can teach parents the skills to co-create those realities for themselves and their children.

Do Yourself and Your Child a Favor

Whether married, divorced or separated, couples who learn new skills to use conflict in a healing and healthy way, who learn how to become more intentional rather than reactive, who can discover ways to step out of a power struggle rather than be controlled by it, serve as an important role model for their children.

Couples today have new knowledge and techniques available that can change the way they relate not only to one another, but also to other people in their lives. Parents can learn how to parent more effectively as they discover things in their own history that were wounding and realize how to prevent repeating those wounds in the parenting of their children. Most importantly, they can lead the way for their children to develop and maintain loving relationships with both parents, as well as strong, secure, intimate, and healing relationships as they mature. Learning to get along for the best interest of the child is indeed possible.

For more information on TIkkun, Tikkun Training for therapists, coaches, mediators, and lawyers, or the Adventure In Intimacy workshop for couples, call 305-604-0010 or www.HedyYumi.org

Lewis, J. (1990). The Young Family Project. Dallas, Texas:Timberlawn Foundation.

Wallerstein, J. & Blakeslee, S. (1990). Second Chances. New York:Ticknor & Fields.

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Copyright 1996-2010, Hedy Schleifer, MA, LMHC. Miami Beach, Florida Copies of this article or parts thereof may be reproduced for personal use but must contain copyright information. Reproduction for financial gain is prohibited.

    Rabbi Yitshak Mandelbaum

The following was written by Rabbi Yitshak Mandelbaum following his attendance at an Adventure in Intimacy workshop in Israel. Rabbi Mandelbaum teaches at a Yeshiva near Jerusalem.

We have conducted workshops on such issues as the Sabbath, prayers and the family, using dialogue and active listening as major tools. The participants react with great enthusiasm and the inter-personal relationship gets deeper and deeper.

When working with teacher teams we also train them to listen to their pupils and to each other. In some places the influence of this experience has been described as the most significant ever.

One of the Yeshivot we work with encourages pluralism of opinions and choices. It is well known that the Talmud abounds in disputes and holds that they are “the live words of God”. Deepening the listening abilities in this Yeshiva has consolidated this approach.

I have much to add, but these are details more easily conveyed orally than in writing.

As we have settled last summer, I welcome you to participate in a workshop together with our Rabbinical college. This will be a great experience for us and hopefully for you too. The college members are wonderful men and women, orthodox and secular, who have experienced a deep process of change during the last year. They are pleasant and warm people, a group charting new routes for Jewish life and education.

Please come, we shall be waiting for you.

I thank you again for being what you are, for the meeting between us, for the special personal attention you have given me and Noa and for the inspiration that still affects me.

by David Steele In this article I would like to summarize key points made by Hedy Schleifer in a seminar she conducted for the first of our three “Miracle of Connection” seminars. Presented on January 12th, this was truly an amazing seminar. We received comments such as- “THIS IS THE BEST CLASS I’VE EVER ATTENDED!” “Now I know why everyone adores Hedy so much. Today’s call was simply magical. I had goosebumps the entire time.” At the end of this article is a link to access a 52 minute audio recording of this seminar. Highly recommended! FIVE ASSUMPTIONS FOR RELATIONSHIPS Hedy shared the following five assumptions she and Yumi make about committed relationships: We grow and heal in the crucible of our relationship. “Therapy” doesn’t work well for relationships because the relationship IS the therapy. A relationship is not a problem to be solved; it is an adventure to embrace. Conflict is a friend, an opportunity for growth and connection. A relationship is a laboratory for the “Relational Maturity” of two adults. The higher mission of a relationship is to reclaim our wholeness. We choose a partner perfectly suited for this task, even if we appear incompatible. SEVEN PRINCIPLES FOR CONSCIOUS RELATIONSHIP Our relationship happens in the space between us. True connection happens when we empty ourselves and cross the bridge to meet our partner. Everything your partner says in the present is a child attempting to tell their story. We are energy that can be expressed positively or negatively. Your partner’s bewildering behavior is an existential cry for help. Every frustration is a double-gift for the relationship. Liberating our joy into our space re-romanticizes our relationship. Fulfillment comes from dreaming our largest dreams together. THE THIRD OPTION “When it seems there are only two alternatives; pick the third” — Hedy’s Dad “Beyond ‘right-thinking’ and ‘wrong-thinking’ there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” — Rumi Our relationship lives in the space between us; in the hyphen between the “I” and the “Thou” in our “I-Thou” relationship. In a relationship, we must “honor the ‘otherness’ of the other” and assume we are two separate people, and “cross the bridge into the country of our partner.” When we honor the “otherness” of our partner and empty ourselves to “cross the bridge” we are honoring the space between us, which then becomes warm, loving, inviting, and passionate. ©2005 by Relationship Coaching Institute / All rights reserved http://www.relationshipcoachinginstitute.com

by Rabbi Aharon Leibovitz, rabbi of the Kol Rina congregation in Jerusalem

In the story of the creation of man, it says “and [He] breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” – translated by Onkelos, ( the translator of the Bible into Arameic), as “the spirit of discourse”, the spirit of speech.

The ability and the desire to communicate in words is what differentiates human beings from other creatures. Our desire for social contact and couplehood is closely connected to our nature as communicative creatures.

Which of us has not stood alone looking at a breathtaking sunset, a comet or some other sight, and felt enormously frustrated by the need to share the experience with someone else? It is therefore important to remember the power, the danger and the limitations of words when we enter into a relationship.

The Holy One created the universe with words, and we can build our world or destroy it, heaven forbid, with words.

The ability to describe my inner world in words to my partner in life, and to listen in a genuine and non-judgmental way to his or her world is the basis for creating a shared world. By asking questions, I can clarify whether I have understood correctly, and can understand better. A good word strengthens my partner, and thus the two of us. A bad word, heaven forbid, can only do the reverse. If I am hurt or angry, the ability to open up my world to my partner, to share without attacking, is priceless. This ability requires effort and practice, and it can be learned. We are not talking pop psychology here, but about the essential fabric on which human nature and every inter-personal connection is based.

There are also places where words are not enough, places which are beyond words. “Praise waiteth for Thee” – as we get closer to the holy, we touch on places without words. This is the place where poetry and melody surpass prose and dialogue. Sometimes merely being together, without saying a word, can express a higher level of closeness.

The foundation for these moments of spiritual elevation is formed by the quality of communication at other times. The silence that has no words behind it can often indicate alienation and lack of connection. On the other hand, a couple relationship through which the “spirit of discourse” blows can be called a marriage, because it can touch the highest worlds in which the angels sing what simple words cannot express.

By Kris Ang, Malaysia

What a trip! To call this an adventure is true to every sense of the word! At this journey, eight couples put their trust in [a member] to bring Hedy and Yumi Schleifer to provide a workshop that enables couples to be each other’s best friend, lover and healer. All of us registered for the event not knowing what to expect and we went home with loads of mind-blowing knowledge along with our new spouse!

The workshop was originally to run for three-days. However, knowing all [our] members and spouses to have extremely busy schedules, this event was compressed to two-days. After the first session, all of us felt that we most definitely must invest three days into this retreat.

There are a total of seven rituals for couples to practice and each ritual taught, brought us to a deeper level of understanding towards our spouse and as a group. Every experience touched us in more ways than one, and at the end of each practice every single soul in the room is able to connect at different levels.

It is the most invigorating experience for all and we have learned to look at our spouse in a very different perspective. All the participants bonded so well as if we have been old-time friends all along!

Below are some of the comments from the participants:

1. The resource has God’s gift in bringing out the issues that is not obvious. Well done! The journey has just began.
2. Extremely sensitive and expressive. Able to create a safe environment and also to lead us to places where we could not have done so ourselves.
3. All couples in [our organization] can benefit from Hedy & Yumi. Bring them back again!!
4. Extraordinary event. It is the BEST take home value event I had attended-ever in and out of [our organization]
5. Wonderful! Breathtaking discovery.

If you believe strongly about commitment in your marriage
If you are looking for reviving the magic in your marriage
If you know deep down you truly love your spouse
And if you think your marriage is perfect
Then, it’s time…..

Time to take that extra step
Towards an exhilarating, extraordinary, truly defining journey with the Schleifers!

By Adele Azar Rucquoi, published in “The Messenger” An article by an Arab Catholic writer about Hedy, her experince at the workshop, and the days that followed in her church

Arab & Jew Walk Hand-In-Hand (PDF)

THE JOIE DE VIVRE MUSCLE
A Conversation with Hedy Schleifer
(this interview was translated from Hebrew. Click here for the Hebrew version)

I begin my conversation with Hedy after reading her article about her father’s death. Between her article and the gist of my reading about the Imago Method and the role our parents play in the defenses we create for ourselves, I begin to understand her huge smile.

I tell her I read her article, and I ask her if she sees a connection between her smile and the kind of parents she had.

Hedy: I think everything is connected to both Father and Mother. My mother was a woman who infected people with her optimism, even in the concentration camps. She considered survival there a challenge, a mission. She brought people happiness. That was her mission. At the very times people knew they were going to their death, she celebrated. She made a birthday party for a little orphan girl in a French transit camp to Auschwitz. An honest-to-goodness birthday party, with songs and dances. People who survived the camps told me that one day they received a package of cast-off clothes, absolutely unwearable, and there was nothing they could do with them. Mother organized a group of women and put on a fashion show. Someone else told me: “Your mother made me laugh when I believed I was frozen, and laughing made me realize that I was still alive.”

My mother believed that happiness and our lives are intertwined, and if she let them take away her happiness, that would impoverish her. She used to say, “Happiness is my freedom.” So that was my mother: Good will and happiness all her life. My father was the world’s greatest collector of Jewish jokes in Yiddish. It wasn’t optimism that was his strongest feature, but more his sense of humor. He had the ability to find something funny in anything. In my mother’s case, it was optimism that filled every cell in her body.

My parents were traditional. Not ultra-orthodox. They were a pair of lovebirds. They loved each other very much, but they didn’t know anything about the things that I teach today. There was an icy tension in our house that they didn’t know how to melt. They didn’t know how to break down this tension. This is something that I didn’t understand then. I didn’t understand how, despite their love, they had no idea how one of them could cross the bridge into the world of the other and join him there. Love, mutual respect, kindness, and sympathy helped them cross the bridge, but they didn’t know how to resolve the tension in this space that surrounded them.

It confused me — the tension that filled the space. This is the space where the child lives. That was my childhood. Each of them was a very special personality in his own right. There was love, but there wasn’t a connection, and they didn’t have the tools to make the connection.

So did you get your joie de vivre from your parents?
Hedy: My birth was a miracle. I was born in a Swiss refugee camp, the day Paris was liberated. It was a day the whole world celebrated. The day of the beginning of the end of the war. I received the enormous energy of that moment. I actually think all the celebrating was for me, for the fact that I was born. That is the philosophy I live by: I was born, and the world burst out in a huge celebration. For example, this is how I live: I love to dress nicely. Always. One day Yumi asked me why I was dressed up, when it was only Tuesday. I answered him that this was my Tuesday party. Life as a party is something my parents drummed into me. My parents rejoiced in me, because they never believed that they would survive. I got so much strength from my beginning, because they said: the fact that you’re alive — that’s tremendous.

Are you a religious woman?
Hedy: We’re traditional. My husband has been wearing a kipa since his father died.

When I get such a brief answer. I decide to rephrase my question, and I ask her if she is a believer.
Hedy: Yes! Yes! Yes! Very! Very! Very! Every cell of my body is Faith. That’s my attitude. I believe in the goodness of people. I believe that there aren’t really any problems. That if people could only be in touch with their essence, there wouldn’t really be any problems. That’s also my approach with clients. It doesn’t matter what the problems are. It doesn’t matter what the couple brings. What is important is that the one comes to visit the other. Someone who pays a visit on someone else will be amazed at the depth of the world that he meets.

I ask about her daily routine, in order to understand a little more how she actually manages with all that energy?
Hedy: I don’t have any regular daily routine. We are constantly on the go: Washington, Israel, Europe, and back.

How do you lead the workshop with Yumi?
Hedy: In the workshop, we teach our method, and we model it as a couple. We actually talk about our problems, and tell our stories. We really and truly continue to live in that and use it in our life as a couple.
There are 34 couples in the upcoming workshop, and we teach the seven principles of our method. We start working by having a dialogue, like in a play. Then the couples start to work. When they come back, we analyze the work that’s been done. Next we tell a little bit about ourselves, our stories as a couple, we do some more modeling, followed by guided imaging, and then we go back to work. After three days of such intensive work, the couples leave with a full toolkit.

How does the therapy you give affect your relationship as a couple?
Hedy: We teach the method together, but I treat the couple by myself.
Before we learned this method for strengthening couple relationships, we were one of those couples that didn’t know what to do with the tension between us. We were good friends, but we didn’t know how to cross the bridge so that one could cross over to the other. Our relationship as a couple evolved through the method, and they both developed together, an integration of a number of parts. Today, the method is the result of our work together as a couple. The work goes on every day, all the time.

In our first briefing, you said that in 41 years of marriage you’ve already experienced Yumi as 15 husbands.
Hedy: Yumi #16 emerged in our last workshop. The transformation at this stage can happen very quickly. It can be quite interesting to talk about all 16 of my husbands. The first one was from our romantic period, when we were high on love. The second one didn’t talk at all, he didn’t know he had any feelings. After the effect of the love potion wears off, you’re a different person. You’re not married to the same person that you married. What’s left is the connection without the narcotic. You find your husband behind a newspaper or a book. I can describe in detail every little change there was over the years, until husband #16 came along. In the last workshop, Yumi took a lot more space and a lot more time to express himself. He was spontaneous in a way that I’ve never seen him in my life. He jumped into the circle and danced. He was funny, made contact with people. He had a vitality that I’ve never seen in him in my life. You have to remember this is a 76-year-old man. I told the people in the workshop I didn’t know him at all. That’s what can happen when the relational space is holy and secure. We are watching each other develop. He says I’m his eighth wife. He says I didn’t need to change as much.

Where do you recharge your batteries?
Hedy: The relationship itself charges my batteries. At this point in our lives together, we’re together a lot: thinking, working, creating. I never would have imagined we could spend so much time together in a good and harmonious relationship. Today, I’m a citizen of the world, where I used to come only as a tourist—a world we would enter and leave without understanding how we entered or why we left.

For your method to work, the partners must have “therapy-ability.” Is this a capacity that not everyone has been blessed with?
Hedy: I don’t see my work as being the work of a therapist; it’s the work of a coach. I train a person to be present for the other person. I know that everyone has those muscles. In one person, they may be atrophied, but in the other, less so. I work with the people I meet. I work more slowly with the people whose muscles are atrophied. I decide on the tempo of the treatment. There are those who want to be Olympic champions, and there are those who only want to build up their muscle in that spot. It’s important to realize that everybody has all the muscles. The knowledge that everyone has these muscles — that is my optimism.

Maybe you have succeeded because your foundation is happy? Most people’s foundations are much less secure.
Hedy: I agree that happiness is optimism-dependent. Research shows there’s also a strong genetic influence. I understand that it’s a matter of one’s nature. But I know from my husband that it’s possible to learn to live happily. The man I met was terribly sad, utterly desperate. He had lost two sisters in the war. His first fiancée in Israel had been killed by terrorists. Already as a child he had not been happy. He had been through a lot. But my 16th husband is a happy man. He wakes up in the morning and knows he’ll have a good day. He learned that for my sake. He was willing to build up his joie de vivre muscle. This is a muscle that is worth your while to have. In his case, the muscle was completely atrophied. He had no idea he had a muscle there. We did some weird exercises and he learned. Today he has a big muscle, and he gives to others. Men relate to him naturally more than to me, and they learn from him. They see a happy man that emerged from a sad man. It took time. You have to nurture it, you have to work. It’s a gym that must be visited and used constantly.

That’s how I see my work: it’s not psychology, it’s a gym. I don’t analyze the situation; I build up muscles. In this series I had a good couple, they already had a muscle. All I had to do was to build it up.

International Experts Increase Corporate “Relational Intelligence”

Miami Beach, August 4.   Hedy and Yumi Schleifer, co-directors of Schleifer+Associates, an international training company specializing in inter-personal relationships located in Miami Beach, have recently returned from Malaysia, where they brought their revolutionary “The Relational Organization” training to three corporations.  While in Malaysia the Schleifers also presented a workshop for couples, “Adventure in Intimacy”, to the Kuala Lumpur chapter of YPO, a prominent international network of CEOs.   

 “The Relational Organization,” is a powerful two-day training for organizations created by the Schleifers. It serves as a clinic for developing the Relational Intelligence of organizations.  “The ability of a group of people to work toward a common goal depends on the quality of their relationships,” says Yumi Schleifer. “We provide organizations with a powerful, user-friendly skill set which fundamentally alters these relationships, increasing creativity, productivity and motivation, and very importantly helping to dissolve conflicts”.

“I am very pleased my team spent two days with Hedy and Yumi. We sure have learned a lot about communication,” exclaimed CK Tan, CEO of Munchworld Marketing in Malaysia. “Yesterday I had a monthly staff meeting with my factory team and I used your methods. Everybody loved it and we had so much fun. Thank you for all and I am looking forward to our next meeting.”

Hedy and Yumi, a husband and wife team of over 40 years are pioneers in the Art of Connection – transforming all types of relationships, from marriages and intimate partnerships to professional and company-peer affiliations. Their powerful and captivating workshops and trainings, held worldwide in English, French, German and Hebrew, not only provide practical information, but also inspire and empower people to embrace their life, work, and relationships with joy and passion.  

“The Relational Organization” training mobilizes the collective resources of a company’s staff to affect change in the work environment.  Just a few of the remarkable and inspiring outcomes of this workshop include:

• a renewed sense of commitment, pride and passion
• leaders with  sound, relationship-enhancing dialogue and listening skills
• supervisors who are sources of inspiration for creativity, productivity and renewed energy

After an encounter with Hedy and Yumi, participants experience a revolution in themselves and their organizations allowing them to embark on the road to excellence!

For more information on workshops and trainings, available internationally in English, French, German and Hebrew, call 305-604-0010 or visit www.HedyYumi.org

 

Basic Training in Relational Couples Coaching Open to All Therapists, Counselors, Coaches, Organizational Development Professionals, HR Managers, Clergy

Registration is $595

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The Adventure in Intimacy workshop is based on 7 principles and 7 rituals (essential skills), that will allow you and your partner to reboot your relationship, reconnect with each other more deeply than you have ever thought possible, and rediscover the joy of being together.

France Contact Information
Bernadette Blin Lery Vanessa Renault IRETT 44 rue de la chapelle 95310 Saint Ouen l’Aumône France	Tel: +33 (1) 30 37 17 31 E-mail: info@irett.net E-mail: blinlery@wanadoo.fr IRETT Website

The Art of Sexual Connection is your next step after the three day Adventure In Intimacy workshop.  This advanced workshop is open to couples who have attended either our Adventure in Intimacy or the Getting The Love You Want workshop, or Imago Therapists and their partners.

CONTACT FOR WORKSHOPS IN ISRAEL

Tali Schiffer
Israel Assn. for Marital & Family Therapy
12 Hayezira
Ranana, 43663 Israel

Tel: (09) 746-7064
Fax: (09) 746-7065
E-mail: venezia@netvision.net.il
Website: http://www.mishpaha.org.il/

The Adventure in Intimacy workshop is based on 7 principles and 7 rituals (essential skills), that will allow you and your partner to reboot your relationship, reconnect with each other more deeply than you have ever thought possible, and rediscover the joy of being together.

CONTACT FOR WORKSHOPS IN ISRAEL

Tali Schiffer
Israel Assn. for Marital & Family Therapy
12 Hayezira
Ranana, 43663 Israel

Tel: (09) 746-7064
Fax: (09) 746-7065
E-mail: venezia@netvision.net.il
Website: http://www.mishpaha.org.il/

The Adventure in Intimacy workshop is based on 7 principles and 7 rituals (essential skills), that will allow you and your partner to reboot your relationship, reconnect with each other more deeply than you have ever thought possible, and rediscover the joy of being together.

Austria Contact Information
Schleifer & Associates, Europe Claudia Fellner Markgraf Rüdigerstr. 13/13 A-1150 Wien	Tel/Fax +43 1 957 9357 E-mail: hedyyumi@hedyyumi.at Austrian Website

 

The Art of Sexual Connection is your next step after the three day Adventure In Intimacy workshop.  This advanced workshop is open to couples who have attended either our Adventure in Intimacy or the Getting The Love You Want workshop, or Imago Therapists and their partners.

Austria Contact Information
Schleifer & Associates, Europe Claudia Fellner Markgraf Rüdigerstr. 13/13 A-1150 Wien	Tel/Fax +43 1 957 9357 E-mail: hedyyumi@hedyyumi.at Austrian Website

 

The Art of Sexual Connection is your next step after the three day Adventure In Intimacy workshop.  This advanced workshop is open to couples who have attended either our Adventure in Intimacy or the Getting The Love You Want workshop, or Imago Therapists and their partners.

This workshop is Full. To be notified if an opening becomes available, or when the next workshop is scheduled, please use the button below

We have a group rate of $99 per night at the hotel until October 7, so make your reservation soon. We STRONGLY recommend staying at the hotel to get the full value of the workshop…even if you live locally.  Couples often report they wish they had stayed at the hotel to experience the weekend retreat atmosphere

This Wonder of Connection day is appropriate for growth-oriented individuals and couples who want to live life to the fullest, as well as professional therapists and counselors.

Registration is $95/person before July 19; $120 after July 19

Print this form if you prefer to register by mail or fax

 

The Adventure in Intimacy workshop is based on 7 principles and 7 rituals (essential skills), that will allow you and your partner to reboot your relationship, reconnect with each other more deeply than you have ever thought possible, and rediscover the joy of being together.

Registration is $895/couple

Read more »

The Adventure in Intimacy workshop is based on 7 principles and 7 rituals (essential skills), that will allow you and your partner to reboot your relationship, reconnect with each other more deeply than you have ever thought possible, and rediscover the joy of being together.

Registration is $895/couple

Read more »

Based on Imago Relationship Theory, Buber’s relational philosophy, Appreciative Inquiry and other sources

Registration is $895/couple

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Connecting the World One Couple at a Time

Winner “Best Documentary” at the 2009 LA Femme Film Festival in Hollywood, California, this new documentary about Hedy and Yumi Schleifer, is produced by two-time Emmy award-winning director Robyn Symon, who also directed “Transformation: The Life & Legacy of Werner Erhard.” Executive Producers Anne Dobbie & Dennis Ewasiuk, a husband and wife team who came to an Adventure In Intimacy workshop for couples, decided to capture Hedy and Yumi’s story by producing this film.

WATCH THE TRAILER FOR THE FILM BELOW

This is the story of Hedy and Yumi Schleifer, recognized amongst their peers as one of the world’s most dynamic and inspiring relationship building teams.

Fueled by their own emotional scars from the Holocaust and their power struggles during their four decades of marriage, Hedy and Yumi teach a skill set for couples that leads to passionate, rewarding, and lasting relationships. They now travel the globe promoting the “power of connection” among couples and nations.

Follow Hedy and Yumi into their Adventure in Intimacy workshops in Vancouver, Vienna and Israel where you will witness the transformation of couples as they are “Crossing the Bridge” to each other, an intimate ritual designed to eliminate the emotional pollution that exists in the “sacred space” of our relationships.

Receive this DVD for $24.95, plus Shipping & Handling

Documentary Special Package ($215 value): “Hedy & Yumi: Crossing the Bridge” film on DVD “Crossing the Bridge” Audio Program with Hedy (4-CDs) “Miracle of Connection” Audio Program with Hedy (3-CDs) “The 10 Steps to Crossing the Bridge” document. 2 Bookmarks $100 Gift Certificate to a 2010 Adventure In Intimacy workshop for couples Receive this DVD for $74.95, plus Shipping & Handling If you have any difficulty watching the trailer below, try this direct link to youtube

Hedy & Yumi: Crossing the Bridge
Executive Producers: Anne Dobbie & Dennis Ewasiuk
Produced and Directed by: Robyn Symon
Director of Photography: Wes Malkin
Music by: George Blondheim

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: ASHEVILLE, N.C. (May 24, 2010) Hedy & Yumi Schleifer have traveled the world with their powerful and captivating workshops, helping thousands of couples in over twenty countries transform their relationships from ordinary to extraordinary. Hedy & Yumi’s workshops teach relationship enhancing skills that inspire and empower people to embrace their life, work and relationships with joy and passion.

This August the couple will host three separate workshops at the Renaissance Hotel in Asheville. A 2-day clinical CEU training for marriage/family therapists, clinical counselors and social workers; a 3-day couple’s workshop and a 1-day workshop for anyone interested in improving their relationship building and conflict resolution skills. The one-day event will showcase the award winning documentary film “Hedy and Yumi: Crossing the Bridge”, a moving look at the couple’s passionate journey as they travel the world teaching compassion and understanding.

Refugees from the Holocaust, the husband and wife team share a common goal “to heal the world, one relationship at a time,” says Hedy, a Psychotherapist and Certified Imago trainer with 35 years experience.  Hedy believes that world peace begins with the transformation of the human family, and can best be achieved by creating stronger, more committed partnerships. Among the programs they offer are couples workshops and training programs for relationship therapists, coaches, and organizations. The workshop teachings are based on a unique blend of psychoanalytic and psychodynamic therapy, Imago Relationship Therapy, the relational philosophy of Martin Buber, Appreciative Inquiry, and the positive psychological approach of Re-evaluation Counseling.

EVENT SCHEDULE:

“The Wonder of Connection” – One day relationship building workshop; enhance personal or business relationships.

When:            Sunday, August 1, 2010, 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Where:          Asheville Renaissance Hotel, 31 Woodfin St., Asheville, NC 28801

Cost:               $95 per person by July 19^th; $120/pp after July 19^th

 

“Adventure in Intimacy” – 3 Day Workshop of rediscovery and transformation for couples.

When:             Friday – Sunday, August 6-8, 2010, 8:30 a.m. – 7:30 p.m. daily

Where:           Asheville Renaissance Hotel, 31 Woodfin St., Asheville, NC 28801

Cost:               $895 per couple; $695 per couple for previous graduates

($200 deposit required to register. Tuition includes workbooks, supplies, morning & afternoon snack.)

 

“The Art of Relational  Couples Therapy” –  2-day training for therapists and counselors (CEUs available).

When:            Saturday & Sunday, August 14-15, 2010, 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Where:          Asheville Renaissance Hotel, 31 Woodfin St., Asheville, NC 28801

Cost:               $495 per person

 

For more information or to register for any of these events visit: www.HedyYumi.com. To register by phone call 305-604-0010 or email Geoffrey@HedyYumi.org. For a full press kit or to schedule interviews, please contact Jennifer@reddogdigital.com or call 828-505-2773.

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Hedy Schleifer is an internationally recognized psychotherapist, trainer, relationship coach, motivational speaker and certified Imago Therapist. Hedy and her husband Yumi, an engineer and trained Imago educator, have been married for over 40 years. Together, Hedy & Yumi pioneered the international development of Imago Relationship Theory based workshops throughout Europe, Israel and Africa. Hedy also offers training programs for therapists and relationship specialists. 

2-day training for relaionship therapists

Click here for more information
If you prefer to register by mail or fax please print this form

Registration is $495/person

You may register with only a $200 Deposit

Print this form if you are in need of a partial scholarship

for more information, in the UK contact:
Noa Rockman, MA, CIRT
nrockman@gmail.com
Tel: +44 (0)20 8202 8602

We offer a reduced conference rate for delegates wishing to stay at the hotel. A Single-bedded room is £66.00 per room, per night including VAT and full English Breakfast, and a Double- or Twin-bedded room costs £86.00. When making a reservation with the hotel directly, mention you are attending this training and you will receive thise rate.

Click here for hotel website and room reservations

Hedy and Yumi offer several partial scholarships for each workshop. To be considered, please fill out the scholarship application and return within 30 days of the workshop you would like to attend.

There is a $100 cancellation fee, credited towards a future workshop.

If, when you cancel, you are able to reschedule for the next workshop dates, we will simply move your registration into the next workshop.

If you are not able to reschedule for a future workshop, we will refund whatever you have paid minus the cancellation fee. If you register for a workshop in the future, you would have a $100 credit which we would apply towards the balance of your future registration.

The Adventure in Intimacy workshop is $895 per couple, and includes two Adventure in Intimacy manuals, continental breakfast and an afternoon snack each day. Hotel and other meals are not included.

If you have already attended the Adventure In Intimacy workshop, a Getting the Love you Want workshop, or if you are an Imago therapist, you can attend for only $695 per couple.

You can register with a $200 deposit payable by credit card, cash or check. The balance is due two weeks before the workshop begins.

The Adventure in Intimacy workshop explores “Seven Principles and Seven Rituals.”

The format includes short lectures, live demonstrations, guided imageries, and experiential practice with your partner.

While individual couples are working together, therapist assistants are available to answer any questions and assist you.  You are not required to say anything about your relationship while in the group.

Hedy and Yumi present the workshop in many countries including Canada, Israel, Austria, France, Ireland and the United Kingdom.

In Florida, the workshop is held at a hotel in Miami.  We also offer discounted group rates for staying at the hotel.  For complete hotel information, please refer to the workshop schedule page.

There is a continental breakfast at 7:45am, and the workshop begins promptly at 8:30am each day during the three-day session. Workshops end at about 7:30 pm. There are several short breaks throughout the day and 90 minute break for lunch each day. Please note that in most cases, the workshop begins on Friday morning at 8:30am.

Yes, many couples attend our workshop several times. The Adventure in Intimacy workshop continues to improve and develop, and thus is never quite the same. Couples who review (attend again) the workshop come back at a different place in their relationship, so that they hear new things and receive a broader understanding of what they heard previously.

In addition, couples who return receive a $200 scholarship.

Couples come to our workshops at all different stages of a relationship: some are at the beginning of their relationship; some are engaged to be married, some are just married; some have been together for many years; some are considering a divorce, and some are already separated; some are longing for a miracle; and some want to take an already good and stable relationship to a deeper level.

By the end of the workshop, both you and your partner will have a clear and real sense of what’s going on in the world of the other. You will have learned the language of connection. With a clear picture of your partner’s world and the relational space you co-create together, you can then move forward, and decide intentionally what “forward” means to each of you.

Many couples who attend the Adventure in Intimacy workshop come with one person who is very interested and the other very much less so. That is completely normal. Quite often, the dragged-along partner becomes even more enthusiastic and excited about what he or she is learning.

Yes. Hedy and Yumi ARE the workshop presenters of the Adventure in Intimacy workshops. They present the entire workshop. No substitutions. They are always present.

At the workshop, couples do their individual work privately rather than in the group setting. Because of the special atmosphere of safety and confidentiality that is created, people have found that knowing another couple is not an issue.

In fact, some couples have reported that being in the same workshop with a couple they know is quite beneficial, because they continued to support each other after the workshop. That is why we encourage couples to attend with friends and family, and offer a $50 scholarship to couples who bring a “buddy couple’ to the workshop. Call us at 305-604-0010 to register with a buddy couple.

We understand that most people dislike public speaking. At no time are you required to speak in front of the group, and your privacy is always respected.

YES. Hedy and Yumi bring their couples workshop and training programs to locations and organizations throughout the world, in English, French, German and Hebrew. If you are interested in organizing the workshop for your organization or geographical area, please contact us at 305-604-0010 or email us to discuss your event in detail.

Yes. We welcome all couples, and many gay and lesbian couples do attend our workshops and private sessions.  Hedy and Yumi’s teachings are universal for everyone because the focus is entirely on the relationship, not on a couple’s religion, race or sexual orientation.

Some health insurance policies with mental health benefits will reimburse couples for the Connection Quest full day intensives. Check your policy to see if you are covered. The Adventure in Intimacy couples workshop is not covered by insurance.

At the completion of your Connection Quest intensive session, Hedy will send you a report, which will include assignments to help you keep what you have learned alive. She might also suggest a schedule of phone sessions, as well as a one-day follow-up Connection Quest session.

Certainly. You can attend with a family member (father, mother, daughter, son, sibling, etc.) or even attend with a very close friend. What you learn will easily be applied to all relationships: family, friends, and prepare you for your next romantic relationship. If you do currently have a spouse or partner, you should attend the workshop with that person.

We provide a one-day and a two-day intensive session for couples called Connection Quest. Hedy’s experience has shown that this format is very transformational and more effective for the couple. Your Connection Quest can be in your native language of English, French, Hebrew, German, Spanish or Yiddish.

For more information on this opportunity, please click on Private Sessions for Couples or call 305-604-0010 for available dates.

If you are interested in seeing a therapist on a weekly basis, we are happy to refer you to a marriage and family therapist in your local area.

Hedy see couples for one-day and two-day private sessions called Connection Quest. Your intensive session can be in your native language of English, French, Hebrew, German, Spanish or Yiddish.

Hedy also leads a couples workshop called Adventure in Intimacy with her husband Yumi. Hedy and Yumi conduct the workshop in many countries in the English, French, Hebrew and German languages.

Attending an Adventure in Intimacy or a Connection Quest intensive session is the equivalent of over 30 hours of counseling.

Test

Based on Imago Relationship Theory, Buber’s relational philosophy, Appreciative Inquiry and other sources

Registration is $895/couple

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By Hedy Schleifer

Imago Relationship Therapy (IRT), developed by Harville Hendrix, Ph.D. of the Institute for Relationship Therapy in New York, is a paradigm shift in the understanding of marriage and marital therapy. IRT is a short term therapy that combines insight and practical skills. Couples learn to become safe and intentional, to recognize and repair the wounds of the past, and to restructure frustration and ‘incompatibility’ as opportunities to reclaim their whole self.

Some of IRT’s basic assumptions are the following:

Our original state is one of wholeness, joy, connection, curiosity, spontaneity, and passion.

Over/under-parenting and the process of socialization, creates wounding at various stages of childhood development as essential developmental impulses are blocked. The child unconsciously determines the impulse, rather than the parent, to be ‘unacceptable’ and creates patterned behavior to adapt to the wounding. This is our ‘character structure.’

Partner selection is the result of the unconscious desire to complete or correct what was unfinished in childhood. We select a partner who carries both the positive and negative characteristics of our caretakers (the ‘Imago’), and who was wounded in the same area, but adapted in a complementary way.

The adaptation patterns of one partner triggers the wound and survival pattern of the other, creating a cycle of reactivity. Pattern relates to pattern, rather than person relating to person.

Developmentally specific nurturing of each partner helps heal the childhood wound. And paradoxically, our partner will need the very thing that will stretch us out of our own pattern and help us reclaim aspects of our self.

The more primitive part of the brain stores emotion and memory related to perceived threats to survival. It is atemporal and ignores our rational explanations about its fear. While insight is important, consistent corrective experience is need to change survival patterns.

This therapy helps couples access and integrate those unconscious developmental needs triggered in relational conflict, and become increasingly conscious and intentional in their own behavior in order to create safety for their partner. Frustration and hurt become pathways to create a ‘conscious relationship’ that is characterized by real love, intimacy, passion, connection, joy and other inherent qualities of our original self.

Healing in Therapy Related to Quality of Relationship

Research has consistently shown that the effectiveness of therapy is more closely related to the relational qualities between therapist and client, particularly affective and cognitive empathy, than to any particular technique. We take in and contain the experience and feelings of the other, and at the same time, act as a differentiated, yet connected self. Cognitive and affective empathy validates a part of the person’s self that has long ago been invalidated, rejected, or abandoned by childhood caretakers, and in the resulting pain, by the self. It is kept unconscious because it is locked in self hatred. However, through continued empathic holding and communication, a person can stay for a period in a previously inaccessible area with the help of the other. As the person is ‘held’ empathetically, s/he gains access to and can begin to incorporate the ‘intolerable’ part of the self, discovering within it the ‘potential’ self that has not yet been realized. Traditionally, the therapeutic relationship has been the primary experience of this kind of empathy and safety. IRT empowers couples to learn and use these skills to create safety and healing in their own relationship, and to foster the process of differentiation while remaining deeply connected.

Basic Tool is Couple’s Dialogue

The basic tool of Imago Relationship Therapy is a specific form of couple’s dialogue that teaches couples to contain their partner, to mirror precisely, to validate (cognitive empathy) the other’s experience, and to empathize affectively. Through various processes based on that structure, couples can access childhood wounding and hold the seemingly ‘intolerable’ aspects of the partner so that s/he can begin to reclaim the imprisoned ‘potential’ self .

Re-Imaging the Partner

Just as importantly, couples use their knowledge of the childhood wounds to both empower them to become increasingly intentional in the relationship and to discover very specific ways to nurture and reverse the developmental arrest. The image of the partner is transformed from “someone who won’t give me what I want or need, etc.” to “a person who was wounded, and who can recover their inherent self as I, the partner, create the necessary safety. ” The partner can then provide the corrective experience that is needed for healing, and in doing that, stretch out of his/her own character structure. The attitude toward the partner shifts from criticism and blame to compassion, hope, and a commitment to assist the partner in healing, and to reclaim one’s fullest self. In this way, emotional safety is created and deepened. Far from being just another communication tool, the skills provide a structure for safe, effective, healing and lasting change. In a revolutionary way, IRT shifts the power of the healing relationship traditionally reserved for the therapist/client relationship into the hands of the couple.

Copyright 1996, Hedy Schleifer, MA, LMHC. Miami, Florida Copies of this article or parts thereof may be reproduced for personal use but must contain copyright information. Reproduction for financial gain is prohibited.

By Tali Rosen

If you’ve felt like you’ve hit a dead-end in your marriage. . . If you’ve asked yourself whether you have really chosen the right partner . . . If you’ve dreamed about love and happiness in marriage and instead you’ve succumbed to ‘reality’ . . . then the next pages present a new angle at looking at your relationship. They are based on a method of treating couples that is proving successful for many.

The theory behind the method says that each of us finds a partner who requires that we reveal and re-claim our whole self. That partner becomes the healer of past pains. Couples in which one partner is a mental health professional have participated in this workshop in Israel and told me about their experiences. Getting the Love You Want is not only the name of a book. And in order to find love, it is not only enough to read it, but it is definitely a beginning.

Harville Hendrix, Ph.D., author of Getting the Love You Want and Keeping the Love You Find, maintains that everyone can create a healing, loving relationship, often without ongoing therapy. The refreshing discovery is that his method is not just an interesting theory. It is a practical system with skills to practice and worksheets to assist you. It is possible to try to do the exercises in the books. But it is easier and more effective to learn the method within the framework of a workshop. The workshop is not lectures, not therapy, not group work, and not a cult! The workshop is a time and place in which you work, with the assumption that through working, you will move forward as an individual and as a couple. Hedy and Yumi Schleifer, she a psychotherapist and he an aerospace engineer and businessman, conduct workshops using Hendrix’ method. The Schleifer’s arrived in Israel bringing the Hendrix ‘toolbox’ with the intention of teaching us how to use it.

The Mission of Marriage and Romantic Attraction

The basic assumption of this method says that marriage not only has a goal, but it has a mission. The mission is to help each other to heal the childhood ‘wounds’ that absolutely everyone carries within. Childhood wounds not only include obvious hurts, but all of our childhood needs that were not filled. Each of us has wounds. You do not have to have been abused or neglected to be wounded. Even a happy childhood carries wounding. “Children,” said Freud, “are creatures that are never satiated, and there is no parent in the world who can react perfectly to the changing needs of the children.”

Dr. Hendrix maintains not only that the origin of our frustrations as adults is actually tied to unfulfilled needs or other hurts in our childhood, but that choosing our partner is a consequence of our unconscious desire to heal or repair those wounds. “Our unconscious seeks the person who, on the surface, looks the least capable of giving us what we need most, primarily because that person is very much like our parents or other childhood caretakers,” explains Hedy Schleifer.

Yumi gives an example: “My father was never home because of his business. My mother was a nervous woman and I had a very intelligent aunt who treated me as if I were her student. When I was looking for a partner, I had, of course, a list of what I wanted. She should be beautiful and smart and many other things, but an important part that actually determined my ultimate choice was my unconscious that was looking for someone who resembled my childhood caretakers. My unconscious looked for someone who would not be at home all the time and who would want to be my teacher. This is what I knew from the past. I knew how to cope with someone like that, and from exactly that kind of person, I wanted what I did not get as a child. I wanted the love from somebody who was away all the time, and that was one thing that was so difficult for me in our relationship. I still wanted from my parents what they (and then my partner) were not able to give me.”

The ‘Old Brain’

Yumi, of course, was not conscious of this process while he was courting Hedy. Dr. Hendrix says that none of us are aware of that process because it comes out of our ‘old brain’, our unconscious. To differentiate, what we call the ‘new brain’ includes the part of our brain that is conscious, that makes decisions, that thinks, that organizes information, and creates ideas. The old brain guards our existence and monitors our environment, inside and out, in order to insure our survival. It recognizes only two conditions, “danger” and “safety.” It is like a sensitive radar system that signals the alert. It’s goal is survival and it will not take unnecessary chances. Like in war, an airplane that has been identified as a dangerous enemy will be attacked. An airplane that is determined to be safe, and identified as an ally, will be granted permission to enter our air space.

 

by Lisa Kramer, 2008
Living With Intention

In May 2003, my husband Eric and I participated in a weekend couples’ workshop called Cherishment, led by an extraordinary duo, Hedy and Yumi Schleifer.  Hedy is a gifted couples’ therapist, and she and her husband, Yumi, lead workshops for singles and couples around the world based in part on the work of Dr. Harville Hendrix, the creator of Imago Relationship Therapy.

According to the Schleifers, Cherishment is defined as “the warm, tender, affectionate, indulgent, adoring love that babies expect before they can speak of it, and that we all desire our whole life long.  Cherishment is fundamentally about safety.  It is telepathic, paralinguistic and does not need the medium of language.  It is communicated directly heart to heart.”

As the name Cherishment suggests, the focus of the weekend was on appreciation—for each other and for the relationship that each couple had co-created.  Eric and I had decided to participate in the workshop to shift our attention from what wasn’t working in our relationship to what was.  We could not have picked a better environment to achieve that goal! To set the stage for the weekend, Hedy asked the group to brainstorm what needed to be placed ‘on the shelf’ so that each person could be fully present for the workshop.  The list included anger, fear, disappointment, the past, the future.  We then did a similar exercise, brainstorming everything that would be included in the workshop such as risk-taking, compassion, appreciation, and vulnerability.  We were now ready for the first experiential exercise.

Hedy began by explaining that cherishment is linked to the limbic brain, the seat of loving emotion.  The limbic connection established between parent and child sets the pattern for loving connections throughout one’s life.  Because the limbic connection is paralinguistic, for each exercise we were instructed to sit face-to-face with our partners, gazing into each other’s eyes.  The purpose of maintaining eye contact throughout the exercises was to allow each couple to experience a limbic connection with their partners, one that would create new patterns to replace the imprinted ones from our past that no longer served us.

While it sounded great in theory, the intimacy of gazing into my partner’s eyes for an extended period of time felt very uncomfortable for me. With Hedy’s loving coaching, Eric and I agreed to set our ‘stuff’ aside and to be open to what the workshop had to offer.  By focusing our attention from what wasn’t working to what we appreciated about each other, an amazing shift occurred.  We opened our hearts to the other with the lovingkindness of a Buddha.  As we engaged in each exercise, peering deeply into each other’s eyes from a place of lovingkindness, new images began to form in our limbic brains to replace the old, less-than-optimal ones.  By the workshop’s end, we had renewed optimism and commitment to our marriage.

 

About the Author: Lisa Kramer, MSW, PCC, president of LIVING WITH INTENTION LLC, specializes in relationship coaching, coach training, and mentor-coaching.  Lisa believes that the greatest opportunity for full engagement in life is in relationship with another human being. She coaches individuals and couples to intentionally create the relationships they desire at work, in love and in life! Lisa is a Certified Professional Coach (PCC) and a graduate of the Coaches Training Institute.

Lisa is the author of Loving with Intention: A Guide for Relationship Coaching.  For more information, visit Lisa on the web at www.livingwithintention.com.

By Shakhar Pelled

“Our identity” writes Taylor “is partly shaped by recognition or its absence, often by the misrecognition of others, and so a person or group of people can suffer real damage, real distortion, if the people or society around them mirror back to them a confining or demeaning or contemptible picture of themselves. Nonrecognition or misrecognition can inflict harm, can be a form of oppression, imprisoning someone in a false, distorted and reduced mode of being”. (Taylor, C. (1992). Multiculturalism and ‘The Politics of Recognition”. Princeton University Press, p. 25).

When we walked into the big room with its twenty six couples, all we could see were the identity tags: the funny hat, the woven Yarmulke, the athletic biceps, the golden slippers, the bushy brows, the wide-eyed gaze, the frowning countenance, the bored indifference, or worse still, the secular, the religious, the just-so, the just so-so, and of course, the not so so’s….

Yet, once the preliminaries were over, i.e., a short synopsis provided by Yumi, Hedy came on with an extremely firm admonition to put it all away, put everything away, in order to be there, just be… The first couple takes the plunge, and Hedy is there to coach them through the straits of this new mode of conversation. Complex analyses jostle our crania from the inside, trying to make sense of the pattern of this relationship. But Hedy would have none of it, no psychologizing on this work-shop. She forces us all to frame our feedback in terms of energy. Deprived of our heavy intellectual armaments we are forced to channel insight into energy, and the entire audience is suddenly involved, freely describing the energies of the couple, the push and pull, the tow and underdrift, the upswing and down surge ­ when content is removed, compassion is freely available.

Now that the audience is primed, that we have all had our first hands-on taste of the energetic fiber of a couple’s relationship, we are taken further into the theoretical complexities of the easily contaminated space between two persons. Yet Hedy allows no headwork, she insists on tangibility, on the reality of live images. No dry psycho-language for her, only living images taken from the couple. “Different languages are spoken in Itsik-Land and Yaffa-Land” she insists, using the particular couple before us as the point of departure. She teaches, teaches how to listen, to really listen, then mirror what we have heard.

This is truly beautiful. This poignant learning with a man and a woman in intense emotional conversation. There is no detachment now. Rapt attention on all faces. This is true learning. Hedy never lets up. She reflects everything, every word that is spoken. She teaches by example, telling everyone to tell it like they heard it, whatever it is, she reflects it, complements, insights, slights too. She contaminates nothing, she is translucent, the light goes through and is reflected back, and somehow, in the act of reflection, a person comes to understand himself, herself through their own words. Hedy lets no interaction go by. She is our mentor and she WILL illuminate us. How we all need illumination, how we all need to be educated.

A 15 minute break. We are fazed.

Then Hedy, full of regal energy, triumphant wisdom, stalks the circle again. Imperious she delivers assurance: “If you are unaware, if you let yourself be heedless, you will contaminate the sacred space… no malice is necessary, mere insensitivity or simple ignorance will suffice. “What are you thinking of when your are thinking of love?” Hedy fires away the options, friendship, estimation, equality, she laughs, yes, yes, passion too. Is that hard to hear? Are you hard of hearing… passion she says, her energy radiating over the audience in waves as she prowls the circle with her sensitive mike, her voice impersonating people, animals, beings in flight, in struggle, in freeze, in submission. Rapt, we are with her, the entire audience emoting with her, as she smoothly goes into old brain/new brain theory, pointing out the finer points of brain evolution theory in a way that has everybody feeling like upgraded reptiles.

Another break and the atmosphere changes as we are swept away into a primordial place where quiet musical strains paint the backdrop for a new kind of contemplation. In the uterinean semi-darkness of Hedy and Yumi’s hypnotic sounding voice, we are guided through meadows to encounters with different aspects of our personalities, embodied in father, mother, animal and wise-man. And having met our inner images, we are swept into another encounter as a husband quietly informs his wide-eyed wife: “I am your mother. How does it feel to be with me?” Pain wells up. An awful crimson flower. Tears stain my face. My throat shuts down. “Mother gave me away” says the girl/wife to her mother/husband, and Hedy is there, there, there, to coach, to give sustenance, to help them through the pain to a new birth. To the discovery that saying it helps. That crying out and having someone not cringe, helps. We desire our parents with such blinding passion that we can withstand all, all except their un-being. Be anything my mother, father, be what you will, but be. Do not go, do not leave, do not forsake. For the pain of separation is deeper than any. So she cries, she cries the girl/wife. “Mother, mother”, she calls “you could not hear my pain, you could not bear my desire for you, you could not see me cry, so you went away, away, away”. Her husband is breathing hard, a true Imago mate, his soul is wrenched by the agony, his spirit fluttering to get away, away, but Hedy is there, she teaches, she coaches. Reflect. Talk. You are not the mother. It is not you that she would swallow whole. It is a mother long gone. But if you just let yourself be that clean space, that quiet place of acceptance, if you would just let her tell it to you, you will heal. Hedy, Hedy, how can you be so brave. How can you look so much pain in the eye and continue to hope, to cherish, to give energy. Tell her, she tells the husband, tell this little girl: “I want to hug you because I love you, and you deserve a hug for having suffered so much”. And he hugs his little girl, and an old festering wound begins to heal.

Once again, Hedy has taught. Suddenly, we know that a man and a woman, two people, can do it. They have the power to heal the grief, the power to bridge the gulf of loneliness.

Yumi gives us homework. We dutifully write down our duties.

The night is short. Morning we are back. Expectant. Yumi is there. Fatherly pedantic. And Hedy with the bouncing energies of the healed and healing. A minor exercise in telling something nice deepens in a major confession as a brave, brash, bright, loudmouthed and witty man from last night’s “identities” suddenly cries out “No, no, no”. “I will not yield to this game”. “I reject this entire exercise”. Indeed, when expectations are high, an inevitable crash becomes expected, and rather than the fall, one prefers the rigid safely-known husk of non-feeling. But Hedy will not allow us to hide. She is firm. She will make room for his pain and he will be able to grow. On her haunches, she supports the wife, helping her receive the pain of her man, the hidden pain that took him away from her all the years, that made him secretive, that made him his own-man, not sharing, not caring, always moving, never staying. Now he is here and his poor Imago wife is swamped by his destructive energies. “You are angry” she reflects to him, “you are angry, angry, angry”. She is so afraid. And Hedy tells her quietly: “take your time”. “Look at him”, “gently, gently”. This is the core of the listening: The waiting. The contemplating. The not-jumping the gun. The not hastening to react. This is the root of it all. No vested interests. Just being. Just quiet attention. Acceptance. “I refuse” he shouts. “No.No.NO. NO!!!” he shouts. Tears are streaming from his eyes. My wife is crying too. Many eyes are bleary. But his wife is transfixed by his great REFUSAL. He is a combat fighter, an outstanding soldier raging against the night. She is struck dumb by his big bad NO. She does not reflect the anger and the fear. The fear of letting defenses go. Of disarming.

Where is Hedy? When will she leap to the rescue? He is out on a limb and his wife is too scared to give him the safe place he needs to land. She fails to reflect his fear, the child that is within him. She sees only the struggling, kicking man.

But Hedy is teaching us another lesson. The deep dark lesson of even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil… better still, more simply put: I will fear not. She teaches us not to fear pain, not to fear emotion, to let things run their course, to have patience. Slowly does it. Gently does it. The cavalry does not come to the rescue. For, she, this frightened woman, is this man’s mate. She has the powers inside her, and if she finds them, she will be made strong and whole herself. Hedy is healing them both. Not just the one. The one and the other. She lets them find their own away, and then, only then, does she help the wife make the switch and tells her: “Say to him: ‘you are very angry. And beneath the anger you are sad!” And she tell her. “Make room. Make space for him”. And I think to myself: “How will she contain him, this woman? How will she contain this strong, intelligent man, so full of pain. She must be made of stern stuff this woman. Indeed, she can’t take it. She is frozen. Unable to react.

Hedy pleads with her. “Listen to this history” she tells her, “listen. Open your heart and listen to his story”. Hedy’s voice breaks with emotion, she cries. She identifies with the strong man wounded from the inside. He is like her. She too is strong from the outside, and the pain is inside. She beseeches the poor woman who must now appease both Hedy and her husband. He is crying too. Hedy is listening to him like he would like his wife to listen to him. With compassion. So much compassion. He has no faith in his wife and he is angry at Hedy for giving him the illusion that he will be heard, that there is a place where the pain can be put to rest. And poor, poor, Leah, his wife, is crushed by these great emotions. She, his Imago, who was always so good at taking his departures, his leavings, his reticence, is now facing the storm of his pain.

But Hedy knows. Hedy knows. She realizes now that Yoram is ready, ready to open up, to let go, to live his pain and come to terms, she realizes that the problem is with Leah, and she is now with her. She teaches her to be generous. To love her man. To have compassion. Indeed, she is teaching Leah to grow. For Leah has chosen him so that she will never have to do such a thing ­ he never threatened her with his wild ways as he threatens her now when he needs her. This big strong man is never more intimidating than when in sudden need.

But Hedy is now teaching Leah to breathe. To reflect. It’s easy. Do nothing. Just say the words. What words? The words that are put into your mouth. Move yourself out of the way, and just let the words come and go. Don’t react, Don’t do nothing. Just reflect. “Make room”, Hedy tells her urgently, “Make space for him within yourself”. Slowly, slowly, Leah struggles. So brave. So brave. She says the words. She sees her man. And he, sensing the shift, sensing the sudden appearance of a SAFE place, brings out the very core of his agony, the fear for his very sanity, the fear to share his innermost, most excruciating memories. And Hedy is there with her, teaching her to take it in, to roll with the punches and go with the flow, teaching to listen, to hold out for her man. And she is learning, she is learning.

What has this man gone through? He hints at terror, at deepest darkness. How can one be such a big, brave hero of a man when one has gone through such experiences. The inhumane is always human, all too human. And when you trust nobody you have nothing to lose and there is bravery! But it is bravery with a price. And Hedy is allowing this man and woman to grow new hearts. The worst, she tells them, is that we could not be there when it happened. But we are here now. We are here.

The workshop flows on. Our external identities are melting. We have lost our most outspoken and manly man to personalization. We know him now and love him. We have lost his cool and aloof wife too, she is now an old friend, someone we know from within. We suspect now that we are all human, for we have seen who cried when we cried and who cried when our wife was in tears. Everybody has somebody. But here we are all everybody’s somebodies, we are all in this together, human, human.

Hedy has taken to the circle again. She walks, she pounces, she strides, she is a tigress out to claw away the veils that enshroud our hearts. My wife says Hedy has just the right jewelry for honesty. They are silver. They do not have the false glint of gold. They reflect. She wants everything exposed and in the light. Say YES she cries. Say YES to the children. To thought, to action, to emotion, to sensation, to LIFE. She is in constant touch with us, her gaze, her voice are everywhere, she is with us and we with her, and we are laughing, laughing our bellies into ache, laughing our heads off, laughing our sorrows away, melting our depressions, our stick-in-the mud ways. Il principio della streche, the Iker foon the Metikhe… Hedy is laughing us away into insight, the 10%-90% principle ­ who can ever be angry again, and then she goes completely Vaudeville with that incredible “perfect-fit” suit and we all realize that we are all haute-couture, for our “memories are woven” into our posture. What a posture.

Let us end, as we have began, with Taylor: “This crucial feature of human life is its fundamentally dialogical character. We become full human agents, capable of understanding ourselves, and hence of defining our identity, through our acquisition of rich human languages of expression….we learn these modes of expression through exchange with others…. We define our identity always in dialogue with, sometimes in struggle against, the things our significant others want to see in us. Even after we outgrow some of these others ­ our parents, for instance ­ and they disappear from our lives, the conversation with them continues within us as long we live”.

Hedy and Yumi have shown us how deep these matters go. How deep is your love? How deep is your love?

More than sixty people in that room, we came as strangers and departed brothers, sharing just one identity: people.

My experience of Hedy Schleifer as
an Instructor in my Clinical Imago Training

Adelheid Oesch

Towards the end of my training, Hedy quoted: “Every once in a while someone enters your life and leaves footprints in your soul”. To me, training with Hedy has this unforgettable impact and quality. She awakens and reveals hidden or dormant paths in her students, in the couples who train or do her workshops. A path that will remain a vivid experience, as well as an inner blue print, throughout my personal and professional life.

Hedy has the gift of great Teachers. That is, not only precise knowledge of her trade… as precise as the tools of an eye surgeon.., but also what makes of craft an art, the capacity to transmute matter into spirit, concept into living practice, into contagious inspiration. Laws of marriage becoming songs of love.

Hedy has so integrated every aspect of “Imago Relationship Therapy”: theory, applications, deeper meanings and spiritual implications, that with her, ways of teaching are ways of being One can feel no hard thinking, fears and sweaty preparations.., which are initially the lot of all teachers… the minute she stands amidst her group of students. There is lightness and laughter, wings at her hands, words, feet… So, very fast, you grow wings yourself!

I experienced her teaching as flowing wit instantaneous insight. Insight of my, and our Quest and questions, as students and practitioner’s, but also as human beings, in our personal struggles in relationship. Her level of knowledge, clarity of mind.., blended wit unfailing intuition, carried by her loving enthusiasm and commitment, have been for me a Unique Journey. These qualities of her teaching and personality all in one, have turned my Imago Training into a feasting, rather than an exerting effort. And these are no vain words, for I myself have a pretty long experience of life’s wonders and trials, teachers and trainings… being 63, mother of four, long time divorced, and now transformed into an experienced human growth facilitator, specialized in Voice Dialogue.

Hedy knows well, tat what we do not learn in flesh, bone and blood, in heart, spirit and body, doesn’t hold… cannot be remembered, nor taken, nor received, nor believed, by clients, students, or partners, in any lasting way…. will not be trustworthy in this so difficult art of arts called relationship. As an Instructor, she leads us to a high quality of understanding of what is at stake in relationship, using every bit of example through our interactions as a group. So this became truly for me an experience of remembering in the basic sense, of reassembling and reviving scattered fleshless bones. These bones of broken relationship and around them the flesh of a vibrant alive linkage, this glowing current that makes relationship sacred and blissful above all else.

I not only heard, brilliantly exposed, what I needed to learn of the Imago processes, in order to reach Certification as an Imago Clinical Member. I learned what only the inner fire can transmit… recognition of this same fire in my own heart. Hedy conveyed to me, and to us all I believe, in the measure of our commitment, the feel of our own deep humanity. A learning not only from her, but from everyone present, as well as from my own deeper self… this, I believe, are the ingredients of the great Teacher she is: revealing Inner Wisdom in every Apprentice. It is the art of shedding light.., of kindling the fire of that which yearns to be lived in everyone of us.

The reverse may also be true… a loving committed Student will bring forth the art of teaching in all and everyone he meets. And so these mutual gifts never get lost. They are fruitful and multiply… as the Holy Scripture orders and promises.

Training with Hedy and Yumi, for I cannot separate them in this Venture, was really couple work, in the spiritual… and in the incarnated everyday… sense of the word. The opportunity for deeper consciousness in relationship was constantly called forth by both during the course. Every happening was used in service of a here and now quality of relating, through all manners of exercises, in particular Couple Dialogues and Containment circles. I experienced time and time again, how 1-Iedy excels in leading us students, with tender and playful authority, through the process of mirroring and validating whatever comes up. And this as long as necessary to bring in full expression and understanding… so healing, with mirroring alone, the broken or damaged link of insight and love between two persons. What a relief to discover that disputing, being right… proving the other wrong… insisting in solving year long unsolvable problems by winning the battle.., proves unnecessary! The dissolving of it all by itself… when hearts link again through the process. What great savings in time, failures, sweat and pain!

This I learned and believed, because Hedy threw us, with professional skill and strictness, into the merciless waves of exercising Imago amongst us, and subsequently in our homes and Practices as therapists. But I also learned it, by witnessing in awe, how a couple formed by two persons so eminently diverse from each other as Hedy and Yumi, can not only survive, but become the living proof that… yes… Imago can and does work. This, last but not least, was constantly enriched by the so touching an respect inspiring relationship and collaboration between them. Therapist and Engineer.. Live teaching! They both never hesitated to go first. With deep honesty, risk taking and love, they have illustrated in the group how selfless mirroring flowing tenderness and tolerance are possible, even after decades of marriage…
They give a convincing example of the importance of a willingness to expose personal limits and do the work I The work it takes, for two people as different as can be… a 100% turtle minimizer, with a 100% hailstorm maximizer… a 100% man, with a 100% woman… to create, tend, and always clean anew, this sacred space in which they are a couple. A holy space of union, where neither is denying his own uniqueness. This has been to me a fascinating and hope inspiring model. It has also deeply touched me, to see how they supported and enhanced each other in every smallest aspect of relating and teaching, so creating this Credible and incredible School for relationship.

Training with Hedy Schleifer shows now to be a wonderful enrichment in my personal life and in my work. To me Hedy Schleifer is all I can wish for in a Teacher: knowledge, professional expertise, experience of life, and what is more rare. . . the generosity to share it… the flame to pass it on… the gift to ignite it in others.

With love and gratitude

Adelheid Oesch

Lausanne, Switzerland, July 28th 2003