Couples Therapy and
the Enneagram:
A Powerful Pairing
Led by Michelle Joy, MFT
An interactive and educational webinar introducing you to the Enneagram in couples therapy.
April 22, 9am-10:30am Pacific
This unique and powerful training combines the Developmental Model of Couples Therapy with the Enneagram to help couples transform their relationship in areas they didn’t think was possible.
Via teaching, handouts, and discussion, you will:
- Discover what the Enneagram is and what it isn’t
- Learn the strengths and challenges of each of the 9 types
- Recognize how the types present in therapy, and how to help people of each type
- Understand how each type tries to get their needs met within the relationship, and unwittingly creates the “communication problems” they are trying to avoid
- See ways to support each partner, based on recognizable types and behaviors, so couples can have the connection they want
Couples Therapy and the Enneagram: A Powerful Pairing
Registration comes with replay!
April 22, 9am-10:30am Pacific
The Couples Institute has invited Michelle Joy, MFT, for an exciting webinar on The Enneagram and Couples Therapy. Michelle teaches only two intros to the Enneagram per year, so we are lucky to have her for this exclusive event.
What is The Enneagram?
The Enneagram is a fascinating personality system that describes 9 different perceptions or ways of viewing the world. Everyone has a dominant type, and commonly and unknowingly responds to their “type’s” perception of the world, rather than to the world itself. A person’s Enneagram type significantly influences their relationships, career, and even self-esteem. Learning about the nature of the type can give clients choices and freedom where they thought they had none.
When you’re aware of your client’s type, you can take charge and manage the ongoing cycles that otherwise keep them stuck in painful ruts.
Using this method in conjunction with Developmental Model principles gives you a roadmap to your clients’ needs, breaks patterns, and solves communication issues.
Unfamiliar with The Enneagram?
No worries!
Michelle has taught the Enneagram at Facebook, schools, and agencies where no one has experience with the Enneagram. She has a succinct and easy teaching style and you’ll get it in no time.
And if you’re familiar or advanced in the Enneagram, you’ll discover how to apply a developmental framework to it to be even more effective at helping couples.
Meet Michelle
Michelle Joy, MFT, has been associated with The Couples Institute in Menlo Park, CA, since 2002.
She received one-on-one intensive training with relationship experts Dr. Ellyn Bader, Ph.D and Dr. Peter Pearson, Ph.D for nearly 15 years and she delivers state of the art, effective tools for couples thanks to that experience. Michelle is currently a therapist on staff at Couples Institute Counseling Services and serves on their Board of Directors.
A pioneer of combining the Developmental Model of Couples Therapy with the Enneagram, she is a chosen speaker at the International Enneagram conference, enlightening others on how to help couples using this fascinating system.
Michelle has been a local and national speaker for several professional associations, including PESI and CAMFT, on how to help more couples. She has also been an expert author on Marriage.com.
“Over the course of my 15 year career as a therapist, I’ve encountered lots of personality models; none of them come close to the Enneagram in terms of real-world applicability and usefulness. That is why it’s become a central part of my work – it helps get the results my clients expect.”
A New Way to Stop Old Patterns
Exploring the Enneagram types help you understand why couples keep repeating the same patterns over and over again, no matter how hard you try to get them unstuck. Using this framework helps clients grow and unite over their differences.
This well-researched system is often the missing key to understanding constantly recurring relationship issues. A huge lightbulb goes off for couples when introduced to this new way of better understanding themselves and their partner.
Learning the Enneagram can help your couples:
- Clarify their strengths
- Understand different communication styles
- Discover how to best support one another
- Explore potential conflicts of each type and how to navigate them
- Build compassion and understanding through appreciating differences
- Discover tools and insights to help partners grow into their best selves
The Enneagram is easy to understand and can be applied in any session, at any stage of therapy. Clients love to learn more about themselves, and they love to have a framework for understanding.
“Michelle’s Enneagram course provided me with a valuable tool in my work with couples and for my own relationship. You will be surprised how much you resonate with your type or how well a type describes your partner!”
Julia Pinsky
What You’ll Get
In this dynamic 90-minute webinar with handouts and Q&A, you’ll discover how to use the Enneagram to…
- Help each type manage their most common fears and issues
- Understand each type’s strengths and weaknesses and how each partner can utilize their strengths to succeed
- Recognize the strategy that each type uses to protect themselves, why it actually brings about the very fear they are trying to avoid
- Understand the heart of some of the most painful interactions clients keep repeating
- Help clients out of frustrating, self-imposed traps
You’ll get the following handouts:
- A summary of each type’s strengths, challenges, and common communication patterns for couples from a developmental perspective
- A description of what each type does when under stress, and a map for growth.
- A link to an online test that you and clients can use to discern their type
- Book recommendations and training opportunities if you’d like to go deeper
“This was an extremely helpful class for both professional and personal development. Michelle is a very knowledgeable leader; her understanding of the Enneagram, mixed with her experience as a couples therapist, made it easy to understand how to be helpful to each of the types.”
S.D.
Buy now to join live or get the replay
April 22, 9am-10:30am Pacific Time
FAQs
Yes, as long as you order by April 22, you will get a replay.
This webinar is perfect for people who are unfamiliar with the Enneagram. Michelle will give an overview of the 9 types so you’re up to speed right away. And you’ll get 4 helpful handouts:
- An excerpt from The Essential Enneagram, by David Daniels, a prominent Enneagram researcher
- The exact handout Michelle uses so clients can identify which type they are
- A link to an online test that you can use to discover your own type, or clients can use to discover theirs
- A book recommendation if you’d like to go deeper
No, this is a perfect opportunity to take your Enneagram knowledge deeper. You’ll come away understanding the motivations under your clients’ behavior, and be able to shortcut your interventions based on the Developmental Model approach to the Enneagram. You’ll learn how to help your clients grow or differentiate based on their types; i.e. are you helping your 5s develop empathy or speak up more? You’ll get to go deeper into a nuanced approach to couples therapy from one of the leading experts on combining the Enneagram with a proven couples therapy model.
Yes. It is designed to help clients develop an inner observer and help them make new choices outside of their habituated thinking. It is a powerful adjunct to other trainings and other models.
You’re right that the types are for individuals and their perceptions and interactions in the world. But in this webinar you will see the benefits of the Enneagram when combined with the Developmental Model of Couples Therapy. This system that is so intriguing for partners gives them new perceptions and language for deeper communication.
You might come across this in work with a therapist, but with this webinar you’ll go straight to the source. This webinar is perfect for you if you and your partner repeat unproductive patterns, have breakdowns in communication, and want tools to understand each other better. You’ll learn a fresh take on yourself and your partner and get an introduction to the tools needed to get unstuck in your relationship.
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