Couples often become caught in repetitive cycles of conflict, withdrawal, and misunderstanding despite their desire for closeness and connection. In this highly experiential workshop, you’ll learn practical, Hakomi-informed approaches for helping couples identify these patterns, access the underlying emotional wounds that sustain them, and create new experiences of safety, openness, and connection.
Working with couples requires more than listening to what partners say. Much of their communication occurs through subtle, nonverbal signals—tone of voice, facial expression, eye contact, posture, gesture, movement, and the quality of touch. Learning to track these somatic cues allows therapists to recognize the unconscious relational processes unfolding in the room and intervene with greater precision and effectiveness.
Mindfulness provides the foundation for this work. By helping partners slow down and stay present with their immediate experience, therapists can support couples in moving beyond automatic reactions and into deeper curiosity, vulnerability, and authentic dialogue. Experiential interventions enable clients to directly encounter the patterns that shape their relationship rather than simply talking about them, creating opportunities for lasting insight and meaningful change.
Throughout the workshop, participants will observe live demonstrations, engage in experiential exercises, and practice each intervention in small groups with coaching and feedback. Every major concept is paired with opportunities to apply the methods immediately, helping participants build both understanding and confidence.
Whether you are new to couples therapy or looking to deepen an established practice, this workshop offers practical assessment strategies, experiential interventions, and mindfulness-based tools that can be integrated into your clinical work right away.
By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
Rob Fisher, M.F.T. (License # MT 22886), is the author of Experiential Psychotherapy With Couples, A Guide for the Creative Pragmatist and of a number of book chapters and articles published internationally on couples therapy and the pyschodynamic use of mindfulness for publications such as the Psychotherapy Networker, The Therapist, The Journal Of Couples Therapy, The USA Body Psychotherapy Journal and others. He is the founder of Mindfulness Centered Couples Therapy.
An advocate of the use of mindfulness and present experience in psychotherapy, he has been an adjunct professor at JFK University. As the Co-Developer of the Mindfulness and Compassion in Psychotherapy Certificate Program at CIIS, he has brought together many of the leaders in the realms of mindfulness and psychotherapy in one of the only programs in the US that teaches, not just the skills of psychotherapy, but helps participants develop their internal state as well.
He is a speaker at conferences and workshops around the US such as CAMFT, USABP, The Psychotherapy Networker, The Couples Conference, and The Relationship Council where he presents as a peer, master or keynote speaker. Teaching internationally, he is a Hakomi Mindfulness Based Experiential Psychotherapy Senior Trainer on the California faculty and a director of Hakomi Institute of China.
He writes poetry, fiction and music from his old farmhouse in the Green Mountains of Vermont.
(ACEP #5476): Hakomi Institute has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider (ACEP No. 5476.) Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Hakomi Institute is solely responsible for all aspects of the program.
“The demonstrations and experiential exercises were the most helpful part of the workshop.”
— Licensed Professional Counselor
“Rob creates an easeful setting. He’s authentic, genuinely sees people, and clearly loves to connect. That creates a very special learning environment.”
— Licensed Professional Counselor
“I appreciated getting a felt, experiential sense of how to use Hakomi with couples.”
— Psychologist
