Safe Conversations: Healing Relationships, Healing Communities

If you’ve read the bio on my website, you’ll know it’s a firmly held belief of mine that when we learn how to transform our intimate relationships with empathy and positive connection in couples’ counseling, that shift ripples out to our children and our community, and can therefore bring about healing in the broader culture. Yet unfortunately, only about 14 percent of the population goes to counseling, so the impact of therapy on our broader culture can only go so far. And lord knows, our culture could use some extra help right now.

As we embark on another Presidential election year in the U.S., it’s deeply disturbing to me to witness the lack of civility in political discourse, and the prevalence of online bullying and reactionary language when people disagree with one another. (At one point recently, I had to Google “snake emoji” to understand it was the latest form of cutting down a woman on social media.)

One of the reasons I’m proud to be a certified Imago Relationship Therapist is that it’s the only method of mainstream couples’ counseling that has embarked on what I see as a social justice mission: to bring the key communication skills outside the therapy clinic, into the broader communities, where it’s most needed.

In July 2010, Harville Hendrix, Ph.D., and his wife Helen LaKelly Hunt, Ph.D., co-founders of Imago Relationship Therapy, invited six therapists and their spouses for a weekend discussion about collaborating on a project to translate their therapy systems and processes into educational material that could be distributed to the public, through local community outreach. What began as a think-tank of distinguished relationship experts has grown into a dynamic group that has come together to catalyze a national healthy relationship movement—and to provide public access to the best science-based resources on building and sustaining healthy relationships.

The program, which takes the key concepts of Imago Therapy and translates it into an educational program called Safe Conversations, piloted in Dallas, TX in 2012, with a series of free community workshops, where childcare was provided. While couples were initially targeted with these workshops in the beginning, in subsequent years, the program has been adapted for workplace and school classroom outreach as well. In 2016, the Safe Conversations initiative received special recognition from Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, for its service to the city of Dallas.

Workshop participants have reported decreased anxiety and increased relational satisfaction. And a whopping 98% said the workshop was “inspiring and life-changing.”

Interested in learning more? Check out this video about the project:

Safe Conversations brings Imago Relationship Therapy from the clinic to the community.