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Conscious Communication |
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understanding, turn conflict into connection, and enhance intimacy.
What Kinds of Courses Are Available?
How do I Register for a Class?
PAIRS Four Day
Couples Get-Aways
Couples Private Tutorials
Although enrolling in a class is the most economical way to learn the PAIRS relationship skills, if the class schedule does not meet your needs, Debra is available for private tutorials. You can learn and practice healthy, conscructive communication skills through a personalized, professionally guided program designed to meet your specific needs. Set your own pace and schedule.
PAIRS programs focus on Communication Skills, Conflict Resolution, Self-Awareness and Relationship Skills.
- PAIRS courses are instructional, skill-based practice sessions that encourage accelerated, practical learning
- Each class consists of instruction, demonstration, and practice sessions
- No one is required to participate in any activity in which they are not comfortable
- Coaching is always available and participation in exercises is voluntary
- There is no mandatory sharing of personal information with the group and no last names are requested
- Participants are not allowed to "take the floor" discussing personal issues at length. If necessary, an issue is discussed in private during a practice session
- If coupled, you must have your partner’s permission to share specific information when coaching or interaction with other participants is involved
You can register for an upcoming class
by making a deposit to hold your place. The deposit is deducted
from the tuition and is not an additional fee. Tuition and deposits
vary depending on when you register and whether you are registering
as a couple or an individual. Hawaii residents ask about kamaaina.
You must present a valid Hawaii driver's license.
PAIRS Passage to Intimacy (2-day)
Early Bird Tuition if deposit is received at least
30 days prior to class start date:
$525/couple or $275/individual
Regular Tuition if deposit is received less than 30 days
prior to class start date:
$550/couple or $285/individual
Deposit: $250/couple or $150/individual
PAIRS Relationship Roadmap (4-day)
Early Bird Tuition if deposit is received at least 30 days
prior to class start date:
$975/couple or $500/individual
Regular Tuition if deposit is received less than 30 days
prior to class start date:
$995/couple or $510/individual
Deposit: $450/couple or $250/individual
You can register by clicking here to make an online deposit. Or you can send a check to HeartPath, 1215 S. Kihei Rd. Ste 0-907, Maui, HI, 96753. A confirmation letter and directions to the class are sent upon receipt of deposit.
To find the deposit and tuition for any class not listed above, please click here to send an email and Debra will reply within 48 hours.
It's risk free: Your workshop satisfaction is guaranteed or you get a full refund.
Here is the fine print:
If I cancel the class (I have never done this, but just in case)
you will receive a full refund.
If you cancel 30 days or more prior to the start of the class
you will receive a refund minus a $50 processing fee OR
you can apply your payment to the next workshop and pay no processing
fee
If you cancel less than 30 days prior to class, sorry, no refunds
Your balance is due at the start of the class
If you complete the class and are not completely satisfied, your
full tuition will be cheerfully refunded.
PAIRS is for men or women of any age, race, ethnicity, spiritual, or sexual orientation who are single or at any stage of relationship.
PAIRS is beneficial for practitioners and counselors who wish to expand their toolboxes.
PAIRS is
training in interpersonal skills that sustain healthy relationships.
The program can help you to develop the necessary skills to:
- Sustain a loving and healthy relationship
- Improve an unsatisfying relationship
- Discover the causes of disappointment
- Avoid the mistakes made in previous relationships
- Enhance your ability to create a joyful, fulfilling future
with a partner
- Assist others in strengthening their relationships
PAIRS is for you if you are:
- Single
- Married
- Living Together
- Entering a New Relationship
- Engaged
- Dating
- Newlywed
- Remarrying
- Separated
- Divorced
- In the Helping
Professions
PAIRS teaches you how to sustain a happy relationship. The program consists of easy-to-use, yet powerful tools that deepen understanding, turn conflict into connection, and enhance intimacy.
* Learning Relationship Skills Prevents Infidelity
"The worst enemies in a relationship are the two people in it," says Howard Markman, also a co-director of the Center for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver and a professor in the psychology department. "We destroy our own love."
The biggest culprit is lack of communication. Everyone hears that, but what do you do about it? Expressing your wants and needs and, more important, listening to your partner, are learned skills. "You have to stay attached (through communication) through all the crud that goes on in life," says Gregg Gorman, a Centennial, Colo., psychotherapist who specializes in relationship building and rescue. "Most affairs are because people have detached," he says, not because of sex. (The Denver Post, April, 2004)
* Relationship Education is a Wise Investment
Bruce Kinzey, 43, of Hyattsville, Md., is among the many who say marriage ed can be life-changing. He has participated twice in a well-respected program called Practical Application of Intimate Relationship Skills (PAIRS), investing dozens of hours and hundreds of dollars. The first time followed a divorce. The second was in 2002 with his fiancée, now his wife. He considers both the time and money to be well spent. ''What are a few months compared to the rest of your life?'' he asks. As for the fee: ''What does it cost to get divorced?'' (USA Today, Feb. 5, 2004)
According to the US Dept. of Health and Human Services: "On average, men and women in healthy marriages are more likely to build wealth, have better health, experience emotional well-being and live longer. Even more importantly, Children who grow up in healthy married Families do better on a host of outcomes than those who grow up in unhealthy married households."
* Relationship Education is Not Therapy
As a psychologist, Dr. Wade Horn, assistant secretary of Health and Human Services for children and families, emphasizes that marriage ed is not marriage therapy, which often lasts longer and costs more. ''Marriage education is very skills-focused, with problem solving, negotiation, communication. Somebody who goes into marriage education is unlikely to talk about childhood traumas.'' He or she is more likely to have a workbook, homework and a series of sessions with instruction and practice, Horn says. "There's a lot of research that shows what separates healthy marriages from unhealthy ones is not the frequency of conflict but the way the couple manages conflict," Dr. Horn says. "The good news is we can teach conflict resolution skills." (USA Today, Feb. 5, 2004)
Lately, a
new breed of therapist and "marriage educator" is shaking
up the profession. These educators reject the passive, old-style
therapies that emphasize personal growth over shared commitment
and take a more aggressive, hands-around-the-neck approach to
saving marriages. "They feel therapists have been too quick
in calling an end to relationships and having people move on,"
says University of Chicago sociology professor Linda Waite. The
new breed also advocates premarital skill training and early
intervention in problems--learning the ropes before tying the
knot. "It's like a vaccination," says Waite, "instead
of having to do surgery when something goes wrong."
---
What if you could go to school instead of to a shrink? That's
the idea behind Marriage Education. "It's less expensive
and more effective than therapy," says Diane Sollee, 59,
who gave up her marriage-therapy career to create the Coalition
for Marriage, Family and Couples Education. "The therapy
model is 'I'll treat you, and, voila, your marriage will work.'
The education model is much more respectful. It assumes there's
nothing wrong with you--you're not sick. You just need better
information, and it assumes you can apply it to your situation.
It's also not a long-term process." (Time Magazine,
Jan. 19, 2004)
* Learning Relationship Skills is Proven to Enhance Success and Decrease Divorce:
"The marriage education strategy works. The Institute for Research and Evaluation reports that in the first 114 cities to create Community Marriage Policies, the divorce rate falls 17.5% over seven years. In fact, seven cities did slash their divorce rates in half including three in Texas: Austin, El Paso and Waxahachie plus Modesto, CA, Yuma, AZ, Salem, OR and Kansas City, KS. The 114 CMPs saved 31,000 marriages. Since there are now 183 Policies perhaps 50,000 divorces were avoided."
According to MarriageMovement.org: "Research suggests that marriage preparation programs increase relationship satisfaction, reduce negative interactions, and reduce divorce . . . Premarital education also appears to reduce the likelihood that married couples experience domestic violence. These kinds of premarital education programs (for example, PAIRS) are relatively inexpensive."
Diane Sollee, director of the Coalition for Marraige, Family and Couples Education, says that premarital programs work. "We have research showing that a couple who spends at least 12 hours in a premarital-education program decreases their chances of divorce five years later by 50 percent. The best programs," she says, "focus on marriage skills, like communication and conflict resolution."
About Debra Greene, Ph.D.
Debra has been studying and teaching communication all of her adult life. She has over 20 years of teaching experience in communication. This includes teaching in conventional institutions such as the University of Kansas and Ohio State University and more alternative schools such as Esalen Institute and the Graduate School for Holistic Studies at John F. Kennedy University.
In addition to teaching in academic institutions, Debra has presented her work at academic conferences and has facilitated over 70 workshops for various organizations. These include Esalen Institute, The American Institute of Stress (AIS), the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (ITP), and the International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine (ISSSEEM). She is on faculty at the Maui Academy of Healing Arts and at Maui Community College, where she teaches Communication and Kinesiology courses.
Debra is a licensed, certified PAIRS facilitator dedicated to living what she teaches. She first learned of the PAIRS program by completing the four month semester course. She was so inspired by the curriculum, tools and skills that she traveled to the PAIRS Foundation on the east coast and upon completing the training courses she became a certified PAIRS facilitator in 2000.
Debra is the owner and founder of MetaComm, which provides one-on-one coaching to key people, team coaching, and training specialized in communication. She has an undergraduate degree in Communication, a Master’s in Intercultural Communication (University of Kansas) and a dual Ph.D. (Ohio State University) in Communication and Somatic Studies (Body-Mind Integration).
As you can tell, Debra is passionate about communication! Still, despite all of her formal studies and teaching, it wasn’t until discovering the PAIRS program that she felt like she had arrived. This really is a tribute to PAIRS.
Debra is a member of the Maui Chamber of Commerce, The Maui Wedding Association, and she serves on the Board of Directors as Maui Chair of the Hawaii Wellness Tourism Association. She is also a certified Inner Leadership and Transformational Kinesiology (TK) Educator through Polaris International College. Debra teaches seminars, trainings, workshops, and facilitates groups, couple's, and individual Inner Clarity (IC) sessions on Maui, where she lives, and in California.
Debra is available to teach seminars worldwide. Click here to contact her.
Debra consistently receives superior evaluations (90+) by her workshop participants. Below are a sampling of testimonies from PAIRS course participants:
"Debra is animated, energetic, informed and highly able to facilitate. She is extremely well prepared and knowledgeable and yet is playful and open."
"We're about to celebrate our one-year wedding anniversary, after taking your workshop while engaged, and have used the tools we learned with you many times. I just wanted to say thank you for helping us establish our absolutely incredible marriage so firmly. The world needs more people doing the sort of work you do."
"Debra is totally knowledgeable, giving and sharing from the heart, from her own "live" in-the-moment experience. She is empathetic, encouraging, real, and includes humor to lighten things up—good pace."
"I got more out of the four days of PAIRS than a year of couples therapy as far as learning how to resolve conflict and how my relationship can continue to grow into intimacy. WELL worth the time and money!"
"Debra is very professional, knowledgeable, fun, light hearted and sincerely caring."
"PAIRS brings a sense of peace and harmony to the partners and the family. By using the tools, each family member feels heard, respected, and loved. Conflicts are resolved."
"Debra is a warm, funny, clear, sensitive, knowledgeable living example of PAIRS"
"This is relationships 101. Wouldn’t it have been great to have taken it in high school? It’s not too late."
"Debra is outstanding, warm, caring, direct, competent, and focused."
"This is what we've been looking for for 15 years."
"I appreciated Debra's openness in sharing her own experiences."
"The PAIRS program is a highly comprehensive, powerful system of resolution and maintenance in relationships. Even in emotionally charged situations there are effective tools for swift solution."
If you would
like to talk with past course participants about the workshops,
we would be happy to supply you with contact information.
Please contact us for course details. If you would like to host
a PAIRS course in your community, please contact
us.
Couples Get-Away Relationship in trouble? Come for a Couple's Get-Away and get things back on track!
Get-Aways range from a weekend, to one week, to 10 days.
A Couple's Get-Away consists of:
* A stay in Maui House, a beautiful, romantic one bedroom cottage on Maui Island (based on availability)
* A check-in process to assess your relationship needs
* A combination of private PAIRS sessions and/or Inner Clarity (IC) sessions, and "Homeplay" assignments
* Or visit during one of our scheduled Maui seminars (see calendar above)
* A balanced schedule of work and play designed for successful relating
Email us for more information about Couples Get-Aways.
To return to the Main Menu, please click here. For more information about Maui House vacation rental, please go to www.MauiHouse.net
Debra Greene, Ph.D.
808-874-6441