Our Bali Workshop is a definite go ahead for 7th-10th October, 2024. Please join us for a wonderful retreat and get closer to each other in beautiful East Bali.
Hold Me Tight – Conversations for Connection is typically a 2-day weekend workshop designed to help couples understand why relationships with our significant others can sometimes go so terribly wrong. In 2024, we’re excited to offer it over four half-days in Bali, giving you more time to absorb and process the course content in a stunning and nurturing environment.
This workshop helps you explore the foundations of your loving connection and teaches you how to rebuild it if it has been lost. It’s important to note that this is not group therapy—there’s no sharing of personal information. Instead, we present essential material on how couples can become trapped in negative interactions, inadvertently hurting each other. You’ll engage in carefully structured private conversations to help you apply these insights to your own relationship.
Our workshops are led by Director Janine Moran and Psychologist Melanie Sheehan, who bring their therapeutic expertise, humour, and warmth to each session.
“Such empathetic and understanding trainers, they made the theory clear and their guidance in the practice helped it to flow in a way I don’t think we could ever get just reading the book” (participant feedback)”
“I would like this program delivered in schools and parenting courses. This is truly a life changing program. The presenters however, created the environment of trust, warmth and experience to allow us to absorb the message.” (participant feedback)”
“Our relationship felt strengthened and we felt a deeper tenderness for each other afterwards.” (participant feedback)”
“Words cannot do justice to the quality of this weekend, simply exceptional.”
“Beyond amazing…all of it”
Click here to listen to audio feedback from previous participants:
What will be covered?
Click here to listen to Melanie and Janine discussing the workshop:
In the workshop, you’ll discover why articulate and capable people, who communicate well with others, often get stuck in negative cycles with their significant others. We explore the significance of the couple bond and how our instinctive self-protection can hinder vulnerability and connection.
We address sensitive areas that all of us have, which can be unintentionally triggered by our partners, and explore ways to repair these rocky moments. We also delve into healing attachment injuries—deep hurts from past regrettable incidents—and discuss sex and bonding.
Lastly, we focus on strategies to maintain connection and closeness, helping you rebuild the essential bonds of love and trust for a healthy relationship.
Our workshops offer insights into Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples, created by Dr. Sue Johnson, with a proven 75% success rate in improving and repairing relationships—higher than any other couples’ therapy. The workshop’s positive impact is evidence-based and demonstrated to benefit couples.
You’ll gain current, evidence-based knowledge about relationship dynamics and how our emotional wiring influences our patterns. You’ll view video footage of real couples navigating conversations to connect and understand each other. Then, you’ll have the chance to practice these conversations in a structured way, with support available as needed. You’ll also receive Dr. Sue Johnson’s book, Hold Me Tight, to help you stay on track.
“It’s distinction from traditional couples therapy, i.e. the cycle – the notion of pursuer and withdrawer, and the chunks of ‘practical’, the ‘safety’ of it for novices to any intervention of this sort, and the residual feeling that this has been a beautiful spring-board to some therapy now.”
“I found the content really helpful; it provided the valuable context I needed. Realising we’re not done and there are words and theories to help explain has been comforting.”
How will the workshop shift your understanding of relationship issues?
When you’re stuck in negative patterns with each other, sometimes you just need guidance to break free. Often, we blame our partner, seeing them as the problem, which leads to frustration with both them and the relationship. Our workshop will help you identify the negative loops and conversations that underpin this thinking.
The weekend focuses on uncovering these negative interaction cycles. While they may look and feel different for each couple, they generally share common underlying factors. Janine and Melanie will explain these factors using the latest insights from neuroscience.
You will work through seven healing conversations, offering a structured framework to address and resolve issues. You’ll have time to practice these conversations over the weekend, with Janine and Melanie available to assist if needed.
To make the content engaging and easy to understand, they incorporate clips from Hollywood movies and other therapists. These materials illustrate key points and provide insights into the underlying themes driving behaviours between you and your partner, with a focus on finding effective resolutions.
“We understand now that the pattern that a relationship gets caught in is common and can be explained and that there is a way forward to develop as a couple.”
“I’ve found a new understanding of how my partner ‘works’ and how I ‘work’. Also knowing tools to allow us to communicate and connect effectively.”
“Really enjoyed all the clips – the couples and the funny Hollywood ones – humour is so important sometimes to bring you both together with a laugh – and we laughed at ourselves all weekend but also learned an amazing amount of what has been getting in the way for us for a long time.”
Will it be ok for us to be in a group?
Our workshops are not group therapy—couples do not share any private information during the sessions. Instead, Janine and Melanie present relationship-specific material focusing on common issues. While the group interacts and finds the material familiar and relevant, the group setting makes the weekend more enjoyable and lighthearted.
“The group was very good, easy to talk to and share without getting too detailed or personal.”
“Felt so supported by the group energy without losing the safety of such personal work, everyone was so respectful of privacy and yet available to share in the process and challenges that were common to most couples in the group.”
“Common themes and patterns, reassuring that this is human stuff, not just our stuff.”
“It was reassuring to see so many different people, different walks of life, all with similar issues. Shared experiences, and great people and conversation.”
“Even though we spent the weekend with 6 other couples, the weekend remained very private. The course content was structured so you didn’t have to share any private information with other participants. This made everyone more relaxed and open to the experience.”
What will you take away from the workshop?
“Conscious understanding of the process (the loop) of an argument, and hence how to analyse and de-escalate it. Refresher of my triggers, and my partner’s, and the need to use this knowledge in the de-escalation process.”
“The sense that our relationship problems are not unusual but in fact understandable and ‘treatable’.”
“The importance of understanding the attachment model, the process/cycle, and the neurobiology rather than the content of the conflict or the disconnection.”
“We felt closer, with a greater understanding of our emotions and responses.”
“More positive and aware and more able to see my/our pattern, and that give me loads of encouragement for future work as well as compassion for myself and my partner. Yes, the retreat was normalising and inspirational.”
What can we expect from the 2024 Bali Workshop?
This year, our workshop will be held in Bali! Due to popular demand for an international Hold Me Tight, we’re thrilled to make it happen.
It will take place at the beautiful Alila Manggis, a Hyatt Hotel on the ocean in East Bali, from Monday, October 7th to Thursday, October 10th, daily from 9:30 AM to 1:00 PM. The workshop includes daily yoga, morning tea, and lunch.
Afternoons are free for you to enjoy time together, savoring the intimacy and new understanding of your relationship. Relax on a stunning daybed overlooking the ocean, lounge by the pool, or indulge in a couple’s massage by the sea in a bamboo hut with the gentle waves as your backdrop. For the adventurous, explore exciting expeditions in nearby East Bali. Click to learn more about Alila journeys.
These dates are chosen to accommodate as many couples as possible. Parents can either bring their children to Bali and arrange childcare from 9:30 AM to 1:00 PM each day or leave them with grandparents during the holidays. Couples without children should find it easier to travel outside of peak school holiday airfare dates.
This workshop is open to all couples, including mental health professionals and their partners.
The Annual Canberra Workshop (not available 2024)
The workshop venue is the East Hotel, (link to https://easthotel.com.au) an award-winning hotel in Canberra’s leafy inner south. Participants from out of town come and enjoy the best of contemporary Canberra: nearby cafe culture, outdoor and cultural attractions. The venue provides free bikes and Canberra’s electric scooters for hire can be found in abundance to take around the lake or anywhere on the bike paths that Canberra is famous for.
For Canberra participants it is highly recommended to have a staycation, spend a night or two at the hotel and immerse yourself in the experience. If that’s not possible, come for the days only, the workshop runs from 9 to 5.
The hotel has stunning food and beverage. The workshop price includes morning and afternoon tea and lunches on the beautiful terrace at Agostini’s restaurant. Overnight stays are not included in our price and are arranged by you with the hotel directly, (link to https://easthotel.com.au). Please make sure you have registered and have a place in the workshop before you book the hotel.
We have chosen a beautiful space where you will feel looked after and this is a really important part of you being able to deepen your connection with the content and each other.
On Saturday night 5-7 we provide canapés and drinks in Joe’s Bar for participants to unwind and connect. Participants say that this is a real highlight of the weekend.
The price of our workshop is approximately the same price as 5 counselling sessions, and we help you work on your relationship all weekend. For some couples, it is a gentle and less confronting introduction to working on their relationship issues, and by doing the work in a group, it can be fun as well.
“Great venue – great food – I really enjoyed the size of the group – large enough to get broader perspectives, but small enough to be intimate.”
“Even though we are from Canberra, we enjoyed having a staycation at a nice hotel, as part of doing the workshop. The food provided was excellent.”
“Professional (venue) – incredible service. So much choice, very elegant. It helped feel like it was something special, a ‘treat’ rather than an ordeal.”
“Food was amazing. Great service and so pleased we stayed overnight.”
“Even though we spent the weekend with other couples, the weekend remained very private. The course content was structured so you didn’t have to share any private information with other participants. This made everyone more relaxed and open to the experience. The venue was spacious and had so much room and break out areas where couples could sit and talk privately. Meals and break times spent with the group provided many great conversations and lots of fun and laughter. I especially enjoyed the Saturday evening drinks.”
“Felt like we had a wonderful break away and worked on our relationship. It was just what we wanted.”