A CLINICAL WORKSHOP ON WORKING WITH SAFETY, CONNECTION, RUPTURE AND REPAIR
WITH KOBUS VAN DER MERWE

This post-conference two day workshop will be led by our illustrious colleague, Kobus van der Merwe from South Africa. Kobus has been working closely with Harville Hendrix and Maya Kollman to develop this exciting new workshop based on Harville’s latest thinking. Harville introduced this important new extension to Imago Relationship Theory at the Chicago Conference in October 2025.

The workshop translates the relational paradigm into clinical practice. If healing happens between people, what does the therapist actually do? How do clinicians recognise the state of the relational field, protect connection, work with rupture, and help restore safety and mutuality in real time?

Using concepts and practices grounded in Imago and accessible to clinicians from all modalities, this workshop focuses on moment-to-moment therapeutic work in the Space-Between. Participants will learn how to shift from working primarily with individual content to working with the quality of contact itself. The emphasis is practical: therapist stance, relational tracking, dialogical process, embodied presence, and concrete interventions that strengthen connection and support repair.

WORKSHOP THEME

• How to notice and track the state of the between
• How to work clinically with disconnection and rupture
• How to strengthen safety, mutuality, and contact
• How therapist presence and structure shape the field
• How to translate relational theory into practical method

WORKSHOP OUTCOMES

Participants will be able to:

• Identify markers of safety, disconnection, rupture, and repair in the relational field.
• Track the quality of contact between people in real time.
• Apply dialogical and relational interventions that strengthen the Space-Between.
• Use therapist presence, pacing, and structure to support connection.
• Work more deliberately with rupture and repair across modalities.

PACKAGE BOOKINGS:

1. Conference + Practising in the Space-Between book here.
2. Conference + Polyvagal Informed  Imago Relationship workshop, click here.
3. Conference +both the above workshops, click here.

CANCELLATION POLICY:

• No Cancellation fees until 1 August 2026
• 50% Cancellation fee from 1 August to 1 October 2026
• 100% Cancellation fee from 2 October 2026

INVESTMENT:

Please book as soon as possible to reserve your place.

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 GUESTS:

HOW TO PAY:

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