The PAIRS Relationship Mastery Program 
                
               The full PAIRS Curriculum is divided into six main sections:  
               1) Communication and  Problem Solving; 2) Clarifying 
               Assumptions; 3) My History and Unique Self; 4) Emotional Re-
               education, Emotional Literacy and Bonding; 5) Pleasure--
               Sensuality and Sexuality; and 6) Contracting—Clarifying 
               Expectations. (The following summary has printed specific 
               PAIRS exercises and key concepts in bold.) 
                
                     1) Communication and Problem Solving 
                               
               PAIRS begins with a presentation of the Relationship 
               Roadmap, the basic PAIRS model of how relationships 
               succeed or become stuck and fail.  Couples learn of the 
               essential role of confiding in intimacy and then how to listen 
               and speak in ways that deepen their level of confiding.  They 
               are taught the Daily Temperature Reading, in which they are 
               expected to confide in one another each day sharing 
               Appreciations, New Information, Puzzles, Complaints with 
               Request for Change, and Wishes, Hope and Dreams.  
               Participants then learn and practice Virginia Satir's (1988) 
               Stress Styles of Communication and discover how the style 
               one uses can be a far greater problem than the actual issue 
               under discussion.  When stressed and communicating in stress 
               styles (Blaming, Placating, Computing, and Distracting), the 
               underlying problem goes unresolved.  
                
               Couples are then taught the Leveling Style of Communication 
               practiced in the Congruent position (face to face, hands in 
               hands), which is a foundation for the subsequent confiding work 
               in the course.  They cultivate the skill to slow down 
               communication using Empathic Shared Meaning, taking turns 
               being the Speaker and the Listener with feedback to assure 
               understanding.  They next learn how to confide a negative 
               reaction to partner’s behavior all the way through in safety using 
               the PAIRS Dialogue Guide. The Dialogue Guide leads the 
               Speaker through a sequence of 18 "I-Statement" sentence 
               stems regarding this negative reaction.  Maintaining eye 
               contact, holding hands while they speak, giving verbatim 
               feedback, and not answering the complaint or introjecting 
               defensiveness, helps couples to stay connected to one another 
               and avoid misunderstandings.  They discover how to speak so 
               that the other person really wants to listen, and how to listen 
               with empathy so that the other feels deeply heard and 
               understood.       
                              
               One of the many paradoxes of PAIRS is how direct and skillful 
               engagement of conflict builds greater closeness, trust, and 
               confidence in the relationship. Couples are taught safe and 
               structured ways to move into the intense emotion regarding a 
               conflict as a first step toward resolving an issue.  The 
               “Emotional Jug” is one of the core metaphors of PAIRS.   
               When emotions are cut off or suppressed, it is as if they are 
               poured into a jug and stopping up with a cork—a cork that 
               becomes the “stiff upper lip” of indifference.  Partners are taught 
               how to safely remove the cork and "blow their lid".  An initial 
               expression of anger quickly gives way to more vulnerable 
               feelings like fear, pain, or grief, which is followed by relief and 
               then gratitude for their partners’ listening and acceptance. This 
               process can occur relatively quickly when couples master the 
               tools and are not fearful of each other’s emotions.  By learning 
               how to express fully one's fear, pain and anger in safe and 
               non-destructive ways, and to do so in the arms of their beloved, 
               and/or with the support of peers, the bond between intimate 
               partners powerfully deepens.  The Emptying the Jug Exercise 
               is also taught as a pre-negotiation release and as an emotional 
               confiding tool that may be used like the Daily Temperature 
               Reading. 
                
               The PAIRS anger and conflict management  tools were adapted 
               largely from the work of George Bach (Bach and Wyden, 1969). 
               They include the Anger Rituals (the Haircut and the Vesuvius) 
               in which one partner asks permission of the other to vent in a 
               time-limited fashion with as much intensity as is present.  The 
               Anger Rituals help to contain anger in those who explode or 
               speak caustically and to give permission to be angry and 
               assertive to those who rarely allow themselves to do this. .Once 
               suppressed emotions around an issue are released, couples 
               can then productively engage the Fair Fight for Change, 
               another Bach ritual adapted by PAIRS for use as a structured 
               negotiation.  Here, couples learn to fight for the relationship, 
               rather than against their partner.  Peer couple coaches guide 
               the partners through the fight format, prohibit dirty fighting, and 
               enable reflective evaluation of the partners’ emerging healthy 
               fight styles.  Peer coaches learn as much about the Fair Fight 
               process when coaching as they do when negotiating their own 
               issues. Through a Shared Art Exercise in class and Follow-
               the-Leader Dates as homework, issues related to power and 
               control, leadership and follower-ship, flexibility vs. rigidity of 
               power roles, as well as the impact of unspoken assumptions are 
               all brought to the surface and examined.  Couples discover that 
               they can remain connected while disagreeing and that they can 
               grow closer through successfully addressing their differences.  
               A potent sense of “we”, a sense of shared competence,  higher 
               self-esteem, and greater generosity and goodwill ensue from 
               safely and successfully finding a real, mutually satisfying, win-
               win solution to conflict.  
                
                        2) Clarifying Assumptions 
                               
               Partners’ expectations of one another, conscious or 
               unconscious, are largely formed by long-past experiences.  
               Unspoken assumptions and hidden expectations lead to great 
               misunderstanding.  A “Mind Reading” tool is taught for 
               respectfully checking out assumptions rather than proceeding 
               without knowing what is true for the partner or with mind reading 
               without permission.  To help couples become more aware of 
               their hidden assumptions, Gordon (1996) catalogued the 
               common “Love Knots,” or unexamined beliefs, that sabotage 
               intimate relationships.  (See “If You Really Loved Me…” , 
               Gordon, 1996.)  Couples learn to recognize Knots and to 
               untangle them so that they lose their power to sabotage the 
               relationship.  
                
                       3) My History and Unique Self 
                               
               A study of family systems, through psychodramas enacting 
               Family Systems Factories and what happens with the addition 
               of children (Dyad-Triad) leads into the study of one’s own family 
               of origin.  Genograms, a three-generation family map, allows 
               exploration of influences in the family of origin and reveals the 
               invisible rules, scripts and loyalties that may be affecting current 
               relationship.  Participants also revisit their personal history 
               through guided visualizations and intensive journaling to 
               discover the impact of early messages and past decisions, 
               especially regarding love, adequacy and worth.  They uncover 
               their Revolving Ledgers, the emotional bills of debt owed from 
               the past that, as they walk through the revolving door of life, 
               they hand to whoever is there.   Participants look to identify 
               intense over-reactions to relatively minor behaviors of their 
               partner that indicate the presence of Emotional Allergies 
               (another concept unique to PAIRS).  These allergies are acute 
               sensitivities to whatever now reminds one of pain or threats 
               from the past. Allergic responses are accompanied in the 
               present by protective reactions (ideas and emotions) and 
               protective behaviors that were used to manage the pain long 
               ago.  
                
               Tools for healing allergies and past painful experience include 
               the Healing the Ledger Exercise and the Museum Tour of 
               Past Hurts and Disappointments.  Here, partners confide 
               previous painful or frightening experiences to one another.  This 
               confiding helps the listener to understand and have more 
               compassion for the partner, and it helps the speaker to express 
               pain safely to a comforting, validating and supportive partner.  
               Partners are shown how to hold each other in a nurturing way, 
               while they are expressing and releasing old pain.  Participants 
               may use the Letting Go of Grudges Letter as a journaling 
               and/or confiding tool, for finding relief and freedom in working 
               through grudges (hurts held in angry resentment to protect from 
               risking being hurt again.)  Through these experiences, 
               participants clear up misunderstandings of one another by 
               reclaiming their personal history rather than continuing to project 
               and blame their partner. They re-connect with suppressed early 
               experiences and decisions that have been interfering with their 
               ability to trust or be intimate with their partner.  Partners also 
               learn they can help to heal instead of hurt one another. 
                
               Couples also find that Emotional Allergy Infinity Loops 
               underlie many of their unresolved conflicts.  Such a loop occurs 
               when one’s behavior triggers an emotionally allergic reaction in 
               the partner.  The partner’s allergic reaction then triggers an 
               allergic reaction in the first partner, whose reactive behavior 
               then retriggers the second, and so on, ad infinitum.   In the 
               throes of an Emotional Allergy Infinity Loop, each partner often 
               re-experiences the worst pains of childhood and the helpless 
               reactions of a small child. Typically each feels, “if it is like this, 
               then I cannot be here!”  Each forgets to see their partner as their 
               friend and experiences them instead as the enemy.  Each 
               becomes lost in a reactive state of believing the worst about self 
               and partner and of using primitive protective actions.  
               Devastating distance can grow. 
                
               Couples now develop concepts and a language to understand 
               and explain what they are experiencing when they are conjointly 
               in the grip of such emotional intensity.  As participants begin to 
               understand and discuss their Love Knots, Early Scripts and 
               Decision, Ledgers, Grudges, Emotional Allergies and Emotional 
               Allergy Infinity Loops, they become capable of taking 
               responsibility for their own reactions, rather than blaming the 
               other.  Couples are helped to strategize together to devise 
               “emergency exit ramps” from their Loops and to work together 
               to escape those slippery slopes.  Through empathy for partner’s