Dare to Be Great

This Mentoring Program will create a transformation in your practice and in your life.

“I opened up my own practice, and I filled my practice and have a wait list. Now I have the highest salary I’ve made in my life.”
Kelly Scharver, LPC
“I’d say my income has quadrupled.”
Nancy St. John, H.Dip. Counseling
“In 10 minutes he [Pete] can change your life.”
Martha Kauppi, MFT

Join an elite group of therapists and learn from two of the world’s foremost couples therapy pioneers, Dr. Ellyn Bader and Dr. Peter Pearson.

Bring Your Vision to Life

Grow your business

Increase clinical expertise

Overcome your personal blocks

Dr. Peter and Ellyn

We are offering you a unique way to grow professionally and personally beyond what you might currently imagine or even hope is possible.

Seven years ago our hard won insights and successes led us to develop a one-of-a-kind training and mentoring program that jet-propels your professional success and personal development.

This is the only program we know about that integrates all three major components of success for therapists and thought leaders:
  • Business Proficiency to help you build your business and marketing skills
  • Increased Clinical Expertise to make you more effective in your practice
  • Personal Transformation to help you reach further than you ever dreamed possible
Let’s dive a little more into each.

Business Proficiency

You want to reach further and help more people. You want to have more impact in the world. You have a desire to teach, write, train, speak, or consult and these desires are pressing to be fulfilled. You don’t want to live life just hoping you will get enough referrals and that clients will find you and your website. You may even want to create your own institute and leverage your income. You’ll get the business and marketing skills to bring your voice and talents to a larger audience.

“I have had a personal transformation…I can do things that I could never have imagined.”

Martha Kauppi, MFT
Madison, WI

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“It was my own skills deficit that really hooked me in. I really knew I needed to work more effectively with couples … but I really didn't know what I needed.
My work has transformed this year and my confidence has increased a lot.”

Nancy St. John, H.Dip. Counseling
Tullamore, Ireland

“The investment has been more than incredible since joining the Mentor Program.
I've been very grateful for the support that not only Ellyn and Pete have given but also our peer groups and mentoring group as a whole.
I have developed really close friends and colleagues through this group.”

Nancy St. John, H.Dip. Counseling
Tullamore, Ireland

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Clinical Expertise

You will master vital clinical skills to use with very difficult couples. Learn how to work with these clients and you will be like the battlefield surgeon who doesn’t get rattled because you have the skills and temperament to handle whatever comes your way. The small group format — combined with a lot of personal attention — creates a perfect pairing for extraordinary clinical growth.

“I gained so much confidence through the year and momentum to move forward.”

Sue Diamond Potts, RCC
Vancouver, B.C.

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“What a great feeling!! Whenever I try to change things up and it works, I get so very excited! It's like finding a treasure after searching for the key.”

Janae Munday, LCSW
Phoenix, AZ

Personal Transformation

Everybody has one or more persistent voices of fear, doubt, uncertainty, or unworthiness that are misguided attempts at self-protection. In the Mentor Program we help you deal directly with your personal blocks. Your creativity, resourcefulness, and self-confidence will increase by leaps and bounds.

“It’s the place where people can be raw, real, differentiated, and supported. The place where people can soar and stumble. And when you do, loving and supportive faces will be beaming back at you. I have the reins of my own life. I went from having a poverty mindset working in a group private practice based solely on managed care payments making a meager income, to owning my own practice accepting only private pay. My sessions are full with private pay clients and I have a waiting list. I got rid of my dead laptop and dead car. My personal and financial growth was exponential”

Kelly Scharver, LPC
Virginia Beach, VA

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“I’m probably as personally and professionally happy as I’ve been in recent memory.”

Paul McCandless, MFT
Fullerton, CA

This program is for you if you are:

  • An accomplished therapist who wants to have more impact
  • An innovative therapist who wants to leverage assets you have created
  • Eager for a year of profound personal and professional growth
  • Unafraid of the change that comes with business and personal growth
  • Ready to strive for your ideal clinical practice
  • Ready to push for more clinical competence with couples
  • Willing to learn about marketing
  • Open to being part of a very sharing community
  • Looking for an active community to support you

Looking for an active community to support you

  • Satisfied with your career and the size and impact of your business
  • Wanting just a few email marketing strategies and operations insights to help your business
  • Unlikely to share and open up to others in a safe setting
  • Not very interested in couples and relationship dynamics
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Here's what you receive in our year-long Mentor Program

Any successful mastermind or high-performing group involves a balance between what is offered by the leaders and what is expected from participants. We offer valuable leadership, knowledge, and resources, and we expect input, feedback, and accountability.

We provide a formal, structured curriculum that teaches proven, cutting-edge strategies for your clinical, personal, and business growth inside of a nurturing, motivating, and inspiring series of workshops, and Zoom sessions.
You’ll get productive and consistent feedback from us and from your fellow group members.
We typically open the program to only 6-10 new members each year. New members will be in a community with returning members who give support and feedback from their journey — successes, challenges, and learnings along the way. Returning members come back for the close community support and to continue to advance their own dreams.

Work on Identifying Your Priority Pathway for the Year and a Roadmap to Achieving It; In Person, Hybrid and Virtual Retreat Workshops, and Office Hours Throughout the Year with Couples Institute Faculty

We typically open the program to only 6-10 new members each year. New members will be in a community with returning members who give support and feedback from their journey — successes, challenges, and learnings along the way. Returning members come back for the close community support and to continue to advance their own dreams.
For each of the months between the 2-day workshops (and session after the Couples Conference), we hold Office Hours.
Office Hours are times our faculty experts are available to answer your questions. You can get individual assistance on a personal issue, a clinical case, and/or your marketing, copywriting, and business challenges.

Sample Mentor Program
Summary Schedule

January

Two Day Introductory Event (In-Person*)

February

Office Hours** + Priority Pathway Plan for new mentees

March

Office Hours + Priority Pathway Plan for new mentees

April

Two Day Virtual Meeting

May

Office Hours

June

Clinical workshop after the Couples Conference*** Office Hours on Marketing, Copywriting and Business Development

July

Office Hours

August

Office Hours

September

Office Hours

October

Two Day Meeting (In-Person*)

November

Office Hours

December

Closing Session (Virtual)

Notes

*We plan for these meetings to be in-person or hybrid format, but the actual format will depend on the regulations/realities due to COVID.
**Office Hours are group sessions in 90 minute blocks with each member of our faculty (you choose how to prioritize your time and how many faculty you meet with).
*** The format of this workshop will be the same as the Couples Conference (in-person, virtual or hybrid).

Here’s what you need to be prepared to give:

  • Your focus for one year!
  • Willingness to gain insight into barriers blocking your success
  • Collaboration, not competition: This is a supportive community where you support others, and they support you.

And here are the invaluable career resources you’ll have at your fingertips upon joining the group:

  • Free access to Ellyn’s year-long Developmental Model of Couples Therapy online training program
  • Free access to Ellyn’s online Advanced Training program
  • Complimentary registration at the Couples Conference, if you choose to attend
  • When you are ready, you will have full use of Ellyn’s training curriculum to run Developmental Model first-year training/consultation groups or workshops for therapists in your community
  • Full use of Pete’s Coming from the Heart Couples Workshop materials and exercises, which you can use as a “workshop in a box” or modify to fit your situation
  • A website analysis from our webmaster
  • A set of all Mentor Program lessons and insights to refer to and keep.
“To get to work personally in a small setting with Ellyn and Pete is phenomenal.”

Alexa S. Elkington, M.A., MFT
Las Vegas, NV

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About Ellyn and Pete
We are Dr. Ellyn Bader and Dr. Peter Pearson. For more than 30 years, we’ve been on a mission to help stop unnecessary and premature divorces that wreck couples and tear families apart. We’ve worked with couples in the San Francisco Bay Area and have trained thousands of committed, exceptional couples therapists from 55 countries around the world in our own Developmental Model of Couples Therapy.

FEATURED IN

What does the Mentoring Program cost?

You might consider the program to be expensive. Or not. It depends entirely on your perspective and whether you look at a program like this as a cost or as an investment. Although it is not as expensive as a graduate school, it is like graduate school in terms of the investment that has a lifetime payoff.
In your personal interview we'll discuss how you can see a return on your investment by developing the skills and attitudes that last as long as your career.

What’s the most important aspect of the program?

We start with your current situation.
Participants in our program over the past seven years have ranged from small practice owners to entrepreneurs already managing associates. Some started the program with just the seed of a dream, while others were established thought leaders. Through the program they’ve learned how to accomplish far more than they thought they ever could.
Some of our favorite comments so far from this year’s group have been, “Wow, can you believe where we are?” and “Remember when we were just planning names of our centers?”

Frequently Asked Questions

No. People typically take advantage of at least part of each area, but tend to focus on the top 1-2 areas that are most meaningful to them.

Yes! The program is designed to support you whether you work with couples or individual clients.

Yes! You take a space when you sign up, and we invest a lot in making the opportunity work fully for you in that space. Partial year memberships are not possible.

To be successful in the program, it is ideal, but not required that you are very familiar with the stages, techniques, and insights of The Developmental Model. Most participants have been part of our community for a year or more. Access to the Level One and Level Two training is included in the membership cost so that you can develop your clinical expertise with us.

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