LIMITED SPACE–RESERVE NOW!

Feb. 11, 2012 • 9:30am-5pm | Feb. 12, 2012 • Noon-5pm

2011 – Weekend Workshop for Single Gay Men
Understanding and Improving Gay Love Relationships: or
“Looking for more than just another hook-up?”

These workshops are intended to help you learn to:

• be attracted to more appropriate partners
• eliminate wrong people sooner
• identify and overcome what has kept you single
• predict the outcome of a relationship
• make sense of your dating problems
• explore new places and ways for meeting more appropriate people
• avoid making the same mistakes again

Material to be covered -
Relationships theoretically:

• Brain chemistry and its’ influence on sexual attraction, falling in love, and staying in love
• The unique experience of being gay and the impact on relationships
• Your history as it impacts your relationships
• Assessing availability for relationship
• Clarify common misconceptions that interfere with successful gay relationships

Relationships in practice:

• Finding and relating to potential partners
• Clarifying the characteristics in yourself and a partner that predict the quality of a relationship
• Recognizing and terminating incompatible relationships
• Cultivating the factors beneficial to sustaining relationships
• The issues of equality/inequality in relationships – money,  power, sex, connection
• Defining and attaining your relationship hopes and dreams
• Identify and overcome the greatest barriers to relationship

About the workshop:
Although this workshop explores relationships in significant depth, Tony is noted for presenting serious information in a manner that is warm and entertaining.  The workshop is designed to avoid uncomfortable self-disclosure, or embarrassing intrusions.  The material presented in this workshop is drawn from his 30 years of experience with gay men and relationships, while much of the information is drawn from a number of the most significant American authorities on relationship theory and practice.  Tony’s husband, Dr. Bruce Smith, often participates in the workshops, and participants say it is particularly helpful to see and hear a real-life couple functioning together.  Size is limited to maximize benefit to the participants.

About the presenter:
Tony Carroll, LCSW, has been in private practice in Houston’s Montrose since 1983.  He holds a graduate degree in Clinical Social Work, and has studied with a large number of prominent mental health authorities through-out his career.  Additionally, he is past president of the Texas Clinical Society, formerly a member of the Clinical Advisory Board of Montrose Counseling Center, and an active member of a number of other organizations.  He has been actively involved in supervision and training for other mental health professionals, and has most recently founded a new study and consultation group for GLBT mental health professionals.   Tony is delighted having been chosen  Outsmart Magazine’s Favorite Mental Health Professional for the past 8 years!

From a 2008 participant:
[The weekend was] very enlightening on several levels.

First, I feared I’d be there for two days with “losers” relationship wise.  They were nice guys . . . all looking for the same thing.

Thefirst day, we talked relationships in general, relationship theory, and the difference between initial attraction and long term potential.  We also did a . . .mental imagery exercise [to] better understand yourself today based on early imprinting.  The whole issue of being gay and what this means was also very clarifying for many of us.  We also did several break-out exercises where you got one on one with different groups and talked about your own experiences compared to what the area of discussion was.

The second day, was more practical focus on moving forward with a few hours [focused] on how to find them, how to relate to them, how to recognize and cut off what just won’t work long-term, how to recognize areas that will need to be addressed at some point to be sustainable, different options for dealing with them, like money, parity of power, differences of interest, and a lot of talk about communication styles and whether compatible or not.

Very, very worth the time!
(after note:  this participant just celebrated three years in a happy new relationship)

Dates:
July 9, 2011 – 10am – 5pm (lunch is included)
July 10, 2011 – noon – 5pm (wine and cheese to follow)

Cost and Payment:
Regular registration going on now:  $175.00 with $50 deposit
All major credit Cards

Location:
Montrose Area of Houston

To register or for more information:
Telephone:  713.527.0000
Email:  Tony@HoustonTherapist.com

Click here to register for this seminar online