Discovering Positive Lessons in Your Life
Getting Your Head On Straight
Stop the Worrying - Stop the Stress
Building Strong Relationships: For Men Only!
Facing Your Anger
Goal Setting For Life
Men Matter: The Role of Men in Face of a Bleeding Disorder
Managing Your Stress: Happy Times Ahead
Parenting Skills for Modern Dads
The Father and Son Relationship
Letting Go of Shame
Parenting On The Same Page
Ways to Maintain and Deepen your Relationships: For Couples Only!
Healthy Relationships: For Teens Only!

Discovering Positive Lessons in Your Life
The experience of anybody with a bleeding disorder (and for the people who love them) is in many ways scary, painful, difficult and discouraging. Still, it is possible to find both meaning and beauty in the experience – if you are open to this discovery. The goal in this workshop is to help members of the bleeding disorders community explore these special connections with the universe.

Topics include:

* Everyday wellness
* Refusing the victim role: the movement from disability to ability
* Choosing to feel OK about yourself
* The “Heartmath” approach to positive visualization
* Awareness of the connections between emotional health and the immune system
* Allowing happiness, joy and serenity into your life
* Finding meaning in pain and suffering
* Seeing a bleeding disorder as an opportunity to grow
* Contributing positively to the bleeding disorders community

Getting Your Head On Straight
People are amazingly adept at creating needless pain and useless suffering. We do so by imagining false or extremely unlikely events ("What if the steering wheel falls off while I’m driving 150 miles an hour on the Autobahn?"), exaggerating real problems ("I must have pneumonia because I just got a sniffle"), and trapping ourselves in seemingly impossible contradictions ("I must spend time with my Aunt Ethoria even though I can’t stand her.").

We’ll look at these core cognitive errors in this workshop as well as:

* Moving from pessimism to optimism in life
* Utilizing practical ways to dispute poor thinking
* Turning one’s "shoulds" into "coulds"
* Consulting your emotions without being controlled by them
* Cognitive approaches that help you deal with typical issues in the bleeding disorders community

Stop the Worrying - Stop the Stress
Parents of bleeding disordered children tend to become continuously anxious about the safety and welfare of these children. The worries, of course, are real: obtaining appropriate medical care and medications, supervising physical activity, even the haunting fear of death. Unfortunately, one result can be a parent who becomes mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted.

This workshop addresses ways that parents of bleeding disordered children can balance caring for these children with self-care.

Topics include:

* The two jobs of a good parent: protecting your children while helping prepare them for adult independence
* The costs of overprotection: to children and parents
* The costs of underprotection: to children and parents
* Ways for both parents to advocate both protection and independence
* Dialoguing with your children, teachers, and the medical community
* Finding ways to care for oneself and lessen worrying
* Utilizing the bleeding disorders community for help with self-care

Building Strong Relationships: For Men Only!
The program has been successfully piloted, tested and refined over the last two years in most U.S. regions with both native English and mixed English-speaking and Spanish-speaking audiences.

Building Strong Relationships for Men is not relationship counseling, marital therapy or relationship rescue and should not be used or promoted as such. Instead, it employs the practical tools and techniques of coaching – strategies, skills and goal clarity - to create a dynamic program that participants report as supportive, inspiring, fun, empowering, heart-opening and immediately useful in helping them set and progress toward their relationship goals.

Building Strong Relationships for Men can be offered in person or by teleconference to audiences of 2 to hundreds. It can be presented in 2 hours, ½ day, 1-day or 2-day workshops. Each workshop is tailored to the audience, so topics presented will differ. Some of the material covered may include:

* How chronic disorders such as Hemophilia affect relationships, with specific tools and strategies to address the issues
* 8 critical communications skills to deepen connection and intimacy
* Creating and sustaining a vision for an intimate relationship
* Ways to protect and enhance emotional intimacy
* What men do – accidentally – that weakens relationships
* How to make effective complaints and apologies that leave room for greater understanding and closeness in the relationship
* The role of conflict in deepening or weakening relationships
* How men can get the peace and quiet they often crave
* Men’s roles in deepening and strengthening their primary relationships
* Specific actions that can suck the life out of relationships; why it happens; and ways to avoid it
* Ways to overcome relationship stagnation
* High-impact ways to be romantic that cost little to nothing in time or money!

Facing Your Anger
Facing Your Anger focuses on identifying and addressing each participant's anger styles. Ten anger styles will be identified and then differentiate healthy anger from problem anger. Practical exercises, both mental and physical, accompany each anger profile. We will investigate which style, or combination of styles, characterizes their anger. In addition, a one-hour unit is reserved for consideration of how participants can help angry children, adolescents, couples, and families.

Dr.Efron-Potter’s useful guidelines will make it possible to face the anger that may be hindering us and harming others. Anger is a part of life and each anger style conveys a message. This workshop is for anyone who wants to listen to anger’s message and then let it go.

The Inalex Communications training provides insights, practical tools, strategies and practices in an experiential community environment, which allows participants to learn to deepen and sustain their intimate relationships even with the added stress of a chronic disorder.

Facing Your Anger was developed to meet the specific needs of men in the Hemophilia community by Dr. Ron Potter-Efron, a psychotherapist whose practice focuses on anger management. In addition to Dr.Potter-Efron’s private practice, he is a drug and alcohol counselor, and is a co-author numerous books: Anger, Alcoholism and Addition, Letting Go of Anger, Letting Go of Shame, Angry all the time, and Emergency Guide to Anger Control.

As with all Inalex Communications workshops, interactive participation is optional and at the attendee’s discretion. Facing Your Anger can be offered in person or by teleconference to audiences of 2 to hundreds. It can be presented in 2 hours, ½ day, 1-day or 2-day workshops. Each workshop is tailored to the audience, so topics presented will differ. Some of the material covered may include:

* What are anger styles?
* Different Anger styles
* Understanding the essential qualities of excessive anger and conflict
* How to make meaningful assessments of the possible causes of someone's anger
* Relationship of anger problems to alcohol or drug abuse
* Four content areas for intervention:
o Behavior
o Cognition
o Affect
o Spirit
* Relationship of trauma to anger problems
* Anger in the Hemophilia Community
* Resentment Assertiveness as the eleventh anger style
* Anger in the family : dealing with angry children, adolescents, couples and families

Goal Setting For Life
The Inalex Communications Goal Setting workshop, “Goal Setting For Life ”, teaches a reliable and effective method, called the ‘Goal Meter™”, for individuals and organizations who want the tools to reliably set and attain critical personal and professional goals. This workshop and process is effective for anyone ages 16 and over who wants to enhance their life and achieve new milestones.

In a supportive community environment, participants learn practical tools and techniques, and have direct experience in setting powerful, inspiring and achievable goals. Past participants have praised this dynamic workshop as “fun, empowering, inspiring, heart-opening, practical and surprisingly effective in helping to create, plan and progress toward their personal and professional goals.” Even people who are accomplished at achieving their goals have been surprised and delighted when they put this process into action. To become familiar with these techniques is to become adept at the art of creating.

After being used internationally for over 14 years in major corporations and with private individuals, the “Goal Meter” process has been adapted and incorporated into the Goals for Life program to meet the specific needs of the Hemophilia community.

Goals for Life can be offered in person or by teleconference to audiences of 2 to hundreds. It can be presented in 2 hours, ½ day, 1-day or 2-day workshops.

Each workshop is tailored to the audience, so topics presented will differ. Some of the material covered may include:

* A simple, 5-step process for setting and achieving your personal and professional goals
* 10 additional steps to supercharge your goals
* How to determine if your goal is worthwhile to invest in
* Why people fail to meet their goals
* How to help others establish effective and achievable goals
* Enlisting support on the path to reaching your goals
* How to identify and set goals that are inspiring, exciting and meaningful to you
* Ways to ensure that you will be motivated to work toward your goals
* Advanced goal-setting techniques for those who have mastered the fundamentals
* Three core factors that determine the success or failure of achieving any goal

Men Matter: The Role of Men in the Face of a Bleeding Disorder
Men Matter focuses on learning a skill and developing a process that most men never got a chance to do. This workshop has no power nor any interest in telling men what to feel, but rather to help them identify and express whatever they are feeling in a healthy way, and to be comfortable with the feelings of others.

Too many men of all ages do not have about half the information they need in order to achieve success in life. The part that they actually get is the thinking half. That's the part that deals with facts, figures, procedures, and information. The part men don't get is the emotional half. This presentation is intended simply to serve as a guide to men in understanding how to deal with their feelings.

This innovative presentation inspires discussion and reflection, challenges stereotypes and tackles the single most important social issue of our age, and does it, as always, with incredible skill, integrity and humor.

Men Matter can be offered in person or by teleconference to audiences of 2 to hundreds. It can be presented in 2 hours, ½ day, 1-day or 2-day workshops. Each workshop is tailored to the audience, so topics presented will differ. Some of the material covered may include:

* Differences between men's and women's ways of feeling especially when dealing with a chronic disorder
* Three steps to emotional fitness
* The connection between our "brain wiring" and our emotional life
* How to gain confidence with whatever you feel
* How to express successfully whatever you feel
* How to feel comfortable with the feelings of others - no matter what they are

Managing Your Stress: Happy Times Ahead
The Inalex stress reduction workshop “Managing Your Stress” teaches proven, reliable and effective methods for identifying life stress and reducing it. Using proven relaxation and awareness techniques, participants learn tools to relax and reduce their struggles, frustrations and anxieties quickly, effectively and on demand.

This workshop is for anyone who wants to understand the dynamics of stress and ways to achieve a healthier balance.

In a supportive community environment, participants learn practical tools and techniques, and have direct experience in identifying the stress in their lives and reducing it. Past participants have praised this dynamic workshop as “fun, empowering, and very, very relaxing!” The skills learned in this class are useful at work and at home.

Managing Your Stress can be offered in person or by teleconference to audiences of 2 to hundreds. It can be presented in 1 hour, ½ day or 1-day workshops.

Each workshop is tailored to the audience, so topics presented will differ. Some of the material covered may include:

* The impact of stress on your life
* How to identify what is stressing you and determine the secret sources of stress in your life
* Ways to relax with the breath, mediation and visualization
* How to create a personal trigger to relax in a moment’s notice under even very difficult situations
* A simple technique to reduce worry, fear and anger that can be practiced at any time anywhere

Parenting Skills for Modern Dads
Fatherhood is undergoing a tremendous shift in this country and abroad. Forty years of the women’s movement has raised critical questions for men today. What are men’s roles in the family? More specifically, what does it mean to be a good dad today especially when complicated by a bleeding disorder? Connecting the legacy from our fathers to our own experience of fatherhood, the men in this workshop will explore what it means to be a Modern Dad.

This highly interactive workshop offers men both time to reflect and talk about their experiences as fathers, as well as learn practical skills designed to enhance their relationships with their children, their partners and ultimately themselves. Participants will:

* Discuss The 9 Ideals of a Modern Dad - these ideals, such as ‘Modern Dads Explore Their Family Legacy,’ provide a useful structure for conversation about the many roles dads play today.
* Explore the 5 Key Areas of Healthy Parenting - emotional connections, shared time, intellectual development, handling conflict, and limit setting.
* Review The 5 Losing Strategies in Relationships: Being Right, Controlling, Unbridled Self-Expression, Retaliation, and Withdrawal.
* Learn and practice relationship skills such as The Feedback Wheel, an innovative tool for solving conflict, setting limits and communicating responsibly.

This practical workshop gives men the unique opportunity to talk about the common conflicts we all have and improve their own parenting skills in a safe, enjoyable environment.

The Father and Son Relationship
The Father and Son Relationship focuses on the impact that fathers have on the lives of their sons. In a dynamic presentation, we will examine one of the most overlooked yet critical influences in a family life, the father-son relationship. A growing body of research suggests that when fathers are both physically and emotionally present in their children’s lives, the children are more successful academically and healthier psychologically. Studies also show that men who have warm, nurturing relationships with their children, are themselves healthier, less depressed and more successful in their marriages and careers.

This provocative presentation inspires dialogue and reflection, challenges stereotypes and offers rare insights into a crucial but largely unexplored subject-the emotionally rich and psychologically complex inner lives of men.

The Father and Son Relationship can be offered in person or by teleconference to audiences of 2 to hundreds. It can be presented in 2 hours, ½ day, 1-day or 2-day workshops. Each workshop is tailored to the audience, so topics presented will differ. Some of the material covered may include:

* How men's relationships with their own fathers - whether present or absent - greatly impact their parenting.
* How chronic disorders such as Hemophilia affect the father and son relationship, with specific tools and strategies to address the issues
* Practical skills and suggestions for how fathers can strengthen their relationships with their children and their partners.
* Why so many men - cutting across race and class - skip the critical developmental stage of sorting through their father's legacy
* Critical analysis of how contemporary definitions of masculinity impact males and females

Important Topics covered in this interactive workshop may also include:

* Success/Expectations
* Listening to Each Other
* School/Career
* The Transition to Young Adulthood
* Dealing with Conflict

Letting Go of Shame
Letting Go of Shame reminds us that feeling shame is neither always good nor always bad. It is our response to the feeling that improves or corrodes our lives. When shame is temporary, it can be a great teacher- good shame enhances our self-awareness and our relationships with others. Recognizing that even deeply shamed persons can learn to treat themselves with honor, this workshop will help begin the maybe painful, but hope-filled, process of healing our shame.

Letting Go of Shame helps identify our shame and the biological, psychological, and cultural factors that produce shame. Practical exercises guide us through the process of understanding shame and following and effective plan of action when shame disconnects us from others and ourselves. A great resource for understanding and coping with shame, this workshop offers practical information about:

* When shame is good
* Excessive shame
* Shame deficiency
* Growing up shameful
* Shame in our relationships and culture
* How we shame ourselves
* Healing the wounds of shame

Ron and Pat Potter-Efron are psychotherapist in private practice in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, with a special focus on anger management. The Potter-Efrons are also drug and alcohol counselors and the co-authors of Anger, Alcoholism, and Addiction which was featured in the Behavioral Sciences Book Club, and Letting Go of Shame, which was a main selection of the Psychology Book Club.

Parenting On The Same Page
Whether it’s about how to set limits, which television programs to allow in the home, or who infuses your son, parents often find themselves on different pages when it comes to certain aspects of their parenting. While perspectives and styles may differ, it’s critical for children’s well being that parents (married, single, divorced, cohabitating) model healthy communication and attempt to reduce parental conflict. This highly interactive workshop teaches parents critical skills for getting on the same page with each other and developing close, connected relationships with their children.

Participants in the workshop will:

* Discuss 5 Key Areas of Healthy Parenting - emotional connections, shared time, intellectual development, handling conflict, and limit setting.
* Review The 5 Losing Strategies in Relationships: Being Right, Controlling, Unbridled Self-Expression, Retaliation, and Withdrawal.
* Learn and practice relationship skills such as The Feedback Wheel, an innovative tool for solving conflict, setting limits and communicating responsibly.
* View scenes from our speakers new film, Gender Traps: How Marriage Problems Start In Kindergarten.

This practical workshop gives parents the unique opportunity to talk about the common conflicts we all have and improve their own parenting skills in a safe, enjoyable environment.

Ways to Maintain and Deepen your Relationsips: For Couples Only!
Ways to Maintain and Deepen your Relationships: For Couples Only! is a relationship coaching workshop specifically for couples with a bleeding disorder or have a child with one. In a supportive community environment, participants learn practical tools and techniques, strategies, skills and goal clarity to connect more closely with the one they love. Past participants have praised this dynamic workshop as “fun, empowering, inspiring, heart-opening and immediately useful.” It is for couples in a new relationship who want tools to start off successfully, as well as those in long-term, committed relationships who want a deeper connection.

This program can be offered in person or by teleconference to audiences of 2 to hundreds and can be presented in 2 hours, ½ day, 1-day or 2-day workshops. Each workshop is tailored to the audience, so topics presented will differ. Some of the material covered may include:

* How chronic disorders such as Hemophilia affect relationships, with specific tools and strategies to address the issues
* 8 critical communications skills to deepen connection and intimacy
* Creating and sustaining a vision for your intimate relationship
* How to connect with each other when there is little time available
* Ways to protect and enhance emotional intimacy
* What partners do – accidentally – that weakens their relationships
* How to make effective complaints and apologies that leave room for greater understanding and closeness in relationship
* The role of conflict in deepening or weakening relationships
* Specific actions that can suck the life out of relationships; why it happens; and ways to avoid it
* Ways to overcome relationship stagnation
* Ways to voice and have your needs met in relationship
* Blending personal values to create a more fulfilling relationship for both partners
* The role of personal responsibility in deepening and strengthening intimate relationships
* High-impact ways to be romantic that cost little to nothing in time or money!

Healthy Relationships: For Teens Only!
The focus of this session is on building the capacity and skills - speaking and listening, how to give feedback, handling anger responsibly, etc. - for developing healthy relationships to one’s self, friends, dating partners and parents. This unique program addresses one of the foundational influences on teens that is often overlooked: gender stereotypes - or, the messages boys and girls get about how they are supposed to behave/not behave in relationships as males and females. The comprehensive day begins with establishing group norms and doing some fun icebreaker games. Next, we explore the central themes - Who Am I? Who am I in the various, important relationships in my life? What skills and support do I need to stay healthy in relationships? Adolescents then explore the four relationship areas in depth - self, friendships, dating and parents. Using a combination of teaching methods, adolescents will meet in small groups, work individually and engage large group activities.

The program is as follows:

* Relationship To Self: To teach the art of self-reflection and the practice of healthy self-esteem.
* Relationship To Friends and Family: To provide adolescents with a framework for understanding gender-based bullying, how to skills to develop healthy friendships, and how to address peer pressure and it’s connection to drugs/alcohol, risk-taking and unhealthy friendships.
* Parent Relationships: To give adolescents the skills to reflect upon and communicate effectively with their parents.
* Dating Relationships (optional): Help adolescents think about who they want to be in an intimate/dating relationship, understand the messages they get about ‘how they are supposed to act’ with the opposite sex, and how that impacts their decision-making.

[ Top | Back to Main]