Welcome

Clare Mézes, M.Sc. and Gail Winemaker, M.A. invite you to avail yourselves of a unique experience in a model of therapy that is reconnecting and healing. They each have their own private practice where they treat individuals, couples and families using this model. As well, they work together as co-therapists to provide a more intensive experience to individuals and couples, also using the same model. Some of the issues addressed in this model are sexuality, addictions, trauma, grief and loss, self-esteem and boundaries, and family of origin legacies.

The odds are that you have arrived at this website because you have come to the realization that you would like to improve your personal relationships. We commend you for your courage in seeking help and welcome you to take the steps that you need to change and heal your life and relationships.

Our work with couples and individuals is based on a model of therapy that encompasses both traditional and non-traditional therapy. Non-traditional therapy encompasses longer sessions, with more time in between sessions, and more direction through teaching skills about how to be in a healthier relationship.

Relationships are about the dance of closeness, distance and repair. In this therapy, we speak truthfully about how people, when they are at their very worst, distance themselves from one another. Through effective communication skills and other positive strategies, each person learns how to get their needs met, thereby, reconnecting and repairing their relationship. In order to have a warm and enduring connection, couples need to learn the art of cherishing their relationship through appreciation, gratefulness, and by remembering the love they feel for their partner.

We have had the privilege of working with great teachers and mentors along the way that have influenced us. They have instilled in us our own passion in working with individuals and couples. Recently, we have been most influenced by the training program we have completed with Terrence Real, who has taught us his non-traditional model of therapy, Relational Life Therapy. We have also been inspired by other therapists and writers, to name a few: Pia Melody (Addictions), Helen Fisher (The Theory of Love), Pat Love (Hot Monogamy), David Schnarch (Passionate Sexual Relationships), and Stephen Levine (Sexual Love).

Emotionally committed relationships are people-growing machines!

David Schnarch, 1997

Passion and intimacy don't exclude each other. Lasting desire is possible in a relationship if the lovers are compatible, share important interests, like each other in a way best friends do, remain attracted to and curious about each other, and most importantly, are able to risk honesty with each other.

Renate Stendhal, 2003