Building Bonds: National Institute of Marriage

“Seventy percent of couples are saying this is their last stop,” says Mark Pyatt, co-president of the National Institute of Marriage, the Hollister nonprofit where the couples have converged.

“They’re saying, ‘Either we work this out in four days or we are done,’” adds Robert Paul, co-president and a licensed professional counselor who holds a doctorate in philosophy.

That was certainly the case for Jay and Felicia Martinez of Branson, who have been married for a year and a half. “I was ready to go to the lawyer’s office,” Felicia Martinez says. “There was no more hope left, but I went hoping for a miracle.”

In January, the couple participated in a four-day intensive marriage therapy workshop for up to five couples facilitated at the National Institute of Marriage. The workshops are one of the two types of marriage counseling offered. The other is a two-day intensive session for individual couples.

The institute employs 17 therapists, and eight of them are considered lead therapists.

“It takes a year or more of intensive training to become certified as a lead therapist,” Paul says. “Our goal is to be the Mayo Clinic of marriage therapy.”

NIM is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that grew out of a partnership between Paul, Pyatt and Greg Smalley, Ph.D., who originally worked at the Smalley Relationship Center in Branson. NIM, which operates on a roughly $1.6 million budget, is directed by an eight-person board whose chairman is Silver Dollar City founder Jack Herschend. Smalley left NIM to teach at John Brown University, but he remains a board member.

Four-day intensives

Up to five couples participate along with two therapists during four, eight-hour sessions at the Paradise Point headquarters.

Sessions begin with the question, “Why do you think you are here?”

While some couples might initially feel reticent about airing their problems in a group setting, Paul says they quickly find that “it’s amazing what you can learn when the spotlight is not on you.”

“I really felt a calmness from everyone in the group. Everyone pretty well opened up from the beginning,” says participant Jay Martinez, calling the environment “safe.”

According to company surveys, 92 percent of the 481 participants in 2006 were “very satisfied” with the couple intensive program.

The cost of the two-day one-on-one therapy sessions is $4,450, and the cost for the four-day intensive is $3,450; both include of food and lodging. The institute offers discounts and scholarships; it gave away $200,000 in scholarships last year.

Bottom line effects

The organizers say NIM is Christian-based, but they say religion is not overt in its therapy sessions. Paul says, “This is not our quest. Our intention is not to convert people. One of the principles we use is honor. We don’t want to talk about anything they don’t want to.”

Pyatt, who oversees NIM’s operations, marketing and finances, says NIM received 4,400 inquiries and saw about 400 couples in 2006. The organization holds six, four-day intensives a month and seven or eight, two-day intensives a month. NIM also holds a four-day intensive once each month at the WindShape Marriage Retreat Center in Rome, Ga.

“The retreat center is a nonprofit funded by Chick-fil-A,” Pyatt says. “They champion the cause of marriage. They are finding the health of the marriage of their employees affects the bottom line. They do this for benevolent reasons, but they also do this for good business.”

As an outgrowth of the intensives, NIM has developed marriage conferences that its therapists have presented through churches around the country.

“We are looking for increasing growth in that area,” Paul says.

Paul adds that NIM is currently working on resources to support church staff in working with couples in marriage crisis.

“We want to train a response team that is lay-based and lay-led to take the pressure off of the church staff,” he said. “We want the church to have something that keeps couples from having to wait.”

National Institute of Marriage

Owner: 501(c)3 nonprofit

Founded: November 2003

Address: 250 Lakewood Drive, Hollister, MO 65672

Phone: (417) 335-5882

Fax: (417) 339-1962

Web site: www.nationalmarriage.com

E-mail: admin@nationalmarriage.com

Services/Products: Marriage counseling, conferences and resource materials

2006 Operating Budget: $1.6 million

Employees: 17[[In-content Ad]]