Darshana Hawks, PhD, the Relationship-MD, announces her relationship intervention programs are now available via MarriageIntervention.com (www.MarriageIntervention.com).

Hawks has helped numerous couples examine and correct the health of their marriage through face-to-face intensive intervention sessions. Her professional, experiential, and holistic approach helps couples committed to staying together reconnect the desire they have for each other while designing the new in their lives and their marriage.

"We go to school for years to learn how to be successful in work, but never learn the techniques of how to be successful in marriage," Hawks says. "Because of this, many couples enter marriage without a plan for how to integrate their separate selves into a single, cohesive, supportive unit as a married couple while maintaining and sustaining individuality. Add children, stress, family situations, friends . finances, home management, work, and the other situations of normal life and suddenly unhealthy marriages can seem to be more of a burden than a joy."

Hawks' clients have frequently found that the symptoms they perceive in their marriage relationship are also borne out in other relationships. Hawks' work provides individuals with tools, tips and strategies to improve relationships with family, friends, co-workers and bosses. Clients often find that their lives improve drastically after just a few sessions because they begin to take responsibility for the choices they make, for how they are perceived by others, and learn how to listen without filters and interpretation thereby becoming more attractive, authentic, purposeful and peaceful in their lives.

An intervention facilitated by Hawks gives couples the space needed to step back and assess the choices that need to be made for a healthy marriage. While each couple and each individual perceives their marriage differently, in her work with couples, Dr. Hawks has seen characteristics that typically fall into three stages of marriage health: Green, Yellow, or Red.

According to Hawks, individuals in the green stage find being a couple is more difficult than being an individual, are not fully giving themselves to the marriage which eventually results in feelings of resentment. At this stage, Hawks says, people experience normal integration and misunderstandings that most marriages encounter. While not severe, Hawks says these symptoms should be treated quickly so they do not develop into something more destructive. Hawks suggests couples at this stage consider the Marriage Design and Accountability program.

"This program offers a combination of private coaching calls with the couple along with an optional weekly group call setting which allows you to interact with other married couples experiencing many of the same situations as you," Hawks says of the MDA group. "Together, through facilitated discussion and weekly assignments, you will move through the process of creating marital vitality and health."

Individuals and couples in the yellow stage are characterized by traits such as a loss of purpose, loss of personal identity, and loss of identity as a couple.

"In this stage, your marriage is becoming toxic," Hawks says. "The actions that you are repeating are causing you to pull away from each other emotionally, and probably physically. The choices that you make now can determine the future of your marriage." For couples in the yellow stage, Hawks suggests the Marriage Restoration and Design program. In the MRD program Hawks listens to how the couple communicates and teaches both parties how to communicate to fully hear each other without interpretation or reaction resulting in responding.

In less drastic (between green and yellow stage) circumstances, couples should consider the Marriage Connection and Transformation Game (MCAT game) weekend, a two-to-three day facilitated experience with a combination of weekly calls that allows Hawks to interact with two to four couples through a fun, interactive game setting to assess and encourage new behaviors that can shift the health of a marriage quickly and effectively.

In the red stage, one or both partners feel suffocated with constant arguing or no communication and no emotional connection. The red stage also may encompass abusive behaviors where one or both parties manipulate each other through verbal or even physical outbursts. At this point in marriage, Hawks recommends a greater level of relationship intervention and recommends enrollment in her year-long Marriage Intervention and Design for Sustainability Program (MIDS).

"In this stage, severe breakdowns have caused the marriage to become toxic and unhealthy," Hawks says. "Your marriage has deteriorated to a stage which is unacceptable for both parties and requires intense corrective action. Immediate marriage intervention steps should be taken if you still love each other but cannot see a way to stay together and yet want to." This stage requires an in-home intervention over a 2 to 3 day period where the couple's entire environment is discussed and redesigned. She, together with the couple, conducts an Environmental Assessment to include home, health, finances, intimacy, family (immediate and remote), friends, business/work, Spirituality, Religion, Education, Communication, etc. to evaluate where these environments converge and diverge. The points of divergence are redesigned with the couple and the points of convergence are reviewed to ensure agreement is still present. "Both parties must be willing to do whatever it takes to save the marriage at this stage", says Hawks.

Her typical clients for marriage intervention are those who want to make a last ditch effort to save their marriage or those who have been through years counseling with no forward momentum or sustainable results. When asked if the programs are only for married couples, Hawks says "The programs are inclusive and are for couples who are in a long-term committed relationship with a desire to stay together due to the changing landscape of relationships today". Dr. Hawks has been called the SuperNanny for Couples because she goes into the Couple's home and works with them in their environment. Her clients say this is more effective for them in comparison to one-hour sessions in an office because Dr. Hawks sees what transpires on our turf and is able to help us design our lives to sustain our relationship.

More information about Darshana Hawks, PhD, and her relationship intervention programs can be found online at www.MarriageIntervention.com