PRIME Retreat: Oct 22-25, Northeast US: Learn More
PRIME Retreat: Oct 22-25, Northeast US: Learn More
A Workshop with George Faller & Owen Marcus
A couple enters conflict. One partner escalates emotionally. The other partner shuts down.
You track the cycle. You slow the process. You invite the withdrawn partner to access the deeper feeling. And he says, “I don’t know.” Or: “I’m fine.” Or he moves into explanation, logic, or analysis.
From the therapist’s chair, this can look like avoidance, resistance, or lack of emotional awareness. But very often something else is happening.
His nervous system has already moved outside the window of tolerance. And once that happens, the man has disconnected from his somatic experience, his emotions, and his partner.
This workshop explores a missing bridge that therapists recognize: the need for physiological access before emotional access.
Emotionally Focused Therapy has given therapists one of the clearest maps available for attachment repair.
It helps therapists to:
But many therapists who work with men encounter a recurring challenge. The emotional door EFT relies on is often closed before the intervention begins. In many men, the nervous system shifts into a survival physiological state before emotional awareness can emerge.
When the nervous system settles, emotional signals appear. As we all know, when emotional signals appear, attachment repair becomes possible. This is where the MELD Method enters the picture to use safety to unlock an emotional freeze.
MELD does not replace EFT. It provides a physiological entry point that often helps men access the emotional signals EFT works with. We will explore how to use proven ways to apply the Polyvagal Theory in a session.
This 75-minute workshop introduces practical ways therapists can integrate somatic awareness into EFT work with men.
You will learn:
How dysregulation of the nervous system blocks emotional awareness, even when the client wants to connect.
When therapists ask, “What are you feeling emotionally?” Many men freeze. But when therapists ask, “What do you notice in your body right now?”
Many men can answer immediately. That shift often becomes the doorway into emotional awareness.
A simple sequence that helps men move from defensive physiology into emotional contact:
Relax
Reduce physiological threat and sympathetic activation.
Open
Allow emotional signals to become conscious.
Connect
Re-engage relational safety and attachment.
This progression mirrors the goal of EFT: Body → Emotion → Connection
Many therapists recognize this pattern: Pressure → Activation → Freeze → Shame → Withdrawal
What can look like resistance or emotional avoidance is often physiological overload.
Understanding this pattern can change how shutdown is interpreted in the session.
You will learn a simple intervention therapists often report using the next day in session.
The Somatic Entry Question
“What do you notice in your body right now?”
Combined with a brief physiological reset, this question often allows emotional signals to emerge that emotional questions alone fail to elicit.
The workshop will also briefly explore why structured men’s groups are central to the MELD approach.
Many emotional defenses soften when men see them mirrored in other men. Group dynamics do three things that individual therapy alone sometimes cannot:
In these environments, men often discover how to give and receive secure attachment with other men before bringing that capacity back into their relationships.
This event is designed for therapists who:
George Faller is an EFT trainer, author, podcaster, and internationally recognized expert in Emotionally Focused Therapy. As a man who led men in the NYPD and NYFD, along with years of applying his training and experience with men to teach other therapists, George understands how to use a man’s coping mechanisms as tools for connection.
George and his podcast partner, Dr. Laurie Watson, will be releasing their book, Brave Love, Great Sex: Harnessing Attachment Theory for Passionate Relationships, on September 15.
Owen Marcus is co-founder of MELD and creator of the MELD Method, a somatic-relational approach used in men’s groups and therapy settings worldwide. His work focuses on helping men access emotional awareness through physiology, connection, and community. For three decades, he’s trained men, men’s groups, therapists, and businesses globally on how to use the body, emotions, and community as tools for connection.
A men’s group is a small, peer-to-peer gathering where men meet regularly to develop awareness, resilience, and relational capacity through shared experience. It is not based on advice-giving or instruction, but on participation, presence, and accountability over time.
No. Men’s groups are not therapy and do not diagnose or treat mental health conditions. They are peer-led spaces focused on lived experience, nervous-system regulation, and relational practice rather than clinical intervention.
Yes, when they are well-structured. Men’s groups tend to be effective because change happens through repeated, embodied, relational experience rather than insight alone. Groups that work with pace, safety, and repair are more likely to produce lasting change.
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Most men’s groups fail due to lack of structure, unclear purpose, or reliance on catharsis without integration. Without shared agreements, facilitation skills, and an orientation toward capacity-building, groups often drift or quietly dissolve.
Men’s groups are often joined by men who are functioning well on the outside but feel disconnected, stressed, or at a transition point in life. Many participants are professionals, partners, or leaders who want deeper stability, clarity, and connection.
No one is required to share anything. Participation is voluntary, and listening is considered a form of engagement. Over time, men often choose to speak more as trust and capacity increase, but disclosure is never forced.
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