To meet the many requests for the Boot Camp treatment demonstrated on three Oprah Winfrey shows, Dr. Steven Stosny is pleased to repeat his highly successful group version. (Register early; group boot camps typically fill up fast.)

Healing Identity

The boot camp will help you develop a Healing Identity. The opposite of victim identity, which is focus on damage, hurt, and bad things you’ve suffered, Healing Identity is focus on your resilience, strengths, and desire to improve your life.

Because you have been hurt and most likely have walked on eggshells in your relationship, you have an impulse to be resentful, angry, critical, blaming, controlling, or abusive.  As you develop a strong Healing Identity, you recognize that such behaviors cut you off from your core value and your true self. You will not waste your precious time blaming but will identify with your innate capacity to build value and meaning in your life.

The boot camp gives you all the skills you need to keep the following commitment:

The negative effects of walking on eggshells can persist for years and almost certainly will have a negative effect on the children in the family. Take the Walking on Eggshells Quiz

Boot Camp Content

The Boot Camp produces dramatic change in a short time for those who do the work. The tone is healing, not accusatory, compassionate not blaming, valuing not devaluing, and, most of all, empowering. The first two days focus on self-healing and developing core value and self-compassion. The last day focuses on relationship repair.

The Boot Camp is the emotional equivalent to basic training in the military. You undergo rigorous exercises that teach you to regulate emotions under stress. You build skills for dealing with anger and resentment that will hold under the stress of conflicts with your family. You will master HEALS, which, after a few weeks of practice, eliminates most resentment and virtually all abusive impulses. Drawing on his 20 years of experience treating more than 6,000 clients, Dr. Stosny teaches:

• How to recover from the pain of chronic resentment, anger, or emotional abuse and reclaim your natural sense of competence, confidence, and compassion
• How to stop resentment, anger, or emotional abuse from hurting your children
• How to be the person and partner you most want to be
• How to be motivated by your deepest values

What you’ll learn:

• You can be abusive without intending to be
• The latest scientific knowledge of how emotions work
• The hidden role of fear and shame in relationships

In addition, you’ll learn how to:  

• Remove the thorns from your heart and regain your true self
• Automatically regulate resentment, anger, and the impulse to abuse
• Replace power struggles with mutual empowerment
• Establish a deeper connection based on compassion
• Prevent relapse
• Know whether your partner’s change is permanent

Note: The boot camp is not for active domestic violence, which needs ongoing monitoring. Only those who have not been violent for at least six months and who vow never to be violent again may attend.

Getting Your Partner to Attend a Boot Camp

Chronic Resentment, Anger, or Emotional Abuse Breeds Self-Loathing

Testimonials from Participants: “My husband and I are so grateful for Dr. Stosny and his program. Both of our lives have dramatically changed for the better. I have also received a tremendous physical healing since the Boot Camp. I have suffered terribly with Fibromyalgia for many years but since I began Dr. Stosny’s program, all of my FM pain and symptoms have gone. My doctors are amazed and so am I. Thank you, Dr. Stosny!”

“Attending Dr. Stosny’s Stop Walking on Eggshells Workshop was a life-changing experience. First, I learned that my husband and I were both walking on eggshells, and this class was applicable to both of us. Though the abuse was his problem, we both were angry and resentful towards each other. We arrived fairly hopeless and unsure of what to expect. Since the workshop, we have a newfound peace in our home and appreciation for each other. We have re-discovered compassion for each other. I have learned how to stop walking on eggshells. I have learned how to care for myself which allows me to care for others. Thank you Dr. Stosny. I can"t recommend this program enough!”

“I went to the seminar hoping my husband could change...I left realizing it I was who had the power to change, it was I who needed to have compassion, not only for my husband but mostly for myself. Thank you Dr. Stosny for showing me there is so much life to live. Now even the smallest things I see mean so much, realizing that I have been created to enjoy this and so much more. Because of you I am slowly realizing the value in so so much....more importantly the value in myself.”

“Dr. Stosny’s approach to changing the patterns of emotional and verbal abuse works; regardless of the role you have in the relationship. I have hope for the first time in many years. He gave me practical tools to apply to my relationship.”

“Dr. Stosny taught us how to stop the abuse as well as how to open the door to a happier, healthier and more compassionate relationship with our loved ones and with everyone else in our lives. I witnessed and experienced, first hand, the success of Dr. Stosny’s brilliant program. I recommend Dr. Stosny’s program to anyone and everyone.”

“My husband and I attended the Boot Camp this past January and it was an amazingly positive experience. Our marriage/relationship has made quantum leaps in the areas of respecting and valuing each other and our children. The ‘reconnection’ aspect of the program has been awesome. There’s so much more fun, connectedness and compassion in our relationship. Everyone in our family is a ‘happier camper.’ Dr. Stosny is a genius. I recommend his Boot Camp to every couple.”

“I am so grateful to Dr. Stosny. You were able to reach my husband in a way no one ever has before, and he said so. And I am working on my approaches from new ways that you taught.”

“I just want to say that I believe in what you are doing! I believe that this was the only way to help my husband. He had gone to two different anger management counselors (court ordered for a year at a time). They never helped. The counseling we started would always end when it seemed like the counselor would start to deal with him and what he needed to change and work on. It was a venting session and he would try to portray me as the villain and it was all my fault—he had reasons to justify his actions. I have gotten an extra book and given it to my counselor. I am reading the information over and over and pick up some more every time. Thank you for all that you did and have done. May God Bless you greatly!

"The boot camp has been one of the most rewarding experiences for my husband and myself. After being in a verbally and emotionally abusive relationship for many years this was my FIRST experience that showed me that there is LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL!!  Compassion Power is a tool I that engages both partners and for the first time gave my spouse an understanding on what is going on so that both of us are able to acknowledge and do the necessary work to repair and recover from the state of anger and resentment. I have sought many years of counseling and participated in support groups of people who are angry, resentful and full of emotions.... and most of these feel very strongly about getting even with the spouse.  The (boot camp) materials and the technique of HEALS are a LIFE CHANGING EXPERIENCE!!"

"We both feel much safer and much happier with each other and with our relationship than we did before the boot camp. We both got far more than we ever imagined out of the boot camp- without a doubt the best money we ever spent on our relationship. The boot camp gave us our relationship back, and helped us be the selves and have the relationship we always dreamed we could have. I recommend the boot camp to everyone I meet who is struggling with anger and resentment in their relationship. I have never seen anything else that could turn a relationship around once it got into a cold or angry stalemate."

“Dr. Stosny has a brilliant program. He is a dynamic and fascinating lecturer, with a strong knowledge base in psychology, neuropsychology, anthropology, and animal behavior. His program for abusers is the work of a genius…and it is proving to be the most successful program for the abusers out there.”

From Redbook:

"I was about to separate from Steve for the third time in our marriage when he announced he was going to a Smart Marriages Conference in Denver. Frankly, I doubted that a short conference would make any difference. When he came home, though, I noticed an immediate change: He didn't yell, and he was very affectionate. When he mentioned that Dr. Steven Stosny, the program's founder, also offered a three-day-long boot camp, I thought he should definitely go. If one day did this much, what could three days do? The answer: a miracle. After boot camp, Steve was able to admit for the first time in 20 years the damage and pain he had caused, and he became willing to work on healing our marriage. It wasn't easy; it took a full year for me to feel sure that Steve's anger issues were no longer a part of our relationship. But it was worth it.

"Today, we love spending time with each other, and we even teach a class at our church to help couples improve their marriages. We celebrated our renewed connection by finally taking that seven-day cruise, and this time, I was more than happy to be stuck with Steve in the middle of the ocean.

"Steve: Amy and I used to fight about everything. Over the course of our marriage, I became increasingly demanding and raised my voice if I felt like I wasn't heard, which would cause Amy to shut down and get scared. When she canceled our cruise because she didn't want to be alone with me for seven days, it was a big wake-up call. I wasn't ready to give up on us, so I went online and literally went shopping for advice and professionals that could help us in a short amount of time. I came across a conference called Smart Marriages. I was looking for an experience that was different from our failed marriage counseling sessions.

"The conference helped me accept that I had an anger problem, and while there, I discovered that Dr. Stosny offers a three-day boot camp specifically for men to learn how to handle anger. At the camp, I practiced responding to hurt feelings with compassion instead of anger. I basically trained my brain with a new choice — to protect my wife instead of responding in anger. Over time, Amy has grown to trust and feel safe with me because I've stopped raising my voice, and I try to meet her needs. She associates me with positive feelings instead of negative ones. It's absolutely worth doing, and I'm so glad I did."

What happened to love, honor and cherish? There"s help for marriages mired in mutual resentment" - article about the boot camp in the St. Paul Pioneer Press

Single registration $699

If accompanied by spouse $869