Imago Clinical Training • South Africa 2026
Train with Kobus van der Merwe in the Imago clinical pathway: a rigorous route for clinically trained professionals who want to help couples move from reactivity into connection through a clear relational method.
Why this training
Imago Relationship Therapy is a structured therapeutic approach that helps couples turn conflict into connection by building communication, empathy, and emotional safety.
The training teaches clinicians to think relationally: the relationship itself becomes the focus of change. Instead of getting pulled into blame, advice, or parallel monologues, you learn to hold a safe process where partners can listen, mirror, validate, empathize, and reconnect.
The relational paradigm
Imago helps clinicians shift the focus from two separate individuals arguing about content to the living relational space between them, where safety, reactivity, repair, and connection actually happen.
In the relational paradigm, the therapist does not simply treat two individuals in the same room. The clinical focus becomes the pattern between partners: how they protect, pursue, withdraw, criticise, long, repair, and reconnect.
When partners feel unsafe, the nervous system moves into protection. Imago gives the clinician a structure that slows the exchange down, reduces threat, and makes vulnerable sharing possible again.
Repeated frustrations are not treated as proof that the couple is broken. They become doorways into unmet needs, childhood adaptations, lost parts of the self, and the growth each partner is being invited into.
The Imago Dialogue moves partners from parallel monologues into a structured encounter. Mirroring helps the sender feel heard. Validation helps each partner recognise the logic of the other's world. Empathy helps the couple reconnect emotionally, even when they still disagree.
What you learn
The curriculum is grounded in the core Imago competencies: relational thinking, safety, dialogue, reactivity work, developmental understanding, and the therapist's own clinical presence.
Facilitate mirroring, validation, and empathy so partners can move from defensive response into accurate listening and connection.
Work with escalation, withdrawal, negativity, and survival responses while keeping the clinical space grounded and safe.
Understand how unmet needs, childhood adaptations, and the Imago match shape attraction, conflict, and the path toward repair.
Develop attunement, curiosity, non-judgment, and the ability to keep the energy between the partners rather than centering the therapist.
Guide couples toward conscious partnership through vision, appreciation, behavior change requests, and positive flooding.
Use supervision, reports, video review, and workshop assisting to move from training knowledge into certified clinical competence.
The path
Step into the method as a participant, learn the clinical skills in depth, practise with supervision, and complete the certification requirements with guidance along the way.
Start with the free webinar on 12 August at 7pm South African time. It explains the Imago clinical route and helps you decide whether this training fits your work.
Register for the webinarCertification requires participation in a Getting The Love You Want couples experience led by a certified presenter. This gives trainees a felt experience of the model before certifying in it.
September 2026 (exact dates TBD). Hybrid, online or face to face in Pretoria. Core Imago Dialogue skills: mirroring, validation, empathy, and structured clinical relationship process.
R2,500. Credited toward the Clinical Track if you continue.
Dates confirmed after intake. Relationship vision, caring behaviours, parent-child work, behaviour change requests, and deeper clinical facilitation.
Dates confirmed after intake. Positive flooding, advanced facilitation, re-romanticising, and integration of the full Imago clinical method into therapeutic practice.
Structured supervision supports practical application, consultation, written integration, and preparation for certification video review.
Submit a final clinical video for evaluation, assist at a Getting The Love You Want couples workshop, complete the certification requirements, and represent yourself as a Certified Imago Relationship Therapist once approved.
Registration and pricing
Early bird pricing ends 29 July. Start with Fundamentals, book the training only, or choose a package that includes supervision and the couples workshop requirement.
2-day Introduction. Experience the training firsthand with zero pressure to continue.
View curriculumEarly bird: R24,500. Normal: R26,950.
Enquire to registerEarly bird with supervision and video: R30,250. Normal: R34,150.
See package detailsEarly bird with workshop included: R37,750. Normal: R44,150.
See all pricing
Your trainer
Kobus van der Merwe is a Senior Faculty member of the Imago International Training Institute. He brings depth to clinical formation through more than 23,000 hours of couples therapy and more than 400 Imago workshops.
In 2016, he received the Harville Hendrix Award for Clinical Excellence. His teaching emphasizes the relational paradigm, disciplined clinical process, and the kind of embodied presence clinicians need when couples are reactive, defended, or longing to reconnect.
Fit
September 2026 clinical intake • October 2026 facilitator cohort
Join the free webinar on 12 August, then apply for the clinical pathway if the training fits your work and professional background.