Train to work with the most complex client in coaching — two people, one relationship, real conflict, in real time.
The couple is the client. The relationship is the field. You hold both partners with equal regard.
Available exclusively to members of the HWH® Coach Club.
Sooner or later, a client brings their relationship into the room — or arrives with their partner. It is the most complex configuration in the coaching profession: two clients at once, live conflict, competing narratives, and the constant pull to take a side. Most coach training never prepares you for any of it.
The most common failure in couples work. You coach one partner while the other watches, then swap. The relationship — the actual client — never gets held. Alliances form. Trust collapses.
Real conflict arrives in the room and you have no process for it. Worse: you miss coercive control, and a screening failure turns a coaching session into a safety event. This is where unprepared coaches do damage.
Couples will pay for skilled relational help, and there are far fewer ethically trained couples coaches than there are couples who need one. Competence here is scarce, valuable, and durable.
The most caring coach is not the one who says yes to every couple. It is the one who knows what they are qualified to hold — and has been trained to hold it.
Human Systems Architecture™ treats a couple as a living dyadic system — two whole human systems, interacting dynamically, producing a third thing between them. You are not coaching two individuals. You are tending the field they create.
Hold the dyad as client across the seven movements of Conscious Coevolution™, earning ICF Level 2/3-accredited coach-specific training hours toward your ICF credentialing.
Trained in scope and ethics, confidentiality and UPL limits, and the six-stage process to facilitate couples conflict within coaching scope. Informed by the ABA/AAA/ACR Model Standards.
One 40-hour offering. Two exit competencies. One credential — HWH-CMICC.
Not an individual. Not a team. A couple is a third thing — distinct from both, and governed by its own principles. Once you can see it, you cannot unsee it. And you stop making the mistake almost every coach makes.
Nor is the one doing most of the talking. Nor the one you happen to like. The client is the dyad — and the moment you forget that, the field knows before you do.
Every couple sits somewhere on it. Your first job is to see where — because you cannot coach a couple from where you wish they were, only from where they actually are.
Not neutrality — multipartiality. Fully for both partners at once, and the refusal of triangulation even when both of them are recruiting you. It is harder than it sounds, and it is the whole job.
Human Systems Architecture™ holds that a relationship is not a merger — it is an intersection. Two whole human systems, each with their own inner architecture, meeting in a shared field. The health of the couple depends on the wholeness each partner brings to it.
Which is why couples work is never only couples work. You will learn to hold the dyad and the two selves inside it — without collapsing into either.
The present moment is the intersection. Presence is the doorway. Integrity is the ground. Role is the structure. Mutuality is the dance.
Couples do not grow randomly. They move through a developmental arc — and a coach who knows the arc knows where a couple is, what comes next, and what it is too early to ask of them.
Naming them is the easy part. Knowing how to find a couple's entry point, sequence the movements, recognize when a couple has skipped one, and hold the field while they do the work — that is what the ten labs are for. It is taught in practice, under supervision, not in a paragraph on a website.
Where the mediation half comes from. The generative mediation methodology you will learn is informed by the broader literature — Fisher and Ury on principled negotiation, Bush and Folger on transformative mediation — and disciplined by the ABA / AAA / ACR Model Standards of Conduct for Mediators. You are not being handed a technique. You are being placed inside a tradition, and taught where its edges are.
So they can meet the challenges of their lives — through every season — with more skill and more confidence than they had before. Everything you deliver runs on the Agile Wellness™ Cycle: measure where a couple actually is, intervene with structure and support, then re-measure to reveal and celebrate what moved. Not a single breakthrough. A capacity they keep.
The Couples Pulse™ and DPI™ replace two competing stories with one shared picture. Not a diagnosis — a baseline. You cannot target what you have not located, and couples cannot argue with a mirror that belongs to neither of them.
The findings map to a specific entry point in the seven movements — so you are not guessing, and they are not doing generic relationship homework. Structured protocols, held by a trained coach, supported between sessions by the workbook, the eCourse, and Sofie™ in the app.
Retake the instrument. Show the delta. Couples stay when they can see their own progress, and repair compounds when a couple has evidence that they are capable of it. Celebration is not sentiment here — it is reinforcement, and it is what makes change hold.
Small shifts create systemic change. Then you inspect again — and use the new baseline as the starting point for the next phase of their journey together.
This is what separates measured coaching from hopeful coaching. Most couples coaches never find out whether their work actually helped. You will have the evidence to show for your efforts — and so will your clients.
The eCourse and the readings carry the conceptual teaching. Live Zoom time is used for embodied practice, role play, supervision-style reflection, and applied facilitation — because you cannot learn to hold two people in conflict by watching a slide about it.
Scope, stance, and ethical ground. The dyadic stance: the couple is the field, and you hold both partners with equal regard — not individual coaching with two people in the room.
IPV and coercive-control screening, the Red / Yellow / Green suitability matrix, informed consent, and referral language that lands as care.
The three-way agreement, dual-client confidentiality, caucus without collusion, and the coach–mediator boundary.
First contact and the initial session — starting point, desired future, game plan, held for two people at once.
Introducing instruments with permission; non-diagnostic debriefing; mapping assessment data to the seven movements.
The developmental arc of Conscious Coevolution™ — how the movements build, and how to find a couple's entry point.
The compressed six-stage decision process and the Constructive Influence Sequence™ — real conflict, in real time.
The Let It Out Lounge and Detox & Negotiation; structured venting that moves toward agreement rather than damage.
Closing, transfer of capacity, and designing the partnership the couple actually wants to live in.
The HWH® couples coach in practice — the full engagement, from discovery call to clean closing and continuing-care plan.
A one-week break falls after Week 7 — with an integration assignment — before you enter the repair and closing arc.
An entire class is devoted to the conditions that mean not this room, not yet. This is the part of couples work that separates a professional from an enthusiast — and it is the part that protects your clients, and you.
Red, Yellow, Green tells you whether to proceed. Four decisions tell you what to do: take · accommodate · defer · decline.
When safety is absent, safety is the framework. Conscious Coevolution™ assumes basic safety and mutual goodwill. When those are missing, the work is restoring safety first — somewhere else.
The 40 hours are the same either way: 20 live, 10 eCourse, 10 guided practice — held to the same ICF-accredited standard. What changes is the rhythm.
Build a personalized independent study plan with faculty, work the practitioner eCourse at your own pace, and earn your live hours in the Monday drop-in sessions — which run 35 weeks a year.
Ten weeks, one 2-hour live class per week, with a one-week break after Week 7 — and the same triads throughout. Cohort size is capped to protect practice quality.
Both routes require active HWH® Coach Club membership. Not sure which fits? Book a discovery call →
Monday drop-in sessions are offered 35 weeks a year. They do not run during scheduled institute breaks and holiday periods, and the published schedule is subject to change. Class days and times are announced per cohort.
Couples arrive with two competing stories about the same relationship. A validated instrument is the one thing in the room that belongs to neither of them — and that is exactly why it works. Assess to find out where things are. Intervene with structure. Reassess to measure and celebrate what moved. Then begin again from the new baseline.

The relational mirror — where the partnership actually stands, across the dimensions that predict whether it thrives or erodes.

The patterns beneath the fight. How each partner moves under pressure — and what happens when those patterns collide.

The validated, award-winning whole-person baseline — 28 dimensions, normed against 740+ participants. Because two whole people make the relationship.

Baseline, re-measure, and show the couple what actually moved. Everyone says they move the needle. We define what the needle is, and what it measures — then we move it.
You will learn to introduce instruments with permission, debrief without diagnosing, hold contradictory findings between partners, and map assessment data to the couple's entry point in the seven movements — a mirror, never a verdict.
Drawn from the Human Systems Architecture™ Series by Dr. Lisa Leit — the books your clients read, the craft books you work from, and the practitioner eCourse that carries the conceptual teaching. Digital editions are included with enrollment and delivered in the HWH App; print editions are on Amazon.
HSA™ for Couples — a guide for partners who want to grow, repair, and evolve together. The book your clients read.
The applied companion — a developmental journey for partners: reflection, repair, and relational growth.
The client-facing eCourse couples work through in the HWH App between your sessions.
The craft of couples and relationship coaching in HSA™ — including the proposed Couples Coaching Competency Framework.
The HWH® practitioner manual: protocols, session architectures, and the facilitation detail behind the craft.
Your asynchronous practitioner eCourse — 10 hours of modules that carry the conceptual teaching so live class is for practice.
A generative mediation guide for couples work — the six-stage process, and the line between coaching and mediation.
Couples work sits exactly where coaching, conflict, and ethics collide. It should be taught by someone who has practised in all three.

Dr. Lisa Leit is a Mediator — trained at The University of Texas School of Law — and a Certified Advanced Family Mediator (Worklife Institute), as well as an ICF Master Certified Coach — which is precisely the combination this work requires. Couples coaching fails at the seam between the two: coaches who cannot hold conflict, and mediators who cannot hold development. She teaches the seam.
She is the author of Conscious Coevolution™, Coaching the Conscious Couple, and From Coach to Mediator — the books this certification is built on — and the architect of the validated, award-winning Holistogram™ and the HWH® Couples Pulse™. Her Ph.D. research at the University of Texas at Austin was on measuring meaningful change in human systems; her clinical background spans more than 20 years.
She is also an EMCC-accredited coaching supervisor (ESIA), an ICF Mentor Coach, and an Association for Coaching Accredited Master Executive Coach. She teaches every live class herself.
ICF MCC
ICF ACTC
EMCC ESIA
AC Accredited
ABS
ACHE
M.npnHWH® coaching and leadership programs have been delivered inside some of the most demanding organizations in the world — and independently validated for outcomes.
Happy Whole Human® earned Validation for Outcomes from the Validation Institute (2022, Well-Being category). An independent review of a 30-participant cohort measured baseline-to-12-week change in self-perceived health status, work productivity, and turnover intention — finding a statistically significant increase in employees' intention to stay with their employer. Backed by the Validation Institute's Credibility Guarantee, and recognized with the HealthValue Award — Well-being.










The couples track is one part of the Human Systems Architecture™ Series — a connected ecosystem where every book, client eCourse, validated assessment, AI companion, and ICF-accredited training speaks the same language.
Through the HWH® Coach Club you leave with a delivery system: a licensed methodology, validated couples instruments, a co-branded client app, revenue infrastructure, and a community that co-creates rather than competes.
Your couples get the HWH App under your brand — the Couples Pulse™, the Conscious Coevolution™ eCourse, journals, and Sofie™, the AI companion built for relational work.
Delta reporting means couples can see their own movement — which is why they stay, why they refer, and why you can price on evidence rather than adjectives.
List your couples practice in the HWH marketplace and take referrals from an ecosystem actively selling into both consumer and enterprise markets.
revenue share on client app subscriptions
revenue share in your favor on eCourse sales
GDPR-compliant, privacy-first AI companions. Sofie™ supports couples between sessions; Clara™ copilots you. Context-intelligent companions trained on HWH methodology that read assessment data in real time — not generic chatbots. And the ethical line is taught explicitly: AI is reflective scaffolding. Coaches do not outsource ethical judgment, screening, assessment interpretation, referral, confidentiality, or session presence to AI.
The Couples Coaching Certification is available exclusively to HWH Coach Club members — one of the credential tracks your membership unlocks, not a course you buy on its own.
The HWH® All-Access Coach Club gives you lifetime access to ICF Level 1, Level 2, Level 3 and AATC Team Coaching — including this Couples track. You are not paying per course. You are joining an ecosystem.
Application + 3 professional references, reviewed by the HWH Director.
+ $99/month HWH Pro Membership
Level 1 is open enrollment — no application required.
Prefer to pay in full? $12,000 one-time and there is nothing ongoing. Or spread your investment with flexible installments:
Group & organizational pricing available on request. Questions? Book a discovery call →
Every class, every assignment, the screening protocol, the assessment lifecycle, the mediation scope and ethics, and the full competency map — the complete syllabus, in the HWH design.
We'll use your email to send the syllabus and occasional Coach Club updates. No spam — unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer to talk it through? Book a discovery call with Dr. Lisa Leit, MCC →
HWH® Mediation-Informed Couples Coaching Certification
The From Coach to Mediator pathway
Ten live classes · screening protocol · assessment lifecycle · mediation scope & ethics · PDF
Coaches who hold an active coaching credential or have completed an ICF-accredited coach training program — or who hold HWH Level 2 certification — and who want to work with romantic partners and relational systems. It is for coaches who want to do this ethically, with real conflict skill, rather than improvising with two people in the room.
Yes. 40 hours total: 20 live classroom hours (ten 2-hour classes), 10 asynchronous practitioner eCourse hours, and 10 guided reading, practice and reflection hours — delivered as ICF Level 2/3-accredited coach-specific training hours through the Happy Whole Human Institute. The mediation labs double-count as ICF-accredited coaching practice hours.
No — and this matters. This is mediation-informed coaching, not a mediator certification. Graduates may describe themselves as an "HWH® Certified Mediation-Informed Couples Coach (HWH-CMICC)," with ICF Level 2/3-accredited coach-specific training hours. Graduates should not hold themselves out as a "certified mediator," "court mediator," "family mediator," or "trained mediator," or describe themselves as holding a "legal mediation certification," unless they complete separate recognized mediation training. Graduates must separately meet the laws, training requirements, registration standards, and professional requirements of the jurisdiction in which they practice.
HWH® Mediation-Informed Coaching trainings prepare coaches and practitioners to support conflict transformation, communication, repair, and agreement design within coaching, leadership, relational, and team-development contexts. Completion of this program does not qualify graduates as legal, court-appointed, divorce, family, civil, or commercial mediators.
Either. The cohort runs ten weeks with one 2-hour live class per week and a one-week break after Week 7. The self-paced Fast Track lets you start any time with a personalized independent study plan, earning your live hours in the Monday drop-in sessions, which run 35 weeks a year. Same 40 hours, same standard, same credential. Ask about the next cohort →
It is not sold separately. It is one of the credential tracks unlocked by HWH® All-Access Coach Club membership: $12,000 one-time, or $5,000 one-time enrollment plus $199/month. Installments are available via Klarna, Afterpay, and Intuit Credit Karma; group and organizational pricing on request.
An entire class is devoted to it. You learn to screen for intimate partner violence and coercive control one partner at a time — never jointly — plus active addiction, acute mental-health concerns and suicidality, severe power imbalance, legal proceedings, and readiness asymmetry. You then use the Red / Yellow / Green suitability matrix to decide whether to take, accommodate, defer, or decline — and how to refer with care. When safety is absent, safety is the framework.
Enroll now to earn your ICF Level 2/3-accredited hours and the HWH-CMICC credential — and the license to deliver Conscious Coevolution™ with the partnership, platform, and support of the Institute behind you.
Two people. One relationship. Learn to hold it.
Enroll Now Join the Coach Club Download the Syllabus Book a Discovery Call