The Maine Relationship Institute Approach
A Dynamic Approach
Couples Counseling & Individual Counseling in Maine and Beyond
The Maine Relationship Institute (MRI) was founded on a drive to assist individuals and couples as they strive to improve their relationships.
In therapy sessions, MRI supports clients by helping them identify issues that affect intimacy and connection.
Individuals and couples can refine their relationship dynamics to create more satisfying and fulfilling interpersonal experiences that make drastic changes for generations to come.
Working with parents, MRI wants to support those who wish to step out of conventional parenting modalities and into a unique family space they can define as their own.
MRI’s founder, Ben Borkan, is licensed and takes clients in Maine, Colorado, and Massachusetts.
MRI specializes in working with people who may be experiencing:
Becoming New Parents
Sex & Intimacy Issues
Affair/Infidelity Problems
Couples & Relationship Conflicts
Communication Breakdown
Loss of Connection & Intimacy
LGBTQ+ Relationship Dynamics
Gender Identity Exploration
Sexuality Exploration
Anxiety & Depression
Trauma
Our Therapies
With an emphasis on Crucible Therapy®, MRI helps you develop better ways of relating to yourself and one another by helping you increase your capacity for intimacy and passion.
Crucible Therapy leads you along pathways that bring you closer together and into more intimate connection with others.
Crucible ® Therapy
With Crucible Therapy®, we can ask questions such as
What do I want?
What do my partner or the people in my life want?
What are each of us doing to get what we each want
How collaborative can I be with my partner or others in my life?
Can they and I cope with not getting what we each need?
Gestalt Therapy
Gestalt Therapy is built upon two central ideas
The experiential present moment is the most helpful, and everyone is caught in the webs of relationships.
Therefore, truly knowing ourselves is only possible in the context of our relationship with others.*
*Latner, J. (2000). "The Theory of Gestalt Therapy," in Gestalt therapy: Perspectives and Applications, Edwin Nevis (ed.). Cambridge, MA: Gestalt Press.
Rewire obstacles to authenticity and intimacy
“Step into those complex emotions and find ways to soothe those feelings as you express and hear difficult things in your relationships.”
With this in mind, "the work" at MRI is to help each individual feel comfortable recognizing how they break contact with their partner or people in their life. Part of this is first examining how honest we are with ourselves.
When people are honest with themselves and can then find a way to be honest with their partners or others, deep contact is made.
Such contact can equate to being seen, bring up feelings of vulnerability, and lead to fear and anxiety. Still, the dynamics of Crucible ® Therapy want you to step into those complex emotions, tolerate them, and find ways to manage those feelings as you express and hear difficult things in your relationships.
This approach is less about conventional communication skills or interpersonal problem-solving skills and more about personal growth to discover deeper and better relationships.
MRI’s Background
Since 2012, the founder of The Maine Relationship Institute (MRI) has worked with individuals, couples, families, & groups.
Using professional experience and relationship training, the goals have remained the same: support people as they better see themselves, connect with others, and ultimately, work on relationship issues.
Issues within the relationship dynamic are not considered pathological but are viewed as normal growth pathways.
Ben Borkan, MRI founder, has experience in clinical social work, counseling, and relationship training, including evidence-based Crucible ® Marital & Sex Therapy and Gestalt Therapy.
Ben Borkan, MRI founder