About - Marriage Counselors - The Couples College

When Allie met Murray...

In 2008, Allie was looking for office space to do marriage counseling and called Murray, to see if he would be willing to share.

With that simple beginning, Murray and Allie would build a deep friendship and business collaboration based on their passion for understanding and supporting intimate partnerships.

Murray Dabby is a licensed clinical social worker who has been helping couples, individuals and groups develop their relationships for over 30 years. With a deep appreciation for the joy of committed partnership, he views relationships as a beautiful performance that we can write, direct and creatively improvise.

Murray's Marriage Journey

"I have been married for 24 years. We have similar sensibilities and temperaments, which created a solid foundation for our relationship, but our marriage did become stale. We faced the challenges many couples face -- health issues, pregnancy, work interference -- and over time, we realized we'd become good roommates, instead of intimate partners.

"The couples training I received was instrumental in revitalizing my own partnership. We worked together to push the envelope, to increase our sense of connection. Our friendship deepened and that kick-started a new love affair between the two of us. We're still enjoying our ongoing love affair, even with our busy lives and more than two decades together. "

Allison Caffyn is a licensed professional counselor and a certified Hakomi therapist who has been in professional practice for more than 20 years. She is a passionate therapist who loves supporting couples in building loving and intimate relationships that last a lifetime.

Allie's Marriage Journey

"I've been married nearly 25 years, but it hasn't always been easy. Even though I loved my husband, I struggled with our differences and wondered more than once if I'd just picked the wrong person.

"My husband and I had been through traditional couples counseling, weekend retreats, but we still fell back into boredom, conflict and disconnection. The couples training I sought out changed my professional life and profoundly changed my marriage as well. Today, there is nowhere I would rather be, and no one to whom I'd rather be married! He holds all my good and difficult qualities and still adores me. I look forward to growing old with him."

Marriage Counseling Credentials:

Masters in Clinical Social Work, Columbia University
Licensed Clinical Social Worker
Gottman Couples Training Level 2
Certified Gottman Seven Principles Program Educator
Adjunct Faculty, Whitney M. Young Jr. School of Social Work
Board Member, Society for Integration of Spirituality and Psychotherapy

Marriage Counseling Credentials:

Masters in Counseling and Psychological Services, Georgia State University
Licensed Professional Counselor
Certified Hakomi Therapist
Gottman Couples Training Level 3
Relational Life Therapy Methodology under Terry Real
Tammy Nelson training in sex therapy with couples

Our Participants Share Their Insights

Sydney and I have been married now for almost a year. We took your 10 month course prior to because we were in love, had a child prior to our marriage, and wanted to know how to work together to be at our best when we were faced with challenges.

Your course sincerely reinforced our positive attributes together and also taught us new ways to handle common issues that happen to most couples—including us!

Instead of fielding our issues with our own precognitions, we are now able to draw on your research based, proven methods to work through challenges and strengthen our relationship in the process.

All told, there is no price we could put on stability, resilience, and the knowledge that most couples have similar challenges to others and there are proven ways to work through them as a team.

--Sydney & Chad

I left a marriage that failed because neither of us were able to be intimate, so that over time we grew apart until eventually we were in a lifeless relationship that existed solely to raise our children, and in which we were both emotionally dead. I did not want to repeat this in my next relationship, and so my new partner and I came to Couples College to work on the skills required to be in intimate relationship with each other at the beginning of our relationship. Over the ten months of the class we learned and practiced techniques and skills that were invaluable, and we really benefited from the conversation with other class participants of our respective experiences. This was a completely invaluable class. I can think of two or three separate occasions working on exercises with my partner in the class itself when we had blinding "Aha!" moments and saw clearly what was underneath what promised to be persistent problems in our relationship. Of course we had many other moments like this when working together on our homework. Seeing through our issues and potential issues with such clarity and cultivating the skills to talk and stay in relationship through them are wonderful gifts, and we both offer our enormous gratitude to the designers and instructors, Allie and Murray.

--Gareth

This class properly identifies issues that many relationships endure and gives proven techniques of how to work through those challenges together as a couple acting for the betterment of the relationship.

- Chad, married 5 years

Class has been a catalyst to our relationship working.

- Christine, married 5 years

It's one of the most practical and effective workshops I've ever done.

- Lorena, Therapist, married 32 years

By attending this workshop you will absolutely learn more about your partner and will understand more about why something is or isn’t working in your relationship.

- Christina, psychotherapist, lesbian partnership

Murray and Allie taught me that a successful relationship is not defined by each of us having stopped all the things that made the other made. It's knowing how to kindly respond when someone messes up.

Excellent guide to relationship, eye opening

- Gwen, social worker, 1 year partnered, trying to figure the future out

I think every couple before marriage should take this class. Our arguments declined and we were able to bounce back.

- Meg, teacher, married 6 years

I understand why I need to control my frustration with my partner and be more patient in helping him understand my perspective.

This class helped implement great exercises and practices for our marriage. I will make an honest effort to really focus using "I" instead of "U" conflict can be great, it's just how you do it.

- Sydney, married 3 years