Master the Art & Science of Working with Individuals
Are you a helping professional or teacher looking to enhance your capacity to support your clients or students? As a manager, would you like to help your employees work with greater ease and clarity? Are you seeking a new profession where you determine your own success and work in an environment of your choice while making a lasting difference in the lives of individuals around you? In Mentor Certification, you’ll gain mastery of the Option Process® Dialogue, a proven, acclaimed technique that offers an unparalleled capacity to help individuals uncover and clarify limiting beliefs that cause undesired emotions and behaviors. You’ll experience the exhilaration and delight of helping others become clear, confident and empowered in ways that exceed their expectations. You’ll acquire extraordinary skills and techniques that will expand who you are and widen your impact in the world. Best of all, you’ll establish a new frame of reference by which you view yourself and the world around – the capabilities used to help others will become invaluable in helping yourself.
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The Mentor Certification Program is a four-week, non-stop, deep plunge into the Option Process Dialogue and into the depth that you are as an individual. You’ll eat, drink, breath and even dream the Option Process Dialogue.
In Mentor Certification you’ll learn how to:
- Employ a highly respectful and effective system of questions specifically designed to transform discomfort, distress and self-limiting behaviors into clarity, serenity and self-empowerment
- Master and maintain an accepting, nonjudgmental and nondirective attitude that establishes an ideal context for others to understand
- Explore and change feelings, behaviors and beliefs
- Remain relaxed, poised and comfortable regardless of the attitudes and challenges a client might bring to the table
- Help clients, colleagues and friends uncover and change their beliefs, and through doing so, change the way they act and feel
- Counseling for Self Help and Self Reliance: What you should expect
During the program you’ll experience:
- Daylong and evening sessions, frequently mentoring two or more times per day
- Expert instruction from Option Institute® Co-Founders Barry (Bears) Neil Kaufman and Samahria Lyte Kaufman, along with our world-class teaching team at The Option Institute
- A senior staff advocate and coach to help you stay motivated and empowered
- A highly skilled peer group dedicated to challenge and support you at every turn
- Private accommodations including all meals and laundry services
- A large group of motivated volunteers for daily mentoring practice
The Core of What we Teach
A letter from the Co-Founder of the Option Institute – Barry Neil Kaufman“At the Option Institute, we teach people unique and practical tools to build the life experience they desire. How?
“It begins with a radical departure from everything we’ve been taught. Many of us have heard of the popular psychological model of stimulus-response. The dog barks, I get scared. My friend compliments me, I feel happy. This model has helped spawn a culture where we see our emotions and experiences as being caused by people and events around us. As a result, we often try to change our circumstances and the people around us so that we can feel good or, at least, not feel bad.
“This approach leaves most of us feeling like victims. We believe that if we could just get our loved ones to treat us right, or our finances to increase, or the roads to be traffic-free, we would feel better. But there’s always something else. Even without major life events such as divorce, bankruptcy, illness or loss of a loved one, many of us experience deep distress and discomfort.
“The Option Institute modifies the stimulus-response paradigm with a simple twist. We introduce a third component: BELIEF. Every stimulus that elicits a response from us is first filtered and processed by one or more beliefs. As our beliefs change, so do our responses and experiences. This simple shift changes everything in our lives, moving us from the passenger’s seat into the driver’s seat. We call this new paradigm the Happiness GPS® because it helps you identify where you are and allows you to navigate to where you want to go (In terms of your own happiness and emotional well-being).
“For instance, two parents watching their daughter getting married can have different experiences – one is happy and the other is distressed. How do we explain two people witnessing the same event (the same stimulus) having diametrically opposed responses? Simple – each one holds different beliefs that filter their experience of the wedding. One sees it as wonderful – believing that their daughter will be happy and the family will grow. The other sees it as terrible – believing they are losing their daughter and that they will be lonely without her. This simple illustration is a microcosm of the myriad ways our beliefs determine every response, from joy to anger, from kissing to shouting.
“The good news is: our beliefs are changeable. Our experience with thousands of people from across the globe has shown us that, when people use the tools that we provide, known collectively as The Option Process, they are able to uncover the beliefs fueling their responses and the underlying reasons for their beliefs. Moreover, they are able to change the beliefs that may be generating unhappiness, dysfunctional relationships or ineffective behaviors.
“In our highly interactive courses, we help people address ongoing challenges, find peace with catastrophic events, build more satisfying relationships and become efficient and effective at achieving their desires and dreams. We believe that the most effective way to help people change is to provide them with tools and opportunities to change, in an environment where they are completely accepted as they are, whether or not they change. We are happy to be, for many, the one place in the world where they can find just that.”
Sincerely, 
(Barry Neil Kaufman), Co-founder of the Option Institute and Autism Treatment Center of America
Learn more about What we Teach.
Using the Happiness GPS®
| Stimulus | Belief | Response |
|---|---|---|
| MY BOSS YELLS AT ME | I’M GOING TO GET FIRED | FEELING–FEAR BEHAVIOR–AVOID BOSS, JITTERY, ON EDGE AROUND HIM |
| CHOLESTEROL LEVEL IS HIGH | I’M PRONE TO A HEART ATTACK | FEELING–ANXIETY BEHAVIOR–CAN’T SLEEP |
| MY PARTNER TELLS ME HE/SHE LOVES ME | I’M WORTHWHILE | FEELING–ELATION BEHAVIOR–HUG, KISS PARTNER |
| CAR IS REAR-ENDED | WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN TO ME NOW | FEELING–ANGER BEHAVIOR–YELL AT DRIVER |
| I YELL AT MY KIDS | I’M A BAD PARENT | FEELING–GUILT BEHAVIOR–AVOID BEING WITH KIDS |
Happiness I.Q.®
Definition: The measurement of a person’s capacity to choose emotional comfort and happiness irrespective of the stimulus. Happiness I.Q. is determined by core belief structures about ourselves and our ability to decide how we feel and what we think.Low Happiness I.Q. Beliefs:
- I can’t choose how I feel. It depends on what happens (the stimulus).
- I have to be unhappy, angry, worried, or upset in order to do what it takes to take care of myself, my child, etc.
- It’s only human to get unhappy when things don’t go the way I want.
- My mind just does what it does and thinks what it thinks. I can’t control it.
- I am how I am. I have a limited capacity to change.
High Happiness I.Q. Beliefs:
- How I feel isn’t determined by what happens (the stimulus), but by my beliefs about what happens.
- I don’t need to get unhappy, angry, worried, or upset in order to take care of myself, my child, etc.
- There isn’t one predetermined “human” way to respond to things. I respond the way I want to respond,
- I am the pilot of my mind and the creator of my thoughts and beliefs.
- Since I decide who and how I am, and since I can always make new decisions,
Option Process® Dialogue: Introductory Questions to raise your Happiness I.Q.®
- What is the stimulus?
- How do I feel about the stimulus?
- Why do I feel this way?
- What is my belief?
- Why do I believe that?
- All beliefs are changeable.
- Use the above questions to help yourself uncover your beliefs. Ask yourself these questions in the most caring and accepting way possible.
- Uncover the belief and choose whether you want to continue to hold it or change it for a new belief.
- Change the belief and you change the feeling.
Read Reviews of this program.
Read Reviews of this program’s teachers.
Dear Bears, Samahria, Raun, Beverly and Clyde, Stan, and of course, Zoe! I thought I would write notes of thanks to each of you, but as I think of one, I think of all. There is love and power in the group you have created. You are all so passionately and perfectly living ‘The Option Attitude’, teaching through your living example and your superb execution of the Option Process® Dialogue, so the laser sharp clarity, powerful commitment and conviction of the group have become so much greater than the sum of its parts – a force of nature that I celebrate in love. My wildest dreams could not have hinted at the bigness of the gift I gave myself in participating in the Mentor Certification program you so lovingly created. I’ve never been happier! From the moment I left the Option Institute after graduation, you have been in my thoughts. Each of you, all of you, every morning as I open my eyes in gratitude for another day to joyfully play in. Every morning as I ask myself what my intention is, I think of you. Throughout my day as I check in to see how accepting and happy I am with myself and the world around me, I think of you. If my answer is ‘yes’, I’m living my intention. If my answer is ‘no’, a quick question of ‘what do I want more – the unhappiness or whatever it is that I’m using the unhappiness to get?’, has become my quick-draw tool of choice to help me crystallize and go after what I want. I embrace you throughout my travels beautifully wrapped in the sublime glow of your smiles, words and footsteps. Yes, yeah, yippy, thank you, each of you, all of you!
– Roe Dibona, Restaurant Manager & Certified Option Process Mentor/Counselor, New Jersey
What Can You Do After Certification?
As a certified Option Process Mentor, you can:- Help others using the same process and philosophy that has helped thousands to transform their lives
- Enhance your career with a wealth of new tools and skills
| Advocacy | Counseling with Juvenile & Adult Offenders | Mergers & Acquisitions |
| Aging / Gerontology | Crisis Intervention | Nursing |
| Assessment and Testing | Executive Coaching | Psychiatric Nursing |
| Athletic Coaching | Family Abuse | Personal Coaching |
| Bereavement Counseling | Guidance Counseling | Physician |
| Career Counseling | Health Counseling | Psychology |
| Case Management | Hospice Care | Psychotherapy |
| Child Abuse | Life Coaching | Children & Adolescents |
| Medical Professionals | Managed Care | School Counseling |
| Community & Agency Counseling | Management/Admin | Social Work |
| Conflict Resolution | Marriage & Family Counseling | Special Needs |
| Corporate Integration | Mediation | Substance Abuse Counseling |
| Union Representatives |