Hold Me Tight® is a two-day workshop that helps married couples deepen their emotional connection and strengthen their shalom bayis in a safe and culturally sensitive environment. The workshop is designed for married couples at any stage in their relationship, and offers tools to build closeness, understanding, and emotional safety in their marriage.

Based on Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), the workshop is not group therapy.  It combines teaching in a group setting and guided experiential conversations that couples complete privately with their spouse. This Hold Me Tight® workshop is tailored to the orthodox Jewish community and is in keeping with the sensitivities and values of frum couples. 

Debi Scimeca-Diaz, LMFT and JJ Rieder, LCSW are both experienced in working with the orthodox Jewish community, and are passionate about bringing the Hold Me Tight workshop to frum couples everywhere.

Who Should Attend

• Married couples at any stage of marriage
• Couples seeking to strengthen a good relationship
• Couples experiencing ongoing misunderstandings, distance, or tension
• Couples looking for an opportunity to pause the daily pressures of life and reconnect emotionally. 

Here is feedback from a Chassidish Williamsburg couple:

“When my husband brought home the paper about the Hold Me Tight workshop I became so mad and frustrated. I crushed the paper and started yelling. Please stop this right now. This workshop is not for me. I’ll never in my life expose myself to the public and let other people know that I’m struggling with my marriage when Chaim Tuchinsky (the workshop organizer) didn’t give up and tried to convince us to join. He explained that the fear last maybe for the first 15 minutes of the workshop. I couldn’t and didn’t believe him but what should I tell you thank you for being hashems good shliech for giving me the honor and opportunity to be with smart, lucky and brave couples to join this most wonderful workshop.  

A must for every Yiddish couple to join no matter how your marriage looks and if you ask me if the first 15 minutes of the workshop was scary, painful or shameful. I’ll be honest and say that all the fear and anxiety flew away the minute I passed the door into the conference room. 

It’s impossible to explain what it feels like and looks like to sit in a room with some vulnerable, brave and smart heimisha couples and for the first time feeling “I am not alone” “I am not the only one”.  

Marriage is a struggle which when you work on it and get the right understanding you get to really feel what real life and connection feels and looks like. 

If I would be able to change the world I would run around with a microphone on the street, shouting and begging every single couple no matter what good marriage you have and no matter how long you’ve been married for to gift themselves and join the most beautiful and meaningful workshop with Debi Scimeca-Diaz and JJ Rieder

Please do me a favor, if I was able to do it and wish to join another workshop you could also please reconsider. Do like me … close your eyes, don’t think about it and jump into it! It’s worth every penny! Can’t wait to see what you will say and write after joining. Good luck.”

No prior therapy experience is required.

Questions for February 22-23, 2026  Workshop: Contact JJ Rieder

jjrieder@gmail.com

 (732) 995-9812‬

Debi Scimeca-Diaz, LMFT spent the last 25 years helping couples build deeper connections. Relationships are the most powerful connections we encounter and can bring us great joy and happiness, as well as great pain and sorrow. We often get hurt in relationships, so it is in relationships where we heal. 

Debi spent the last 15 years training other therapists in EFT and leading Hold Me Tight® workshops. Her passion for helping couples is palpable.  She has been working in the Orthodox community for several years and is respectful and sensitive to the religious and cultural differences.

JJ Rieder, LCSW is an EFT couples therapist in private practice. After obtaining his social work degree in 2006, JJ completed his post-graduate training at The Ackerman Institute For the Family, where he specialized in couples and family therapy. Most recently, JJ has focused on bringing EFT to the forefront of couples therapy in the orthodox Jewish community, including assisting at trainings of other therapists and Co-leading Hold-Me-Tight workshops for frum couples. 

Cancellation Policy: Your registration fee is non-refundable. If an emergency arises please reach to us as soon as possible.