Couples/Marriage Intensives

Is Your Relationship In Distress Or In Need Of Focused Attention?

Does your relationship require uninterrupted, dedicated time and space to heal and overcome barriers?

Would you accomplish more in couples therapy if your sessions were longer and more concentrated?

Are you interested in accomplishing six months or more worth of weekly sessions in just two days?

Sign that says "You didnt come this far to only come this far""

Couples therapy intensives through my practice offer a meaningful opportunity to retreat together and achieve significant progress in a short period of time. Whether you and your partner are working through ongoing conflict, navigating a crisis in the relationship, or simply looking to reduce the overall time spent in therapy, an intensive is a great way to focus energy and attention on your relationship.

What Kinds Of Couples Benefit From Intensive Therapy?

I began embracing intensive therapy for the couples I work with upon recognizing the shortcomings of weekly sessions. Many of my clients were in immediate crisis or too busy to commit to regular therapy, so I knew I had to offer something immersive, structured, and focused on core tasks and issues.

Intensives are a great option for any couple addressing years of communication breakdown and liberating relationship patterns that have been in a deadlock for years. In instances of betrayal, addiction, and/or other life changes, concentrated therapy can produce more immediate results and relief than standard counseling. And marriage intensives are particularly useful for couples who may be at the end of their rope, considering separation or divorce.

Designed to facilitate fast and sustaining change, my intensives structure three to six months of weekly therapy into an extensive two-day session—offering hope, clarity, and momentum to unlock the potential of your relationship.

How Can My Couples And Marriage Intensives Help You?

Beyond the effectiveness of the therapy itself, the strength of couples intensives lies in the immersive experience couples have. Free of life’s distractions and the disruptive stops and starts of standard counseling, the couples I’ve worked with report increased capacity to engage in deep learning and self-discovery, paving the way for insightful action and change that sticks. This immersive practice also creates the conditions to process difficult experiences where healing can be experienced in the room.

My approach to intensives is multidisciplinary, incorporating visual, auditory, experiential, and creative exercises to maximize your experience. These exercises lay the foundation for insight (Day One) and action (Day Two).

What To Expect

Included in the intensive package for each couple is:

A 60-minute consultation call to determine if an intensive is right for you
A personalized therapeutic experience, guided by pre-intensive questionnaires that you and your partner will fill out ahead of time
Psychoeducation surrounding attachment and bonding, emotional regulation/your window of tolerance, the neuroscience of relationships, effective communication, repairs that work, and the developmental model of relationships
Skills building through practicing and coaching in real time during the session
A custom guidebook complete with exercises, resources, and actionable tools that can be used in day-to-day life
A two-hour follow-up session to discuss and reinforce progress

For the two days your intensive is scheduled, you can expect to meet from 9 am to 5 pm, with a 90-minute lunch to break up the day.

What You’ll Gain

Intensives are the key to quickly and sustainably identifying core issues affecting your relationship and your role in creating unhealthy relationship dynamics. By engaging focused, uninterrupted attention on your relationship, a couples intensive can help you and your partner:

Learn to manage one another’s emotional highs and lows
Identify recurring conflicts and learn how to overcome them
Better tolerate differences in an effort to stay close and connected
Reconcile discrepancies in commitment, finances, sex, parenting, etc.
Address betrayals and other injuries that may be affecting your ability to feel safe and secure in the relationship
Develop positive attitudes for change and wellness
Create an actionable roadmap for the relationship you aspire to create

So often in relationships, we lose sight of the big picture in favor of what feels good in the moment. Intensives can be beneficial for grounding you firmly in the big picture of your relationship, values, aspirations, and vision for your life. As you learn skills for managing discord and distress in real-time, you can learn to do the right thing even when it’s hard.

Common Concerns About Couples Intensives…

Is the intensive format right for us?

Intensives are an especially good fit if you’re experiencing high levels of stress in your relationship and the deadlock you find yourselves in is threatening the future of your marriage or partnership.

Intensives are also a good fit if you’re going through a major life transition and prefer to get the answers you need in two days rather than spending months trying to figure it out.

Lastly, intensives are a great alternative to traditional weekly sessions if your and your partner’s schedules are difficult to coordinate week in and week out.

Intensives sound exhausting–I’m worried we’ll feel overwhelmed by the process.

That is a very understandable concern; the idea of spending 12 hours in two days working on your relationship can be intimidating. The good news is that the immersive experience gives each partner the space to work at their own pace, undisturbed by outside worries and pressures of time management.

This allows for the intensity of the work to be absorbed and integrated spontaneously. In fact, most couples tell me they feel energized and hopeful as they find clarity and reach satisfying solutions to their entanglements.

What if we still need help after our couples/marriage intensive?

The follow-up session is typically scheduled three to five weeks after the intensive. This period of time will be a good indicator of how you are applying knowledge from the intensive and of the changes you’ve initiated.

In the follow-up, we will review your progress and decide together if additional sessions are recommended to reinforce what you learned. Some clients find the intensive format so helpful that they request shorter, four-hour or one-day intensives down the road as part of their relationship management/progress blueprint.

Couple standing next to each other laughing

Working Together, We Can Go Far Quickly

Intensive therapy offers couples of all backgrounds a chance to come together and devote concentrated time and effort to their relationship. To find out more about how I can help or to get started, contact me.