Couples Intensives
Concentrated work. Accelerated progress.
Feel like you’ve tried everything and your relationship is still stuck? It doesn’t have to be like this forever!
Traditional weekly couples therapy can be wonderful, providing guided facilitation consistently over time, but it can also take you months or years to identify and address the foundational cracks in your relationship.
Some couples don’t have that time and others aren’t sure what they’re even fighting for.
An Intensive helps you identify what it will take to reconnect in a sustainable way, and, in real time, experience what the reconnection feels like. By the end, you can roadmap a path to a stronger future.
Couples counseling intensive retreats are a good fit for you if you:
Have busy schedules and can’t seem to get to weekly therapy regularly enough to make a real difference
Want practical, accessible new tools so you can break the cycle of frustration, distance and resentment
Need external structure and want the opportunity to take a deep dive together (rather address issues in one hour, one week at a time)
Have been building tension up to this point for years, and don’t want to wait months or years to see progress
Are sick of going to couples therapy to rehash your last week or latest fight, and are ready to actually see what change is possible
More than Reconnecting – Unlocking Stuck Dynamics
What is a Couples Counseling Intensive Retreat?
Couples intensives are a concentrated form of couples work that allow us to focus deeply on changing unconstructive relationship habits. We meet for 15 hours over 3 days, usually online – though I can meet in person by request in Western Massachusetts.
Getting to the Root of the Problem
Intensives start with getting a clearer picture of you individually and your relationship – your current strengths, challenges and history as a couple. Then, I’ll help identify the throughline woven between your conflict, and a path for working through it to relief. Together, we’ll work on how to reconnect and show up in new ways. We’ll end with recommendations to keep the work alive in your home life, including making a plan for follow up coaching.
Keep the Good Work Going
While the initial Intensive is a powerful jump-start to doing things in a new way, the rubber really meets the road once you’re home. How do you show up when you’re upset? What tools stuck from our work and which are harder to access when you’re hurt? That is important data for us – it tells us where to focus the work the next time we meet. As annoying as the old adage goes, practice really does make perfect. Couples return for mini-intensives (usually 3 hours at a time, every 2-6 weeks) to help deepen their skills and really shift patterns at home in a meaningful, sustained way.
Breaking the Cycle, For Good
Many couples get stuck in cyclical arguments where a small fight about the dishes snowballs into an airing of every past grievance, from forgotten chores to feeling ignored. These fights become overwhelming and are too large to tackle. The conflict stays unresolved as the list of offenses grows, so you go back to “normal” until the next fight when the whole thing starts again.
I work with couples to uncover the deeper threads that connect their conflicts, guiding them toward genuine resolution. Couples will experience what it’s like to move through and past conflict, tackling the most important friction points. Together, you will learn practical strategies and use them in session and so you can apply them in daily lives. I collaboratively help you repair foundational cracks and show you what it takes to sustain the changes you are making.
My Approach
State-Dependent Work
Let Feelings Guide the Process, Not Stop It
Therapy has incredible tools for challenging thought distortions, attuning to our own inner landscape and those of others, and more, but all of these tools can be harder to access when we’re feeling activated and charged. That’s why all my work is state-dependent, meaning that when big feelings come up, we keep working. In real time, I’ll flag what I’m observing and help guide you towards tools that are helpful in the moment while you’re upset. This type of real-time experience helps you access a heavy arsenal of strategies when you’re emotionally charged and gives you hands-on practice on resolving conflict when you’re upset. So you don’t have to worry about remembering what to do to help things go better – you’ll know what to do because you have had the experience of doing it differently.
Evidence-Based Practices
I value approaches backed by science and draw from long-studied practices supported by a field of research. Pulling from a substantial body of work from expert couples therapists and modalities, I employ a focused mix of effective strategies and interventions, custom tailoring my approach for each couple.
Preparing for Your Intensive
Treat it like a Couples Retreat
Couples Intensives work best when approached intentionally and deliberately. Take time off of work, and find a comfortable place to stay that’s away from home and has good WiFi and privacy. This will help you be more present with each other and the experience, while granting you more opportunities for real rest between sessions.
While Intensives are good for couples of all backgrounds, the concentrated nature of Intensives is particularly good for ADHD couples.
Breaks
Intensives should not be stressful! In fact, we will do the most productive work if you are not stressed (though being upset, sad, frustrated etc are all really normal within couples work). I build in breaks, and encourage people to ask for breaks as they need.
What to Expect From Your Intensive
In my couples intensives, I help you to quickly see what progress is possible and then help you to implement new habits in real time.
All of my training and expertise is focused giving you time to experience something different in session, which is then easier to use at home in hard moments.
You will leave with:
A clearer sense of how you got to where you are now as a couple with a renewed sense of hope and possibility
A new set of tools to implement when you’re upset
An ally of your relationship, to help guide you and your partner in difficult moments
Reduced tension and improved emotional connection
An understanding of how you can be accountable for your part of things, and how to more constructively hold your partner accountable for their part
Feeling less overly responsible for your partner – and new tools for how to be effectively responsive to your partner
A sense of whether your expectations are reasonable – and what to do if they aren’t
faqs
Common questions about Couples Intensives
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Most couples can benefit from an intensive – how we use the time is very versatile, and is always tailored to your needs. The best way to assess if it’s right for you is to schedule a free initial conversation so I can get to know more of what’s happening for you, and tell you about how I can help. During that conversation, we can both get a sense of whether moving forward is the right next step.
That said, if conversations in couples counseling will make anyone less safe (emotionally, physically or sexually), then individual counseling is the place to begin.
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Yes. Many couples come to do an intensive with me when one person (or both) isn’t sure what the future holds. I’m a-okay with being in that unsure place with you, and in fact, my experience is that intensives help people to get more clear on what they need from their relationship so we are often able to find places of hope and possibility to dedicate work. And, when we’re not, I am experienced in working with couples through the process of separation and even divorce – it’s an inherent part of couples work.
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Absolutely. I do 1:1 work with folks who are navigating relationship difficulties, and find that when people work on their own growth, their relationship also changes. Check out my page on individual therapy.
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Absolutely. I work with folks from California to Canada, Europe to Australia. You can either come to meet with me in western Massachusetts for your initial 3 day intensive, and then continue online for your 3 hour follow-ups, OR work online exclusively from the beginning.
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Yes, we will determine a follow-up plan during your intensive itself, based on your needs and availability, as I want to ensure your continuity of care should you want and need it. What that looks like depends on your needs — some couples meet with me for 3 hours every 2 weeks, and others just set quarterly check-ins with me.
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My rate is $300/hour and retreats are 15 hours. Additionally there is a one time charge of $300 to cover a portion of the administrative time that I put into each retreat. So the 3 day retreat is $4800 total.
Follow up work is the same hourly rate of $300/hour, and typically follow up sessions are 3 hours or $900/ each.
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I do offer payment plans — I can break the payment into 2 or 3 installments, typically with the final payment due 30 days before your intensive begins.
Additionally, I offer 3 pay-what-you-can retreats per year, based on a self-assessment sliding scale. Please inquire if you would like one of these slots.
Ready to get started?