Couples Intensives
Is a Couples or Marriage Intensive Right for Me?
Do you keep having the same fights repeatedly, struggle to communicate, or fail to find time for intimacy? Or maybe you’ve tried couples counseling before without seeing the results you hoped for?
If so, a marriage intensive may be right for you.
Couples intensives are a more focused version of couples counseling. A 2-day marriage intensive gives the counselor and you the opportunity to dig into issues without having to pause progress for weekly breaks.
In many cases, the stop-and-start pacing of traditional couples counseling sessions makes it difficult to move quickly and get to the root issues in a relationship. You’re just getting to the breakthrough, only to hear the counselor say, “we’re out of time.” So, you leave feeling frustrated. Then, the next week piles on more issues you need to unpack at the next session, blocking any progress you could have made.
A couples counseling intensive gives the counselor and clients longer, uninterrupted time to develop new skills and then solve what’s going on in the relationship.
Most relationships can be saved with the right couples counselor and longer sessions.
HOW COUPLES INTENSIVES WORKS
Select Your Therapist
Connect with our highly experienced, professionally trained practitioner.
Schedule Your First Session
Meet to discuss your goals and form a plan for achieving success.
Start Therapy
Begin your journey towards the happy & healthy marriage you deserve.
A Couples Counseling Intensive/Marriage Retreat is right for you if:
Like regular couples counseling, couples intensives weekends or marriage counseling intensives are for anyone looking to strengthen and better their relationship. The difference with couples counseling intensives is that sessions have fewer starts and stops than traditional couples counseling sessions.
Many incorrectly assume that intensive marriage counseling is meant for severe relationship issues. However, this is not the case. Couples intensives are simply more focused couples counseling sessions. There are many reasons why couples might opt for an intensive couples retreat over traditional therapy. For example, you:
- Are at your wit’s end
- Desire a private personalized experience
- Want change now
- Need fast results
- Want progress and skills to stick
- Have a busy schedule
- Don’t have months of time to devote to therapy
What can a couples intensive help with?
Many couples retreats and intensives are often set up to support you personally. The intensive will focus on your unique issues.
Relationship issues that are often addressed during a couples intensive include:
- Anger/Fighting//Ongoing Arguments
- Loss of love/Drifting apart
- Parenting issues
- Conflicts due to different cultural backgrounds
- Financial issues
- Intimacy and sexual difficulties
- Communication issues
- Recovery from Addiction – pornography, alcohol, drugs, gambling
- Infidelity
- Career conflicts
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What Can Be Accomplished in 2 Days?
A quality couples intensive, run by a professional relationship counselor, can help you rediscover your intimacy, find more compassion for your partner, and increase the happiness you have together.
It can be the catalyst for a deeper level of healing than you ever thought possible!
Though they only run for two days, a professionally run couples intensive covers a lot of ground. You will run through handouts, exercises, and focused sessions designed specifically to help equip you to solve the relationship issues you’re facing.
Some of what is often covered in a 2-day marriage intensive course:
- Explore any betrayals that have caused a break in your trust for each other
- Learn crucial communication skills to transform your interactions
- Break free from the blame and shame cycle keeping you deadlocked
- Clarify each partner’s thoughts, feelings, and desires
- Learn to tolerate the tension of differences
- Look at how you can move forward together if one of you is more committed to the relationship
What couples are saying about their experience after their marriage intensives:
- “This was an investment of time and money that had full value”
- “We learned more with you in 2 days than we did in one year of therapy”
- “The experiential part of the intensive was most helpful”
- “We finally learned a way to talk to each other that resolved an issue we have had for years”
- “We were 5 minutes from signing the divorce papers, and this intensive gave us hope for our future”
- “This was cheaper than divorce, and most importantly, kept my family together”
What therapy framework will be used during my couples intensive?
First started by Dr. Ellyn Bader and Dr. Peter Pearson more than 30 years ago, the Developmental Model helps you learn to see relationship challenges and struggles as a natural part of your psychological growth. Instead of teaching you to view conflict as a sickness that needs to be cured, this method encourages couples to grow, change, and move forward by focusing on their inherent strengths.
The Developmental Model is an internationally recognized method for couples therapy that has benefited tens of thousands of couples globally. Thousands of couples counselors have attended training programs in The Development Model at its home in Menlo Park, California. You can find practitioners of The Developmental Model listed in Psychology Today and the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) as skilled therapists for adult relationships.
Couples go through normal developmental stages and patterns just like individuals. One person or their partner frequently gets stuck in a particular developmental stage, causing them to become focused on each other’s flaws. Couples counselors trained in The Developmental Model know how to get you unstuck from a developmental stage and refocus on your shared strengths as a couple. The work you do with a trained therapist in this method will help you develop the skills to move you toward self-improvement and greater relationship satisfaction.
Discover Couples Counseling Intensives
What therapy framework will be used during my couples intensive?
First started by Dr. Ellyn Bader and Dr. Peter Pearson more than 30 years ago, the Developmental Model helps you learn to see relationship challenges and struggles as a natural part of your psychological growth. Instead of teaching you to view conflict as a sickness that needs to be cured, this method encourages couples to grow, change, and move forward by focusing on their inherent strengths.
The Developmental Model is an internationally recognized method for couples therapy that has benefited tens of thousands of couples globally. Thousands of couples counselors have attended training programs in The Development Model at its home in Menlo Park, California. You can find practitioners of The Developmental Model listed in Psychology Today and the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) as skilled therapists for adult relationships.
Couples go through normal developmental stages and patterns just like individuals. One person or their partner frequently gets stuck in a particular developmental stage, causing them to become focused on each other’s flaws. Couples counselors trained in The Developmental Model know how to get you unstuck from a developmental stage and refocus on your shared strengths as a couple. The work you do with a trained therapist in this method will help you develop the skills to move you toward self-improvement and greater relationship satisfaction.
Take a look at the Developmental Model stages here below:
Symobiosis
Differentiation
Exploration
Re-Connection
Synergy
Symobiosis
Differentiation
Exploration
Re-Connection
Synergy
Discover Couples Counseling Intensives
About Couples Counseling Intensives with Grow My Relationship
At Grow My relationship, we believe that all relationships can grow and mature with couples therapy. Couples counseling intensives simply offer another option for couples to get the help they need to improve their relationship.
Our goal is to make it more convenient for couples to find the right relationship counselor for their needs. That’s why we’ve gathered together a group of highly trained, qualified, and certified couples counselors into one easy-to-navigate database.
Couples counseling/coaching is a type of work that requires specific training and credentials. Each therapist or coach listed on Grow My Relationship must possess specific credentials (licenses, educational degrees, training, practice, specific years of experience), and they each go through detailed training and mentoring before they can be included on our platform. Please check with your individual practitioner to learn more about their individual training/background.
Our Couples Intensives Can Help With:
- Inadequate communication
- Intimacy or sexual issues
- Anger management or verbal abuse
- Betrayal
- Feeling defeated or unhappy
- Physical or emotional affair
- Fear or mistrust
- Hopelessness or desperation
- Trauma
- Role of power/Controling behavior
- Falling out of love
- Problems from childhood
- Empty nest syndrome
- Parenting conflicts
- Jealousy
- Drug or alcohol addiction
- Finance/Savings
- Decision making
- Compatibility conflicts
- Psychological growth/Personality characteristics
- Motivation/Priorities/Responsibility
- Commitment
- Gender orientation
- Extended family conflicts
- Medical complications/Disease/Injury
Frequently Asked Questions
Simply Click Here To Get Started and enter your information into the form fields. We will match you with a counselor, therapist, or relationship coach in your area and set up your first session.
It turns out that there will be too many therapists to predict what will happen for any given client – there are no standard protocols for initial meetings so describing what to expect w/o a standard protocol is basically impossible.
This is a common question and the answer is really quite subjective because most couples have different ideas of what makes for a good first meeting.
It is determined by emotional comfort level and does this person seem like an able guide for us. It boils down to: Do I want to or am I willing to return for another meeting? Imagine having a personal trainer after being out of shape for too long. If the trainer never made you sweat or exert yourself – just a nice slow easy workout where you didn’t stretch any unused muscles or break into even a mild sweat. And you thought all future workouts would be like this, you probably would question the long term benefits of such an approach.
Basically it’s “Are we willing to step up for another meeting?”
We have hundreds of practitioners specializing in the Developmental Model of Couples Counseling around the world. This makes it easier for you to find a qualified couples professional in your area who will be a good fit for you and your partner.
Couples therapy is a speciality that requires specialized training. If you needed heart surgery, it’s doubtful you would utilize a general practitioner who also does allergies, bunions, hip pain and a host of other human afflictions.
The fees for each session will vary based on where your therapist is located as well as other factors, including their years of experience.They don’t mind a bit when couples inquire about fees. You can also ask if they accept insurance.
This is our most frequently asked question. And there is no standard answer. It is like asking how long it will take to become rich. Or asking a physical trainer how long it will take for BOTH of us to get into shape.
Probably it’s no surprise that the timeline depends on motivation, how rapidly you apply what you learn and the magnitude of your relationship vision.
The key is that all three of you work as a team to create a flourishing relationship.
Many couples searching for help ask for the difference between these different types of professionals. As the field of helping couples create a better future evolves, so has the training available evolved.
Today the lines between the different categories of professionals are becoming more and more blurred. You can decide whether you prefer a coach, counselor, or therapist. Your choice might stem from their credentials, their location, or something from their bio that speaks to you.
All well-trained relationship specialists seek to offer advice, feedback, observations, and homework to help your relationship evolve. Therapists and counselors have mandatory educational and licensing requirements that are determined by the state or country in which they practice. Coaches do not.
Counselors and therapists may make situational determinations about how deep to go into the personal history of each partner. They may seek to help you see where certain unhelpful patterns of behavior originated.
No one can change the past, but you can change the impact it has on you. You can learn to free up more of your energy, talents, skills and gifts. Even better, when you harvest the lessons of the past, they can become wisdoms to guide your future – individually and together. Coaches, on the other hand, tend to focus on the present and creating an inspired future.
Our site will enable you to choose a professional who has invested time, energy, and money into learning how to help couples evolve. They have completed at least a 12-month training program in the Developmental Model, a comprehensive program taught by respected pioneers and leaders in this field. They also have a minimum of three years of experience working with couples.
Our professionals can guide you to clarify your individual goals as well as enable you to develop mutually agreed upon and supported relationship goals. As you know, this is not an easy task when you and your partner are struggling to communicate, cooperate, and connect. This is where a highly trained guide is especially valuable.
Appointments can be done with both of you present or can be done individually, depending on your situation. And they can be done with the coach, counselor, or therapist of your choice, given your location.
Things to know about insurance coverage:
As a general rule, our practitioners do not accept payment from insurance companies. However, they may be happy to provide you with a super bill or receipt to submit to your insurance for a possible reimbursement. We recommend that you check with your insurance provider first to inquire what services are covered. We also advise that you speak with your practitioner directly regarding their policy on insurance.- Health records may not be confidential once insurance is involved.
- Before any services are covered, someone needs a mental health disorder diagnosis and in most cases, this diagnosis can be used against you when getting certain jobs, future health insurance or life insurance benefits, as well as possible legal/court issues.
- You will need to pay the full session fee. You may obtain reimbursement if the practitioner is willing to provide a receipt of services, but any reimbursement you receive is between you and your provider.
- Flexible spending accounts and flex cards are an alternative option. If you have tax-free money deducted from your paycheck for Medical Savings, you can use that towards your session expense.
Things to know about insurance coverage:
As a general rule, our practitioners do not accept payment from insurance companies. However, they may be happy to provide you with a super bill or receipt to submit to your insurance for a possible reimbursement. We recommend that you check with your insurance provider first to inquire what services are covered. We also advise that you speak with your practitioner directly regarding their policy on insurance.- Health records may not be confidential once insurance is involved.
- Before any services are covered, someone needs a mental health disorder diagnosis and in most cases, this diagnosis can be used against you when getting certain jobs, future health insurance or life insurance benefits, as well as possible legal/court issues.
- You will need to pay the full session fee. You may obtain reimbursement if the practitioner is willing to provide a receipt of services, but any reimbursement you receive is between you and your provider.
- Flexible spending accounts and flex cards are an alternative option. If you have tax-free money deducted from your paycheck for Medical Savings, you can use that towards your session expense.
