Why an Intensive Couples Therapy Retreat?
Traditional weekly therapy
Traditional weekly couples therapy can be problematic for many relationships. There are often few specialists in your area. Busy schedules impact the continuity of care from session to session, spreading sessions out over months. It’s hard to feel like progress is being made at all.
Our intensive couples retreats
In contrast, build momentum, hour after hour, in an intensive format. There is time for connection and closure. Schedule once with the specialist of your choice and receive months of concentrated help in a single weekend. This accelerated approach can be a relief for couples who want quicker results.
You’ll be in remarkably good hands with our advanced licensed relationship experts.
Retreats In-Person or Online
Commit to making real and lasting changes in your relationship.
It is common for repetitive and escalating problems to leave couples feeling hopeless that anything can help. Intensives allow a disheartened couple to bring a re-focused dedication to their marriage. If you are ready for healing or clearer decision-making, a couples therapy retreat may be the right choice.
Our 2.5-day intensive retreat schedule
The information below reflects a typical Friday-Sunday intensive schedule. Some flexibility for Friday start times and even days of the week is possible for some clinicians. Be sure to discuss scheduling needs with our Client Services Representative.
Friday
Whether online from your hometown or traveling, make the most of this special time. Book a room away and escape the mundane. Arrive early and settle in. This marriage retreat helps you focus on your relationship, partner, and yourself. Be on your best behavior. Creating more intimate bonds starts now.
Here’s how your initial “warm up” meeting (and continuation of the assessment) will go:
- Problems Defined
Every relationship has difficulties, often long-standing ones. This is your opportunity to discuss yours without shaming or blaming. - The Oral History Interview
Here, we focus on how you met, your early years, and later challenges. This structured interview leaves most couples feeling more hopeful and optimistic about their relationship. It is an excellent way to end the start of this most intimate retreat.
Saturday
Today, you will finish the in-person assessment. After lunch, your therapist provides comprehensive feedback. Our goal is to answer: What are the shifts needed in your relationship? What are the steps toward a more functional, intimate, and adaptive relationship? How challenging will this be for you as a couple?
- Videotaping Communication Patterns
We begin the day with a check-in and a 10-minute videotape to study your communication style during a disagreement. - Individual Meetings
Each of you will have an individual session with your therapist. This is a chance to get to know you as a person, clarify anything about your background or family of origin, and any other issues you’d like to discuss. It isn’t for secret-keeping. - Feedback & Planning Session
Instead of a lecture outlining your relationship strengths and areas needing improvement, this is a give-and-take conversation. Your therapist will discuss objective clinical findings and recommendations for how to proceed. You will offer thoughts about how this aligns with your understanding and whether the treatment plan makes sense. - The Therapy
Here is where we implement the treatment plan. Every step of the way, you will determine whether the current direction matches your expectations. A good metaphor is that your clinician drives the bus, but as the passenger, you ensure it takes you where you want to go. - Breaks and first-day wrap-up and questions
Your questions and comments are important to us. This work depends upon you providing feedback. After each break, please let us know how you feel about the process. Be an active participant. Make sure you understand and agree with what is happening in the room. Your therapist is there for you and will adapt to meet your needs.
Sunday
On day one, your therapist introduced you to several key concepts in becoming the “Masters of Relationships” rather than the “Disasters of Relationships.”
Don’t worry if you didn’t catch all the ideas. We’ll introduce them again to you today. The important focus now is to help you talk from the heart in a way that maximizes your chance to be heard and resolve resentments and regrettable incidents.
Our clinicians are trained in a variety of evidence-based and clinically-based approaches and will use the interventions best suited to your situation.
- What are our specific relationship strengths and vulnerabilities?
- What behaviors do we exhibit that cause marital dissolution?
- How do we change these behaviors?
- How can we make our fighting less heated and more productive?
- To what extent do we each have a “chip on our shoulder” contributing to our problems?
- What blocks our way of relating intimately?
Our therapy is science-based with real results
Diverse approaches, extensive assessments, and years spent conducting intensives; we can help.
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10Approaches
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1864Analyzed Data Points
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3500+Intensives Conducted
Our Models
What do you mean by “science-based” therapy?
It means that our counseling is based upon research that has been trusted for over 40 years. All of our clinicians have advanced training in the Gottman Method, while one-third are certified. All are cross-trained in discernment counseling, and many have advanced training in Emotional-focused couples therapy.
Our Results
How do you get so many of these positive results?
We offer senior (30+ years of experience) and highly trained clinicians who specialize in helping couples. We have specialized in offering intensives for more than a decade. Each and every couple completes this extensive assessment before therapy begins. Your therapist receives thousands of data points they then study before we even meet you. Read More
The BIG BIG Book ©
Our clinicians undergo extensive training to interpret this instrument of unparalleled depth effectively. Every question in The BIG BIG Book © provides your couples therapist with the essential information they’ll need to help you. It’s a colossal amount of information, but this saves time at the beginning of your intensive session. Your therapist will already have knowledge about you and your relationship.
An exceptionally trained cadre of couples therapists
Half of our group are doctors; one-third are certified using the coveted title “Certified Gottman Therapist.” Less than 500 worldwide claim that title. Advanced training in multiple models and a decade or more of experience working with couples make our group uniquely suited to help. Discernment Counseling, Imago, and Emotionally-focused Couples Therapy are just some of the additional training they possess.
Follow-Ups Available
Follow-up care tailored to your needs
Genuine comprehensive care starts before you arrive and continues long after you leave. Follow-up is offered in person or online.
These follow-up sessions ensure you maintain positive changes through daily stressors. Instituting new rituals and regular times to connect is reinforced by our free “Inbox Intensive” course. Only couples completing our intensives have access to these practice lessons.
Here are our most frequent inquiries about our couples therapy retreats.
Have questions that still need to be answered?
Please note:
These weekend therapy retreats are not a magic formula. If one of you has little motivation to work on your marriage in a sincere way or is seriously considering divorce, your therapist may recommend a discernment counseling retreat instead of our couples THERAPY retreat.
Your willingness and interest in improving your marriage is essential for this work to succeed. It takes both of you to be open and willing to change.
Couples therapy (including John Gottman’s methods and Emotionally focused therapy) does not work with the following: domestic violence, suicide prevention, personality disorders or alcohol and drug abuse that requires inpatient care.
Seek professional individual mental health services. Finding mental health professionals who have specifically trained is your best option.