Note: You've decided we have advanced specialists with decades of training. But before deciding if this Couples Therapy Retreat is right for you, please be sure to read this page. We want to make this unique Intensive Retreat available to couples who can really get the maximum benefit from it. This page includes a list of issues not appropriate for a this type of work, as well as a description of those most likely to benefit from attending. It also includes a detailed description of every element of the schedule and other important topics...

Ready to Buckle Down & Start Falling in Love Again?

What is a Couples Retreat?

This clinical marriage retreat is for all couples, (not just those who are legally married...) If you are in a relationship that you're invested in making better, this intensive marriage retreat provides the time to work in specific areas that are problematic for you, and develop and refine skills for new ways of relating.

Whether you're recovering from an affair, have fights that last for days at a time, or are just cold and distant, (and have been for years), you can benefit from this Marriage Retreat. We even accept couples where one partner has filed for divorce, but want to give it a sincere "last shot" at reviving their bond. Other couples come to enhance an already solid bond.

This intensive online Marriage Retreat is equivalent to many months of sessions in 45-minute marriage counseling. 

We offer african american couples retreat

Time by yourselves. Make every moment count. You're working on your love.

A Typical Week-end Intensive Marriage Retreat Schedule:

Friday:

Whether you decide to stay home, or book a room away from home, make the most of this special time.

Most retreats begin on Friday. Arrive early and settle in, if you've decided to travel. After you sign up for a weekend, we will provide you with a list of excellent accommodations for your weekend getaway, should you decide to travel. This marriage retreat help you to focus on your relationship, your partner, and yourself. When you create a strong intimate bond everything just works better.

The first portion of our work consists of learning more about your goals, and information-gathering about your marriage or relationship, with a structured interview called "The Oral History Interview." This session gives both of you a chance to "warm up" for the weekend to come.

The Oral History Interview focuses on the time you were most attached to each other -- most in love-- and leaves most couples feeling more hopeful and positive about their relationship, and it is a good way to begin together during this most intimate Couples Retreat.

Day One of Your Couples Retreat

Morning:

9:30-10:00 am

Videotaping Communication Patterns (Gottman Focused only)

Good Morning! You've already completed the Oral History Interview, and we begin our day with a check-in, and a 10-minute videotaping to study your communication style and micro-expressions.

10:00 am -11:00 am

Individual Meetings.

Next, one of you (Partner A) will have an individual session with your therapist. This is a chance to get to know you as an individual, your background and family of origin, and any other issues you'd like to discuss.

For Partner B:

Break: Settle into a comfortable spot out of earshot. Go grab a cup of tea or coffee, make a call, check your email, or just hang out for a while. 

11:00-12:00 pm

Partner B returns and complete an hour with your couples therapist. Partner A has a break.

Afternoon

12:00-1:30 pm  Lunch Break

Your couples therapist will take a break for lunch, and process the information provided, to include in the Feedback Session. You'll both have time to talk, eat, and be together. We encourage you to get active. Take a walk!

"The Oral History Interview focuses on the time you were most attached to each other -- most in love-- and leaves most couples feeling more hopeful and positive about their relationship..."

Feedback Session

Your couples therapist will provide you with their insights gathered during the assessment process. Couples are often surprised by how much information we've integrated about their family situation, and how this guides the way we plan to proceed:

  • We'll talk about what we see as your relationship strengths,
  • Areas that need improvement to move forward
  • Issues we need to focus on in this Couples Retreat.

We base our recommendations on:

  • The assessments you've completed ("The BIG BIG Book"),
  • Our couples interview
  • Our individual interviews
  • The videotape we've done of your  communication patterns.

We invite your own insights and feedback as well.

science-based couples therapy


Congratulations!

At this point, you have just completed one of the most thorough marital diagnostic assessments available today.

Late Afternoon

2:45-3:00 pm  Break

3:00-4:15 pm

We begin our work.

Here is where the treatment begins. We will begin to focus specifically on the issues that brought you here, in a way that enables you to stay calm, alert, and focused.

4:15-4:30 pm

First Day Wrap-up and Questions.

Your questions are important to us. We take the time to make sure you understand the process. For online help, we provide you with an extensive Knowledge Base that can act as a refresher for all that you are learning.

Couples Therapy has moved from "theory" to "scientific findings." Your ability to understand and apply this knowledge is crucial to our success...and yours.

Black couples retreat are effective help.

We focus on issues in a way that enables you to stay calm, alert, and focused, to express your feelings.

The "State of the Union" part of the Intensive Marriage Retreat is designed to:

  • Assess the dynamics that have brought you into therapy.
  • Outline detailed goals to resolve your relationship
  • Help you to determine the best next steps.

Our goal for this first day is to help you to understand the elements in your marriage or intimate relationship that need to shift, and to provide a framework that helps you to understand the steps needed to have a more functional, intimate (sexually and emotionally), and adaptive relationship.

Therapy Schedule (Day 3)

9:30 am - 4:30 pm

On day, you were introduced to a number of key concepts in becoming the "Masters of Marriage" rather than the "Disasters of Marriage."

Don't worry if you didn't catch all the ideas.  We'll introduce them again to you, today. The important focus now is for each of you to 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 approaches, both evidence-based and clinically-based and will use the interventions that are best suited to your situation.

It is tempting to keep talking outside of the retreat, but try to keep the conversation light.  You'll be working hard while in session!

You may have started to formulate answers to the following questions:

  • What are our specific relationship strengths and vulnerabilities?
  • What has happened in our lives that have created problems for us?
  • What has happened in our lives that have created problems for us?
  • What is the “demon dance” both of us engage in, despite our best intentions?
  • What behaviors do we exhibit that have been shown to cause marital dissolution? How do we change these?
  • How good are we at soothing ourselves and each other? Why is that a worthy goal?
  • How can we make our fighting less heated and more productive?
  • What is the proper ratio of "salt" (positive interactions) to "pepper" (negative interactions) in happy couples?
  • To what extent do we each have a “chip on our shoulder” that contributes to our problems? How is this like a light switch?
  • How are the behaviors of men and women in a relationship different?
  • What specific skills do women and men each need to develop? How are these different?
  • What is “flooding,” and how does it impact the way we relate?

Your therapy days are based upon the therapeutic goals and treatment plan suggested during the conclusion of your Assessment. Your couples therapist is an expert. They will tailor your therapy days based upon interventions that best suit the issues you present.

Here are a sampling of the types of issues we might work on during the therapeutic day:

  • Techniques to promote productive dialogue and strengthen intimate relationships;
  • Ways to disrupt "The Four Horsemen:" Criticism, Defensiveness, Contempt & Stonewalling, to promote feelings of hopefulness and interest;
  • Enhancing rituals of connection and creating a shared value and meaning system;
  • Practicing interventions that interrupt problematic patterns and habitual ways of relating;
  • Learning to regulate and channel anger constructively.
  • Processing "regrettable incidents" productively.
  • Developing more compassionate ways to understand your partner's point of view and listen with a more open heart.
  • Working with issues that contribute to an overall negative relationship climate.
Asian couple laughing arm in arm

Most couples feel relieved and hopefulness after this intensive marriage retreat.

Less Stressful, More Connected
Most couples can’t believe that the time has gone by so quickly!

Unlike most couples work or traditional marriage counseling, the Gottman approach does not promote a stressful environment for couples, and Johnson's evidence-based work in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy helps both of you remember why you want to be close and intimate again.

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Remember why you got married in the first place.

Do Marriage Retreats Work?

Most couples who are facing long-standing problems can't believe that anything can be accomplished in as little as a single weekend. However, we've conducted thousands of retreats and we know they do. 

However, they don't work for every couple.

What issues Intensive Marriage Retreats aren't designed For:

While weekly sessions are appropriate for most clients, the intensive clinical process works best for couple who are not in:

  • Undisclosed, ongoing, or recent affairs;
  • Those suffering from a current active addiction;
  • When ongoing violence or threats of violence happen by either partner;
  • For those suffering from an untreated mental illness -particularly when suicidal or homicidal thoughts, or a history of serious harm done by you to yourself or another person.
  • When one partner doesn't really want to participate but feels "pushed" into it.

What's this Marriage Retreat Like?  Marriage Retreats in the Movies.

Hollywood seldom does more than create in us impressions, feeling states, of what real therapy is all about. In Hope Springs, Kay (played by Meryl Streep) and Arnold (played by Tommy Lee Jones) are living separate lives. Every night he falls asleep in his lounger while watching a golf show on TV. She wakes him and they head off to separate bedrooms. Every morning she greets him with bacon, eggs, forcing a bright smile. He doesn't notice. Through her smile, you can tell that Kay is dying inside emotionally. Kay is determined to change her marriage for the better, and makes an appointment with an Intensive Marriage Retreat therapist Dr. Feld (Steve Carell) with her own money, and buys both of them a plane ticket. Arnold is not impressed, demanding she come to her senses. The movie brings us through uncomfortable scenes as Dr. Feld tries to explore the sex lives of this couple, married 31 years.

The discomfort of these scenes feels real to us.

What is also real about this movie, is how brave two people who love each other need to be, to revitalize the most important relationship of their lives: their marriage. And we do see that courage every day in our offices.