When Once a Week Isn't Enough: The Power of Couples Intensives
It's no secret at this point: relationships take work! While undoubtedly true at any stage of a relationship, over time, challenges can arise in even the most devoted and fulfilling partnerships. Without real attention, these challenges can grow into severe dysfunctions and strain and even end a relationship. This circumstance often prompts couples to explore couples therapy. It may also serve as the impetus for further education and the implementation of tools, such as reading recommended books or trying specific communication and connection strategies. For some couples, though, even as they "put in the work," they may not be seeing the results they hoped for in their relationship.
Therapy can be deeply supportive and transformative for couples navigating challenges (it is even profoundly helpful for those just hoping to maintain a healthy relationship!). Nevertheless, for many couples who feel stuck, burned out, or trapped in familiar conflict loops, an hour a week isn't enough. That's where couples intensives come in. Intensives create space for more immersive and focused work, allowing couples to move beyond surface-level struggles and into the deeper emotional terrain where true healing and transformation is possible.
What Is a Couples Intensive?
A couples intensive is a concentrated therapy experience designed to support more profound healing and faster breakthroughs than the traditional 50-minute model allows. I offer intensives in 2-hour, 4-hour, and 20-hour formats, spread out over several days. Through this structure, I can help a couple drop into where they are truly starting from in their relationship with more focus and spaciousness. This design better supports working with the unique capacities and circumstances present within each couple more effectively.
With the extra space of an intensive, we don't need to rush toward resolution. Instead, we can slow down, feel into stuck places, regulate the nervous system, explore emotional and attachment patterns, and learn from what we discover. It is then possible to build new relational dynamics alongside greater understanding and connection. There's room to breathe, reflect, and respond—not just react.
An intensive isn't just more therapy: It's a reset for your relationship, offering clarity, connection, and the kinds of insights that often remain just out of reach in shorter sessions.
Who Benefits from a Couples Intensive?
Couples intensives are particularly effective for partners who:
Keep cycling through the same unresolved arguments
Are navigating the aftermath of a betrayal or rupture
Feel emotionally shut down or burned out
Want to reconnect but don't know where or how to start
Have limited time or bandwidth for weekly sessions but want meaningful, lasting change
A couples intensive offers a purposeful and strong container that can support you in moving through pain and into possibility. This space provides a great opportunity, whether you are in crisis or simply seeking a deeper connection in your relationship.
Why Deep Time Matters
The traditional therapy model can be a lifeline. But it has its limits, especially when couples are carrying years of unresolved tension or trauma. Stretching beyond the hour-long format offers three essential benefits:
1. Nervous System Regulation
When your body has time to settle into a state of safety, communication becomes less about defense and more about connection. With deep time (focused and unrushed time), we can move through the physiological stress response and create conditions where both partners feel more grounded and open.
2. Pattern Mapping
With space and continuity, we can trace the roots of your dynamic—not just the behaviors but the stories, wounds, and protective strategies underneath. From there, we begin building something new: relational blueprints that are more aligned, respectful, and connective.
3. Practical Breakthroughs
In the immersive setting of an intensive, we can stay with difficult moments long enough to create fundamental shifts. Whether reestablishing trust, clarifying boundaries, or learning how to speak and listen differently, couples often leave intensives with renewed insight and energy.
For many couples, intensives also prove to be more practical. Life is busy. Sometimes, a weekend is more realistic than six months of weekly sessions. And if you're on the brink of separation, a few days of intentional, supported work can make all the difference.
Try This: The Regulated Pause Agreement
One of the most empowering skills couples can develop is learning how to interrupt conflict before it gets overwhelming or too intense. In my work, I often share with clients a practice called the Regulated Pause Agreement. This practice is a shared process for pausing when conversations become too heated to continue productively. It goes like this:
Step 1: Name the Need to Pause
Use a neutral, non-blaming phrase such as: "I need to take space to regulate. Let's come back to this." This signals your intention to return and keeps the door open to reconnection.
Step 2: Set Time Parameters
Agree on a clear timeframe. A pause should be a minimum of 20 minutes but not longer than 24 hours. You and your partner should agree on a time to reconnect around this issue. For example, "Let's check back in after dinner tonight." Establishing a concrete plan creates both space and accountability.
Step 3: Regulate Don't Ruminate
The purpose of the pause is to self-soothe—not to replay the argument. Use this time to move your body, breathe, journal, or practice somatic grounding. Let your nervous system settle so you can return with clarity.
Step 4: Return with Connection
When you revisit the conversation, shift the focus from being right to being close. Start with gentle reflection prompts. Some examples might be:
"What felt hard for me earlier?"
"What do I need now to move forward with you?"
This tool takes practice, but over time, it will rewire your conflict pattern into something safer, more regulated, and more loving.
Want some extra support regulating during these moments? Try this short guided couples meditation as a way to anchor.
Final Thoughts
I've been walking with couples through the mess and the magic of relational growth for years, and I sincerely believe in the possibility of healing—especially when we create enough time, presence, and support for it to unfold. My approach integrates research-backed methods, such as the Gottman Method, with trauma-informed somatic work, always in service of helping people feel safe, connected, and empowered in their relationships. This work is profound. And when we give it the time it deserves, it can change everything.
If you're tired of spinning your wheels, or if you know your relationship needs more space to breathe, heal, and grow, I invite you to consider a couple's intensive to break out of old patterns, rebuild trust and intimacy, and co-create sustainable, practical strategies for long-term success.
You don't have to stay stuck. And you don't have to do it alone.
Reach out to schedule a 2-hour, 4-hour, or 20-hour intensive.
Your relationship deserves this kind of care.
