Couples Marathon Sessions
Transform Your Relationship
1- to 3-day intensive counseling sessions.
Jump-Start Relationship Change
A great alternative to traditional sessions.
Have you ever had the experience of leaving your therapist’s office feeling like the conversation was just getting started and now the appointment is over? Do you have trouble scheduling regular sessions due to work or family commitments?
Is your relationship in a particularly difficult place due to an affair or other crisis? If so, you may prefer to work with your partner in the intensive or marathon therapy format.
What are Couples Marathon Sessions?
Powerful, results-oriented format.
Marathon couples therapy can be a great alternative to traditional weekly sessions. In marathon therapy, you can consolidate your treatment into one, two or three consecutive days. Using our research-based relationship assessment, we can target the work to areas that will help you move toward reconnection more quickly. Because of this, many couples report higher satisfaction with this powerful, results-oriented therapy format.
Gain practical tools and deep insight to strengthen and heal your love.
Getting Started in Marathon Therapy
Assessment
We always begin the therapy with a careful assessment of your current relationship.
You have the option of using the new Love Lab technology, which echoes some of the methods used in Dr. John Gottman’s original research lab.
This includes using a specialized video platform from The Gottman Institute to access deeper levels of understanding of your relationship.
The marathon, or intensive, therapy process looks like this:
Questionnaires
Before your first meeting with your therapist, you will each separately complete an online questionnaire through the secure Gottman Connect platform. This helps us understand your relationship in detail.
Meet Together With Therapist
At the start of the marathon session, your therapist will meet with both of you together. We will discuss your current situation and your history as a couple.
Meet Separately With Therapist
Next, your therapist spends some time with each of you separately. We spend time getting to know both partners’ histories with attention to background, families and individual areas of concern.
Therapist Feedback
We usually take a break at this point. During this break, your therapist will compile a detailed assessment report, which will be thoroughly covered this with you when the session resumes.
Many clients tell us that this assessment process helps them understand their relationship in a new way. The entire assessment process is designed to understand the relationship’s strengths and challenges, and to establish the goals for the therapy and chart the way forward.
Treatment
Your treatment is customized to the results of our assessment. Now, you and your partner will work with your therapist using Gottman Method Couples Therapy to help strengthen your relationship.
The intensive process involves anywhere from 12-18 hours of therapy over 2-3 days. In most cases, we schedule follow-up sessions as a way to maintain the gains made in the intensive sessions. These can be scheduled as needed
Your Needs, Your Schedule, Your Relationship
Each couple’s intensive is different.
One-day Intensive: Appropriate for couples seeking preventative care, couples with a solid relationship that have some minor issues to work out, and couples interested in premarital preparation.
Two- or Three-Day Intensive: Can be very effective in working on affair recovery or longer-standing relationship difficulties.
The Gottman Method
Based on Dr. John Gottman’s 40+ years of research.
Because of the condensed nature of this format, it may not be appropriate for all situations. The format might feel more intense and sometimes the difficulties between you can be temporarily amplified. Please call one of our therapists if you’re unsure whether this approach is right for you, especially if there is:
- Domestic violence or threats of violence in your relationship
- Active alcohol or drug addiction for one or both of you
- An ongoing undisclosed affair that you are not willing to disclose
- A serious mental health issue
Confidential counseling from professionals experienced in intensive therapy.
Tell Me More!
If you want to learn more about this process, contact us to discuss your needs with one of our experienced therapists.