Couples intensives are designed to help you get the therapy you need now, not in 3-6 months. With an intensive, you can skip the waitlist and get faster access to select spots.

Intensives allow you to work through your relationship concerns and heal the painful dynamics with your partner in a more succinct and focused way, without the repeated weekly interruptions common in traditional couples therapy. Instead of pausing every 50 minutes and spending a week waiting to resolve the issues brought up last time, you’ll meet for several hours over the span of 1-2 days, to process relationship difficulties to their completion.

An intensive format decreases the overall course of treatment because of time not spent on:

• checking in at the beginning of every session and trying to remember what you were working on a week ago

• reporting to your therapist what’s gone well and what hasn’t since you last met

• pulling your attention away from your primary goals to address the fight of the week

• helping you and your partner regain composure at the end of a session that is too short to fully resolve an issue

Because they reduce your time in treatment, intensives tend to be more cost-effective than traditional weekly therapy. Intensives can also be ideal if you or your partner has difficulty taking time away from work or other responsibilities during business hours each week, or if arranging repeated childcare is a burden. Many couples also choose an intensive because they’re in pain or at a breaking point in their relationship, and they don’t want to wait weeks, months, or years to learn how to love each other again. 

To tell you the truth, the weekly-session model of therapy is a medicalized model that became popular because it’s convenient for insurance companies, large mental health clinics, and stable caseloads; it was never designed with your needs in mind. And it has never been the ideal format for couples therapy; there is just too much going on in a relationship to fit everything into a single hour. An EFT intensive is a more efficient, effective, and evolved way to do couples therapy.

Before we get to the couples work, you’ll both complete some assessments on your relationship patterns and concerns. This will help me prepare for our work together, and have a better understanding of where you’ve been as a couple and how you want to move forward. Before we meet for the intensive, I’ll also make some recommendations for some reading material so you can prepare for the types of conversations we’ll be having. 

During the intensive itself, we will simultaneously work on decreasing the pain you’re feeling while also increasing your ability to connect with one another. We do this with experiential processing of the cycle you get stuck in during conflict. I’ll help you both to reflect on and communicate what happens for you internally that leads to disconnection and hurt in the relationship. Then I’ll work with you to find different ways of communicating with each other that enhance your connection, trust, and positive feelings instead of damaging them.

As we near the end of the intensive, we’ll discuss what the next steps are for you (e.g., getting you connected to a weekly therapist for weekly or biweekly sessions, scheduling a follow-up intensive, or some other form of support). We’ll reflect on what you processed and learned, what was meaningful to you, and how you can allow these new insights and shifts to permeate your relationship moving forward.

Investment & Program Information

1 Day – 5 hours of therapy | $2000

2 Days – 9 hours of therapy across two days | $4000

This is a premium service. I charge higher fees due to the increased work, energy demands, and schedule flexibility required to offer intensives. Intensives also provide more value for you than traditional weekly therapy, and the investment reflects that.

Exact scheduling can be determined at the time of booking, and is flexible depending on how you’re feeling during your intensive (e.g., if longer breaks are needed). If you are interested in getting part of the intensive reimbursed through out-of-network insurance benefits,

Here is an example of a schedule for a two-day intensive:

• Day One

  • 9-10am intake

  • 10-11am individual session

  • 11am-12pm individual session

  • 12-1pm BREAK

  • 1-3pm session

• Day Two

  • 10am-12pm session

  • 12-2pm BREAK

  • 2-4pm session

We’ll spend lots of time on helping you understand and interrupt your current cycles of conflict and disconnection. You’ll get a chance to explore unmet attachment needs and how they’re showing up in your relationship. You’ll learn to see your partner’s behavior patterns as ways of protecting themselves, or trying to protect the relationship. This deep understanding builds connection, emotional safety, security, and empathy. 

While every couple is different, many of my clients say they leave their intensives feeling less anger, more confidence in their ability to communicate without feeling like they need an emotional translator, and better skills for managing the uncomfortable sensations that can get activated in the relationship.

Keep in mind that multi-day intensive sessions are similar to going on a private couples retreat. It’s best to allow time outside of sessions to be unscheduled or filled only with self-care activities like exercise, body work (acupuncture, massage, etc.), and creating expression such as drawing painting, or cooking.

Intensives can be scheduled online or in-person. Please note that, due to licensure laws, I can only work with you if you are in the states of OR, WA, HI, UT, ID, CO ME.

In-person intensives can take place at my office in Eagle, ID

There are multiple options for accommodations and dining if you are coming from out of town; I’m happy to provide referrals and recommendations.

You just need to be physically in ID, HI, OR, ME, CO, UT, WA at the time of our work together.

If you are out-of-state, you can travel to Eagle ID to od it in person or one of the other states I’m licensed in for the couples intensive. Some couples like traveling for the intensive, as it adds to the experience of having a get-away purely to focus on your relationship.

We’ll start with a free 30-minute consultation with both you and your partner so we can meet and see how we all connect, and discuss whether an intensive is a good fit for your relationship. If so, we’ll get your intensive scheduled and I’ll send you some prep materials for you to review and complete within a week of booking.

After booking, I will hold the dates for your intensive for one week. You will be charged a non-refundable deposit for half the amount of your total intensive cost. By the end of one week, I need completion of your paperwork in the client portal to continue holding your scheduled intensive.

As with any psychotherapy, results are not guaranteed, and everyone’s outcomes are a little different. However, a couples intensive will give you and your partner extended time to work through tough issues, rebuild trust, and heal your relationship—without the stop-and-start feeling of weekly sessions.

Some research shows that couples can reach their goals faster this way. Couples intensives are a newer approach and research is still ongoing. However, research on intensive sessions for individual therapy is overwhelmingly positive, which is a good indicator that the intensive format itself is a strong clinical tool. I’ve seen many couples experience incredible rejuvenation through an intensive. 

Intensives are just what they sound like—intense. We’re doing hard work; you may feel emotionally tired during or after the intensive. It’s also normal to feel like you’re having more disagreements at first. But we’ll take breaks and keep the pace manageable, and I will make sure you both feel supported the whole time.