Couples Intensives & Retreats

Get to the Heart of the Matter with Concentrated Couples Therapy Sessions with Experienced Specialists

Couples Intensives present a unique opportunity for a couple to do a deep dive over an entire weekend into powerful relationship work. With help from the therapist, each partner will dig deep into the cycle of conflict that has kept them stuck for years or a crisis that has arisen. This helps them take strategic steps to transform their relationship. 

Intensive couples therapy is appropriate only for couples in which both partners are really ready to put in a big effort to make their relationship work.

Learn More About Intensives With

  • Address long-standing unresolved issues 

  • Undertake honest confrontation of self and develop curiosity toward the partner

  • Move through inner blocks and give up well-rehearsed projections

  • Surrender from the "I'll change when you change" game

  • Transcend current narratives about what is possible for "us"

  • Grow new emotional muscle

  • Create and sustain enhanced emotional, sexual, and spiritual intimacy

  • Elevate their level of conscious partnering

  • Practice tools for growing an effective conflict style

  • Grow empathy and

  • Learn to manage differences.

Intensive Couples Therapy can help couples:

Although all of our intensives are tailored to the unique considerations of each couple, we incorporate the main pillars of the Developmental Model of Couples Therapy, which include Differentiation Theory, and Attachment Theory. In addition, we incorporate the most recent research on neuroscience, which has provided strong evidence that relationship conflicts have an impact of brain/nervous system function on couples.

This work is powerful and very structured. Each partner will be challenged to go deeper into his or her own growth and development than ever before, in an effort to create collective healing and intimacy. Couples often report having transformational experiences as a result of our time together.

Early on in the intensive, the therapist will identify the couple’s developmental stage and assess possible impasses. This helps frame each partner’s differences and sources of conflict, which goes on to provide the gold that will help lead the couple into tremendous growth. By pushing the couple, each partner is able to get more clarity about the differences they experience in what they think, feel, wish, and desire. The therapist then supports each partner in speaking to the other and helps guide them through periods of increased vulnerability by showing them how to negotiate conflicts.

Doing this important work with a therapist insures that each partner begins to grow new emotional muscle. During individual time, an opportunity exists for each partner to work through intra-psychic impasses and receive individualized coaching on his or her own developmental challenges. The therapist will circumscribe each individual's contributions to the problems and create a roadmap for developmental growth and change. This is an important piece of the work that focuses on the concept of differentiation.

Generally, in intensives, we first meet with both partners for 60-90 minutes and then move into a more focused one-on-one time block with each partner. We then return to a group setting with both partners present and work together for the majority of the remaining time. This format can change based on the therapist’s assessment of areas of strength and identification of areas that are still presenting issues.

Logistical Considerations Regarding Our Intensives

Most of our in-person private intensives take place at our Center offices in Western Massachusetts, downtown Northampton, MA, a quaint and bustling college town with a beautiful area filled with plentiful galleries, restaurants, and cultural events. 

Alternatively, we offer our intensives via Teletherapy.

Couples Intensive Schedule and Cost

Couples Intensives take place typically over 1 or 2 weekday or weekend days. Each intensive is highly customized, based on the clinical issues that each couple is presenting. For a typical intensive, the schedule is 9am-5pm on both Saturday and Sunday.  

We also offer mini-intensives and packages for couples who might not require as much in-depth work.

Our fee includes the review of a very thorough Diagnostic Questionnaire and other assessment tools, which both partners must complete prior to the intensive. An initial phone intake is then done with both partners. If both partners are not available for the phone intake, we require speaking to the other partner prior to booking. We do this in order to gather basic clinical data and rule out any contraindications for this level of intensive couples work. There is no fee for any of the work related to the intake process—we do it in order to determine whether this level of work is or is not appropriate for the couple.

  • Lodging is not included in our fee, but we can provide hotel recommendations in Shelburne, Deerfield, Northampton, and the surrounding area to our out-of-town clients.

  • Insurance does not cover therapy intensives.

Each intensive is facilitated by CJ Everhart, LMHC, Chris Buhl, LICSW or by either of our Co-Directors, Dr. Donna Gilman or Katherine Waddell, LMFT,

Affair Recovery Intensives

Many couples have neither the time nor the skills to process the deep wound that an affair can cause. Sometimes, it may even take several years before one or both members of the couple are ready to address what went wrong. Couples dealing with the aftermath of an affair, whether the reveal occurred a month ago or five years ago, can benefit from focused treatment, which explores the underlying issues in the relationship and the individual developmental stalemates that led to the infidelity.

Focal points include reestablishing trust based on the acquisition of insight into each other’s needs. We also try to help couples restore emotional and sexual intimacy through the flexing of new emotional muscles. Of special focus is healing around physical intimacy.

Sex Therapy Intensives

Sex therapy intensives are designed to assess and dissolve barriers to emotional and sexual intimacy. Each intensive puts the focus on the impediments and developmental impasses that keep a couple from enjoying a vibrant and authentic physical connection. Through explicit discussion between the partners, and direct consultation by the therapist, each couple will be supported in transcending themes of avoidance, shame, blame, or uncertainty that inhibit healthy attachment, desire, and passion.

Last Shot Marriage Intensives

For couples on the brink of separation, a Last Shot Marriage Intensive provides an opportunity to go deeply into the issues in a safe, nurturing environment. Each partner is brought to assess their own contributions to the divide and explore the cause of any ambivalence about working it out. The therapist is able to provide direct feedback to each partner as to the severity of the marital problems. With express permission from Dr. Doherty, we have been able to adapt his five-session Discernment Therapy model and use this valuable tool within the context of a weekend intensive. Using the wisdom of the model, partners will be challenged to seek answers to the following questions:

  • Is the greater part of me willing to stay and work hard on this relationship?

  • Do I still want my partner?

  • Even if I don't want my partner, is there a part of me that wants to want my partner again?

  • Do I have a comprehensive narrative about what went wrong in the relationship?

  • Am I clear on my own pieces of the puzzle?

  • What's at risk if I go or if I stay?