Couples Therapy Workshop/ Retreat in West Chester, PA
You are tired of spending any more time disconnected from one another and in conflict. You know you want to feel better relationally, but feel overwhelmed with how to get there.
Do you have 1-2 days to finally break out of the disconnect and commit to prioritizing your connection.
Couples Therapy Intensive is for you if…
Weekly sessions just are not enough. You leave feeling still in conflict and you did not actually get to the repair part of the process. Then you leave still in distress and disconnect and have to wait until the following week.
By the time you actually started to get to the vulnerable part of your feelings, the session is over. Or one of you didn’t feel like you had enough time to share your feelings. This is so common…there is a lot to cover in a couples session. Being vulnerable with one another can be hard and it makes sense that more time is required to cover how you both feel.
Schedules are busy and committing to weekly therapy just doesn’t seem doable! I get that! That should not mean you have to be stuck in this disconnected place. Committing to extended sessions d could be the answer for you! Uninterrupted time to give to your relationship so you can actually feel better with one another.
You want to build a deeper emotional connection, intimacy, and to better understand the core of your conflict and process and heal the tender spots that show up in your relationship.
What intensives can help with?
You will learn the negative interactional cycle you are stuck in and how each of you are feeding off each other in a way that continues to lead to the disconnect. Biggest focus will be on learning and understanding how emotion is driving your behavior. Without processing your vulnerable parts with one another, you will continue to get lost in the cycle of conflict and disconnect which will create more protective stances between the two of you.
You will learn and understand about your coping strategy and attachment style and how this impacts your dynamic. Learning how you and your partner understand, manage, and communicate your emotions especially how they get communicated when emotion is heightened.
Learn to get to the core of your emotion rather than getting lost in the content. How many times do we forget what we are actually even fighting about. Emotion and vulnerability are the language of love…without communicating that part…likely you are not actually processing the hurt.
Learn more about your emotional inner world and why we respond in the way that we do. It’s usually the way we learned to navigate through the world safely but sometimes those “protectors” are actually what is working against us and our relationship.
Learn what is emotionally going on behind the behaviors that are keeping you stuck in conflict. I am not the kind of therapist that is going to just teach you a strategy, but actually help you understand your emotion and vulnerability and why it may be driving you to do certain things. Understanding our “pain points” is so important. And maybe even more important…helping you live in the moment deepen your emotion and turning towards your partner to share it. This is what creates a safe and secure connection and bond.
WHAT TO EXPECT AFTER COMPLETING THE INTENISVE:
- New positive interactional cycle…you will understand what to focus on when a trigger happens rather than triggering deeper hurts with one another
- How to effectively repair after a hurt or trigger…..this is inevitable we are all imperfect beings which means we will sometimes hurt each other…knowing how to repair is the key to remaining safe, close, and connected.
- Understanding of the root cause of where conflict stems from and to share your deeper vulnerability with one another.
- Better understanding and deep processing of “tender spots” relationally and individually.
Why choose an intensive over traditional couples therapy?
- Working with 2 people in the room means double the emotion, double the perspective, and double the emotional processing that needs to happen and that is a lot to fit into a 60 minute session.
- So often couples leave a 60 minute session with things feeling “undone” or more messy because we just poked around and opened the vulnerability and ran out of time to actually heal what we needed to. An intensive/extended sessions allows for more time and space to actually heal and repair.
- It can be difficult to take time out of your schedule each week or the burden of figuring out childcare each week and this allows a larger chunk of work to happen much quicker than needing to commit to 6 months of traditional therapy.
- You want to get better now…its feels awful being so disconnected and want to get the ball rolling before things become even more disconnected.
What is included in the intensive?
Assessment of what is going on between the two of you, goal setting, understanding the cycle that is going on relationally that is leading to the disconnect.
Individual sessions for each person. This helps me with a deeper understanding of each persons internal world.
Extended sessions: This is so we can do the deep experiential work without being interrupted with the session ending.
BREAKS- need to be able to give your nervous system a break and actually digest what is happening.
More extended sessions: This allows for more time to do the emotional processing and start shifting the dynamic between the two of you
Cost of Intensive:
1 DAY- 5 HOURS OF THERAPY INTENSIVE- $1,600
2 DAY- 9 TOTAL HOURS OF THERAPY INTENSIVE- $3,000
- This is typically done over the course of 1-2 days but we can chat about how we break down these hours!
Couples Therapy Intensive is not for you if:
*there is an ongoing affair.
*couples with “mixed agendas”-meaning that one of you wants to stay in the relationship and the other person wants to leave the relationship.
*Active intimate partner violence.