Couples/Marriage Intensives
Marriage intensives are a great option for couples who are in high conflict and want more immediate relief of symptoms. Traditional weekly, 50-minute sessions are just not enough for many couples, and they often give up before they have a chance to get better. Using the traditional model, the first few sessions are often spent gathering the story and deescalating between session conflicts that may arise. Couples are often told to expect things to get worse before they get better because there isn’t enough time to work on developing and using new tools in the relationship.
In a marriage intensive, time is spent actually working on the issues and developing tools and strategies, instead of just unpacking the previous week’s conflicts over and over again. You can actually receive 6 months to a year’s worth of counseling over 3 days. Typically, a couple only needs to attend therapy 1-2 times a month if doing min-intensives, and may not need to attend again for several months after a private weekend intensive workshop.
We offer private mini-intensives as well as private, weekend, intensive workshops. Mini intensives are done during the week and may consist of 3-4 sessions back to back with as many breaks as you need.
Weekend intensives involve 12-14 hours of intensive therapy over the weekend, with breaks and snacks included. These can be done in a few different formats so please call to see what is right for you. These ar not group session, and only the couple and therapist will be in attendance.
Group intensive workshops can be requested if 4 or more couples would like to attend together. Please call for pricing.
Call Melanie to schedule at 407-917-0322
During a marriage intensive, you will spend 3-6 hours (with as many breaks as needed) with Melanie Mason, LMFT on a specific day or days of your choosing to look at your family of origin, attachment styles, and repetitive negative cycles within the marriage. We will then work to slow and deescalate these cycles and replace them with healthier patterns in which you and your spouse feel more emotionally connected and secure.
It may sound overwhelming at first. We often hear objections like, “I can’t handle that much therapy at once” or “I can’t spend that much money”. The truth is that traditional therapy can actually be more costly and exhausting. Couples often feel that after 3 marriage intensives, they can handle their own issues going forward and simply come in for monthly or quarterly check-ins. With traditional weekly or bi-monthly sessions, it can often take 6 months or more to reach this goal.