Marathon Sessions
Get Faster Change!
Marathon sessions, also called couples intensives, are a faster and more concentrated way to get the change you want in your relationship.
Instead of meeting weekly for several months, we meet for two full days in the office and then have three follow-up sessions online.
This format is ideal if you live further away or if your schedule makes weekly appointments difficult.
The intensive format is also an excellent choice if you want to see the change in your relationship faster.
Experience a Concentrated Approach
The two days in the office allow for a more effective way to work through issues because we are not limited by time as with single sessions.
We can tailor what we do in a session to what you need and condense many weeks of therapy into a couple of days. When you go home, you will be armed with a whole new set of skills and better understand your relationship needs.
You will get to put what you learned into practice for two weeks before we meet for the first of three online follow-up sessions. We will continue working on issues, learning new skills, and discussing how you implemented the previously learned skills in the follow-ups.
Marathon sessions are not a new concept. This approach has been around for many years and used by leading therapists in couples counseling across the country. However, recent changes in online services further improved this approach by making follow-up sessions more accessible.
The sessions are fast but not too fast.
With marathon sessions, you can effectively concentrate months of progress into a couple of days, better understand your relationship, and learn new skills in a much shorter time frame. However, achieving real change in your relationship takes some time.
The goal in counseling is to bring about real and lasting change, which means you have to figure out what is happening and master the skills to handle it. You also need an effective way to implement those skills at home to become a part of your everyday life and can continue to benefit your relationship over time.
Implementing those skills is why combining the follow-up sessions with the marathon sessions is effective. The bulk of the learning occurs during the two days, and the implementation and habit formation unfolds in the following weeks between the follow-up sessions.
The whole process is still much shorter than it would take to attend weekly sessions. The progress achieved in the two-day marathon and three follow-up sessions is equivalent to several months of therapy.
Here is what we will do on Day One of a marathon session.
Before our first day, you will have completed an extensive written assessment, and we will start our work together by completing the in-person sections of the assessment. The marathon sessions use the standard five-part structure of the Gottman Method for Couples Therapy and Gottman Relationship Checkup.
Oral History – We will talk about your relationship history – how you met, your dating experience, marriage, transitions (like becoming parents or moving), and your relationship’s ups and downs.
Individual Interviews – I will meet with each partner individually to learn about each partner’s perspective, any personal issues that may be playing a role in the marriage, and their hopes, expectations, and commitment to the relationship.
Feedback Session and Treatment Planning – During the feedback session, we will review the assessment findings, including the combined information from the oral history interview, individual interviews, and online assessment. We will discuss your relationship using the Gottman Method’s Sound Relationship House model and outline areas of strength and growth. The assessment will pinpoint the areas that need the most focus and help determine how we address these areas.
Skill-Building – Using the findings of your assessment, we will work on one to three skills that directly address the needs in some of the high priority areas of your relationship.
Then, we start the second day.
The second day starts with a review of the material from the previous day, and then we jump right in to do more couples work. We will take short breaks and lunch as needed.
On day two, we unpack some of the deeper issues in the relationship dynamics, learn more complex skills, and continue to work toward the treatment goals.
We follow up the two full days with three additional sessions (included in the two-day marathon pricing). We schedule the first follow-up session approximately two weeks later, followed by a second session two weeks later, and the third one two-four weeks after the second session.
Combining the two-day marathon with the three follow-up sessions can accomplish the equivalent of five months of regular therapy.
If you are ready to make serious changes in a very short time, call me today at (912) 777-9842.