Marriage Counseling in San Antonio, TX – Sherwood Couples Counseling

Intensive Couples Therapy

Intensive Couples Counseling (also known as Marathon Couples Counseling) is a short-term, concentrated intervention to help you resolve or stabilize a major crisis that seriously threatens your relationship. Because of its urgency and immediacy, we skip an in-depth relationship assessment and teaching many of the basic communication techniques presented during normal couples counseling. Instead, I conduct an in-depth assessment of the crisis you are now facing which may be endangering your relationship.

It is important for couples to realize that it may not be possible to fully resolve some crisis issues within the short-term time limits of marathon therapy. With that in mind, I will ask you to defer any decision on the relationship for at least 30 days. Marathon counseling’s intensive format offers realistic possibilities that your crisis can be stabilized and contained, so I also ask that after your Marathon sessions, you immediately schedule follow-up with a skilled and competent therapist to continue regular couples counseling.

Intensive Couples Therapy generally involves 2-5 days of in-depth, concentrated counseling for 6-8 hours a day, excluding an hour for lunch. Aside from the scheduled lunch, breaks during the therapeutic day are unscheduled and can be taken as needed. You will be asked to use your time during the lunch break to sit quietly and to reflect and focus on the process you are undergoing.

Here’s how I determine the design of a Marathon Couples Counseling Session for each couple:

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I evaluate the nature and severity of the problem to predict what might occur and be lost if the crisis cannot be stabilized.

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I assess how much time will be required to stabilize the crisis.

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I secure your commitment to work within the agreed time until the crisis is stabilized.

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I help you focus on your needs so we can establish therapeutic goals to guide the treatment plan.

Intensive Couples Therapy offers clear and precise benefits:

It introduces the issues and organizes the components of the crisis into an objective dialogue directed by the therapist

It allows you both to be heard by fully expressing your thoughts, feelings, wants and needs and to make important requests of your partner about those needs

It allows the therapist to clarify issues that may have not been expressed or heard by each party, opening the possibility for greater understanding and acceptance between the parties

It allows you both to ask questions, and to set new boundaries and expectations and conditions for moving forward.

It allows you both to consider the seriousness of your issues and to think about the consequences of failing to stabilize the crisis in your relationship.

It provides a structure for each of you to express your thoughts and feelings while avoiding the emotional escalations that lead to destructive “attack and defend” maneuvers.

It can reduce distress, resolve misunderstandings and move you closer to agreement on strategies that will ultimately lead to healing and resolution.

It allows you to shift your thinking from ending your relationship to recommitting to it in new and different ways.

Intensive couples therapy may involve risks:

The intensity of the process will cause you both to recall unpleasant and possibility even traumatic events you experienced individually either before your relationship or after you began it.

The intensity will quickly move both of you to the center of the crisis you are experiencing. This may be good if it surfaces the uncomfortable conversations and feelings that you or your partner have been avoiding. Still, you must realize that the unrestrained and transparent conversations that will now happen will very likely release uncomfortable feelings of intense anger, guilt, sadness, anxiety, loneliness and helplessness.

Intense emotional reactivity may become magnified when secrets, deceptions and betrayals are disclosed. Despite the best efforts of the therapist to contain and channel those emotions, one or both parties might abandon the process, setting in motion the very actions that you both may have been trying to avoid.

For these reasons, Marathon Couples Counseling has its limitations. It is inadvisable if you or both of you:

Have a history of violence and violent ‘acting-out’ including personal assaults, destruction of property and making violent threats

Have an active alcohol or drug addiction from either party’s perspective

Have an untreated major mental illness such as Schizophrenia, Major Depressive Disorder, Bipolar Disorder and/or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Are involved in a current and active extra-marital affair that you or your partner is unwilling to end or to disclose

Are currently experiencing suicidal or homicidal thoughts, and/or have a history of inflicting serious physical harm on yourself or another person

Sherwood Couples Counseling has been delivering marriage counseling in San Antonio, Texas since 1985. We now use Gottman Method Couples Therapy, a proven, research-based method of communication and conflict resolution that helps couples break through the barriers in their relationship to a higher level of understanding, affection and intimacy. Now, thanks to private video sessions from the comfort of your own home, Sherwood Couples Counseling can deliver our counseling, coaching and skill training anywhere. Intensive or Marathon Couples Counseling is recommended if you are experiencing a very difficult obstacle in your marriage, and you need immediate help.

After you finish Marathon Couples Counseling, I will present you with a comprehensive written report complete with recommendations specifically tailored to you and your partner. I will also then present the option of initiating continuing couples counseling with Sherwood Couples Counseling or being referred to another provider. Call us for a free assessment today.