Taking a Different Approach…

Traditionally, the format that most people experience doing marriage counseling is to meet weekly for 55-minute sessions, which can take months to create meaningful change. Over my years in working with couples, I have found significant benefits in conducting far longer, more coaching sessions and now offer multiple half-day (3 hour) intensive coaching sessions, that can be conducted in-person at my office, or online via Zoom. Increasing the intensity of the work, through a combination of the Crucible approach and longer sessions helps us to get to a deeper understanding of the relational dynamic more quickly and identify what each partner is doing in the relationship that is hindering them being successful with each other. Intensive couples coaching helps couples address their issues more effectively and completely and has helped couples wrap-up their work at an overall faster pace and in a shorter time span.

The format…

My standard recommendation to a new couple is to initially schedule three half-day (3 hour) intensive sessions, usually on consecutive days, or within a 4-day span depending on availability. At the end of the last intensive session, we then make a plan together on how to proceed on any future work based on the couple’s needs and the stage of progress met in those initial nine hours. Typically couples choose to follow-up with some shorter 2-hour sessions to check on their progress.

I also offer “fly-in” intensives, which are particularly aimed at couples who live outside of the Omaha area and wish to travel in and stay in local accommodation while they do in-person intensive work. With this format, couples attend 3 to 4 consecutive half-days and spend their free-time between sessions, exploring the area and each other, as well as practicing the strategies we discuss in our meetings. In additions, there is also the potential of “me coming to you”, whereby we conduct a series of intensive sessions at a location of the couple’s choosing.