Intensive Couples Therapy

An intensive therapy getaway is a concentrated, immersive therapeutic experience that compresses months of traditional weekly sessions into a single dedicated weekend. Where conventional couples therapy offers one fifty-minute session per week — with days of distance between appointments during which old patterns can reassert themselves — an intensive removes those gaps entirely. You and your partner are fully present, fully focused, and fully supported for an extended period of time, allowing the therapeutic work to reach a depth and momentum that weekly sessions simply cannot replicate. At Marina Edelman, LMFT, the weekend is personally designed around your specific relationship — your history, your challenges, and what you are working toward — guided by a Gottman-trained therapist with over 20 years of clinical experience in couples work.

Take the First Step Towards Change:
Many clients choose to address stress through couples therapy, where we work directly on the relational patterns driving emotional overload.

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Q: What exactly is an intensive therapy getaway — and how is it different from regular couples therapy?
A: An intensive therapy getaway is a concentrated, immersive therapeutic experience that compresses months of traditional weekly sessions into a single dedicated weekend. Where conventional couples therapy offers one fifty-minute session per week — with days of distance between appointments during which old patterns can reassert themselves — an intensive removes those gaps entirely. You and your partner are fully present, fully focused, and fully supported for an extended period of time, allowing the therapeutic work to reach a depth and momentum that weekly sessions simply cannot replicate. At Marina Edelman, LMFT, the weekend is personally designed around your specific relationship — your history, your challenges, and what you are working toward — guided by a Gottman-trained therapist with over 20 years of clinical experience in couples work.

Q: Is an intensive therapy getaway only for couples in crisis?
A: Not at all — though it is particularly powerful for couples who are. The intensive format is designed for any couple who wants to make meaningful progress quickly, whether that means navigating an acute crisis like infidelity or a sudden rupture in trust, addressing longstanding patterns that weekly therapy hasn’t been able to shift, or simply investing deeply in a relationship that matters and deserves more than fifty minutes a week. That said, the intensive weekend is most effective for couples where both partners are genuinely willing to engage — and it may not be the right fit if either partner is struggling with untreated mental illness, if there is ongoing violence between partners, or if one partner feels pressured into the process rather than choosing it freely.

Q: What does the weekend actually look like — and how is it structured?
A: The weekend is structured to build progressively, moving from assessment and understanding through active intervention and toward integration and tools for the future. It begins on Friday evening with an introduction session to establish goals and individual sessions for each partner — a space for uncensored honesty about what each person is experiencing and hoping for. Saturday and Sunday run from 9:00am to 5:30pm, covering structured assessment, targeted exercises drawn from the Gottman Method, conflict management tools, and the Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work framework. Prior to the weekend, both partners complete the Gottman Relationship Checkup — a comprehensive, research-based assessment covering friendship, intimacy, conflict, values, trust, finances, parenting, and more — so that the weekend is informed by a detailed clinical picture of the relationship from the very first session.

Q: How much does the intensive therapy getaway cost — and what is included?
A: The intensive weekend with a Certified Gottman Therapist is $8,500. These include the full structured weekend experience — the Friday evening sessions, the full-day Saturday and Sunday work, the pre-weekend Gottman Relationship Checkup assessment, personalized exercises and homework, and a wrap-up session with resources and a clear path forward. I encourage you to call for a consultation before booking — not because I want to talk you into it, but because I want to make sure it is genuinely the right fit for you and your partner before you invest in it.

Q: What can we realistically expect to have accomplished by the end of the weekend?
A: By the end of the intensive weekend, most couples report a significantly clearer understanding of the patterns that have been driving their conflict — and why those patterns developed in the first place. They leave with concrete, evidence-based tools for managing conflict more effectively, communicating with greater honesty and less defensiveness, and rebuilding the emotional connection and intimacy that brought them together. They also leave with a personalized set of resources and a clear sense of what the next steps in their work together look like. The weekend is not a cure. It is a catalyst — one that creates the kind of momentum and clarity that can take months to build in conventional therapy. What couples do with that momentum after the weekend is, in my experience, what determines how lasting the change is.