Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), Imago, & Gottman Method Couples Therapy Intensive in Falls Church, VA
and online throughout Virginia and New York
Does it feel like weekly 50-minute therapy sessions haven’t been enough to help your relationship recover?
A 50–60 minute session rarely feels like enough time for both partners to fully express what’s hurting, slow down the conflict cycle, and reach the deeper emotional needs underneath the arguments. Just as you begin to get somewhere meaningful, the session ends.
OR
You’ve been wanting to start couples therapy for a while, but coordinating both schedules feels nearly impossible. Between work, family responsibilities, emotional exhaustion, and daily stress, weekly therapy starts to feel like another obligation instead of genuine support.
OR
You need help—a lot of it—right now. Your relationship feels fragile, tense, emotionally disconnected, or consumed by recurring conflict. You’re walking on eggshells around each other, bracing for the next argument, and terrified that if things continue this way, the relationship may not survive.
OR
You are new to couples therapy, and the idea of an immersive, focused experience simply makes more sense to you than slowly stretching the work across months.
You need couples therapy that actually creates movement.
You’re done spending months repeating the same arguments without resolution.
You’re ready to understand what is truly happening beneath the conflict—and finally feel emotionally connected again.
Couples Intensives Can:
Provide relief from chronic conflict cycles, emotional disconnection, resentment, and communication breakdowns in days instead of months
Help you and your partner understand the attachment needs underneath the arguments
Fit into both partners’ schedules with minimal disruption—without needing ongoing weekly appointments
Shift your relationship out of criticism, defensiveness, shutdown, or emotional withdrawal and into deeper emotional connection
Help rebuild trust, emotional safety, and secure attachment
Create meaningful progress in a fraction of the time so you can stop feeling hopeless and start feeling like a team again
You can’t spend another month feeling emotionally disconnected from the person you love.
Would you give 1–2 days if it meant you could reconnect faster?
Intake with couple (60 minutes)
We’ll start by reviewing where you’re wanting support and identify what we’ll be working on during the intensive itself.
Two individual sessions (60 minutes each)
I’ll meet one-on-one with each of you to talk through your personal and relationship history.
Extended couples sessions
After the intake, each couples session is scheduled for two hours at a time. Check out the FAQ section for a sample schedule.
Breaks!
It’s normal to get fatigued in an extended therapy experience. We’ll be sure to take plenty of breaks throughout the intensive.
What does an EFT, Imago, Gottman Couples Intensive include?
Investment & Program Information: Your Relationship Could Change Over the Weekend
1 Day – 5 hours of therapy | $2000
2 Days – 9 hours of therapy across two days | $4000
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Additional or ongoing intensive couples therapy is available if you want longer-term support or if you prefer the intensive format to weekly couples therapy.
Couples Therapy Intensive FAQs
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A couples therapy intensive is an immersive relationship-focused therapy experience designed to help couples move through stuck patterns more efficiently than traditional weekly therapy.
Rather than spending months slowly revisiting the same arguments week after week, an intensive allows us to spend uninterrupted time identifying the emotional cycle underneath the conflict and creating new ways of connecting.
These intensives integrate:
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
Imago couples therapy
Gottman Method Couples Therapy
Attachment theory
Trauma-informed relational work
Communication and conflict repair strategies
The goal is not simply to improve communication.
The deeper goal is to help each partner feel emotionally safer, more understood, more valued, and more securely connected.
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Many couples come to therapy after years of unresolved hurt, emotional distance, repetitive arguments, resentment, shutdown, or failed attempts at communication.
Traditional weekly therapy can feel frustrating because:
Sessions feel too short
Momentum gets lost between appointments
Conflict continues between sessions
One difficult week can derail progress
It may take months before deeper patterns fully emerge
An intensive creates enough time and emotional space to work beneath the surface.
Instead of focusing only on communication techniques, we explore the emotional meanings underneath your interactions:
Why one partner pursues while the other withdraws
Why conflict escalates so quickly
Why reassurance never seems to feel like enough
Why both partners feel misunderstood, rejected, or emotionally alone
Why old wounds continue resurfacing in the relationship
This allows couples to move from blame and defensiveness toward vulnerability, understanding, and emotional responsiveness.
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Chronic conflict and recurring arguments
Emotional disconnection
Communication breakdowns
Attachment injuries and betrayal trauma
Rebuilding trust
Emotional withdrawal or avoidance
Pursuer-withdrawer dynamics
Anxiety within the relationship
Intimacy concerns
Feeling emotionally unseen or misunderstood
Premarital and commitment concerns
Navigating life transitions and stress together
Reconnection after resentment or distance
…and more.
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We’ll start with a free 30-minute consultation with both you and your partner so we can meet and see how we all connect, and discuss whether an intensive is a good fit for your relationship. If so, we’ll get your intensive scheduled and I’ll send you some prep materials for you to review and complete within a week of booking.
After booking, I will hold the dates for your intensive for one week. You will be charged a non-refundable deposit for half the amount of your total intensive cost. By the end of one week, I need completion of your paperwork in the client portal to continue holding your scheduled intensive.
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We’ll spend lots of time on helping you understand and interrupt your current cycles of conflict and disconnection. You’ll get a chance to explore unmet attachment needs and how they’re showing up in your relationship. You’ll learn to see your partner’s behavior patterns as ways of protecting themselves, or trying to protect the relationship. This deep understanding builds connection, emotional safety, security, and empathy.
While every couple is different, many of my clients say they leave their intensives feeling less anger, more confidence in their ability to communicate without feeling like they need an emotional translator, and better skills for managing the uncomfortable sensations that can get activated in the relationship.
Keep in mind that multi-day intensive sessions are similar to going on a private couples retreat. It’s best to allow time outside of sessions to be unscheduled or filled only with self-care activities like exercise, body work (acupuncture, massage, etc.), and creating expression such as drawing painting, or cooking.
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As with any psychotherapy, results are not guaranteed, and everyone’s outcomes are a little different. However, a couples intensive will give you and your partner extended time to work through tough issues, rebuild trust, and heal your relationship—without the stop-and-start feeling of weekly sessions.
Some research shows that couples can reach their goals faster this way. Couples intensives are a newer approach and research is still ongoing. However, research on intensive sessions for individual therapy is overwhelmingly positive, which is a good indicator that the intensive format itself is a strong clinical tool. I’ve seen many couples experience incredible rejuvenation through an intensive.
Intensives are just what they sound like—intense. We’re doing hard work; you may feel emotionally tired during or after the intensive. It’s also normal to feel like you’re having more disagreements at first. But we’ll take breaks and keep the pace manageable, and I will make sure you both feel supported the whole time.
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Exact scheduling can be determined at the time of booking, and is flexible depending on how you’re feeling during your intensive (e.g., if longer breaks are needed). If you are interested in getting part of the intensive reimbursed through out-of-network insurance benefits, we may also schedule the intake and individual sessions on a different day to increase potential insurance reimbursement.
Here is an example of a schedule for a two-day intensive:
Day One
9-10am intake
10-11am individual session
11am-12pm individual session
12-1pm BREAK
1-3pm session
Day Two
10am-12pm session
12-2pm BREAK
2-4pm session
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It depends. Many insurance plans (typically PPOs) will reimburse a portion of the cost of psychotherapy. For insurance purposes, I am considered an out-of-network provider.
I recommend you speak with your insurance company ahead of time to learn the exact details of your policy, including what out-of-network benefits are available, and if your insurance will reimburse several hours of therapy in one day or one week. You can call the customer service number on the back of your insurance card to find this information.
I can provide you with a superbill for all direct contact therapy services included in your intensive. This is what you will submit to your insurance for reimbursement. Please know that the insurance company requires a diagnosis code as a reason for treatment. If you have questions, let me know, as I’m happy to provide more information to help with this process.
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This is a premium service. I charge higher fees due to the increased work, energy demands, and schedule flexibility required to offer intensives. Intensives also provide more value for you than traditional weekly therapy, and the investment reflects that.
Disclaimer for Couples Therapy Intensive
Intensives are not appropriate for every couple.
As you consider an intensive, please keep the following in mind:
A couples intensive may not be appropriate if:
There is an ongoing affair or active infidelity that has not yet been stabilized
Both partners do not share the same goals for therapy
One or both partners are unsure whether they want to remain in the relationship. Instead, check out my Discernment Counseling in my FAQs under Couples Therapy page.
Being together for extended periods feels emotionally unsafe or highly dysregulating
There is active intimate partner violence, coercion, or emotional abuse
One or both partners are unwilling to engage in the therapeutic process collaboratively
If you are uncertain whether a couples intensive is the right fit for your relationship, I encourage you to reach out for a consultation. I’m happy to help assess whether this format would be supportive for your specific situation and goals.