Instead of attending one session per week for 6 to 12 weeks (that’s three months!), you’ll get all your sessions packed into one or two days. Then, ultimately, you’re ready to enter into a maintenance phase of counseling.

Every intensive follows the same structure:

1. Pre-Intensive (1.5 hours): You complete two assessments on your own time before we meet. These help me understand your attachment history, relationship patterns, and specific conflicts. I use these to prepare for your session.
2. Assess (2-3 hours): We dig into your family-of-origin, attachment history, and how that’s playing out in your current relationship. This isn’t surface-level talk. We get to the “why” behind how you both show up in conflict.
3. Show (1-2 hours): You tell me about your specific conflicts. I observe how you two interact on a micro level—what you say, how you say it, what triggers you, where you shut down. I’m mapping your conflict pattern.
4. Learn: I teach you frameworks that change how you think about conflict and communication.
5. Practice: This is where it changes. You practice having real conversations about real issues with your partner, and I coach you line-by-line on how to say things differently, how to actually listen, how to hear what your partner is really trying to tell you.

The amount of practice time depends on which intensive you choose. A 6-hour session focuses on assessment and learning. An 8-hour session adds some practice. A 12-hour session is heavy on practice because that’s where behavior actually changes.

If you’re in high conflict or feeling disconnected, a 6-hour intensive will likely leave you wanting more. You’ll understand why you’re stuck, but you won’t have enough time to practice being unstuck.

Jennifer Slingerland Ryan, Ph.D., LPC-S, developed the couple’s intensive process at I Choose Change. She is Gottman Level III and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) trained. Using these influences alongside her research while completing her doctorate, she developed her attachment-based model to help couples develop better communication, greater intimacy, and better conflict resolution. **Discounted rates are given to couples who agree to allow a therapist to sit in intensives for training purposes.

Some couples are ready to apply what they’ve learned on their own and check in quarterly or as-needed. Some couples benefit from monthly 2-hour maintenance sessions with me to stay on track. Some couples take everything they learned and work with their current therapist to keep the momentum going.

Most couples do 2-hour check-ins once or twice monthly for a few months to lock in the changes. Think of it like physical therapy—after the intensive work, you do maintenance to make sure the new patterns stick.

But you’re not locked into anything. You get to decide what support you need.

Every client enters therapy in a 3-Step process:

1. Assessment
2. New Learning
3. Practice and Maintenance

The Assessment and New Learning phases typically take 4-6 hours. This is when the counselor gets to know you, understands the depth of your concerns, and understands your inner world more profoundly. After 4-6 hours, the counselor will give you new tools unique to your situation to practice in sessions and out in the world.

The 12-hour intensive moves you into Step 3: Practice and Maintenance. The 6- and 8-hour intensives are for Assessment and New Learning.

We firmly believe counseling should last a lifetime, even if that means monthly or quarterly check-ins. You’ll be given resources during and after your couple’s intensive. However, it is recommended that you add the Gottman Relationship Builder to your arsenal of resources. There, you’ll have 365 days 24/7 access to Dr. John Gottman as he takes you through even more communication exercises. You can login anytime to get the help you need! You’ll also have online access to the Couple’s Packet you’ll receive in our session, plus every Gottman exercise available (some we will get to, most we won’t). Other resources are listed below.

Additional Resources:

Using evidence-based counseling techniques, you and your partner will be guided into a more loving, connected space using the work of Dr. John Gottman’s Sound Marital House and Dr. Sue Johnson Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT).

• John Gottman’s “Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work” – A great book for couples who are having a difficult time talking to one another because words are disrespectful and angry on an almost constant basis. This is a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) perspective for couples.
• David Burn’s “Feeling Good Together: The Secret to Making Troubled Relationships Work” – A great book for couples who are having a difficult time talking to one another because words are disrespectful and angry on an almost constant basis. This is a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) perspective for couples.
• Sue Johnson’s “Hold Me Tight: A Couples Guide to a Lifetime of Love” – This book examines the reason we have enraged conversations, and why we ultimately withdraw from the ones we love most – our spouse/life partner.
• Sue Johnson’s “Love Sense: The Revolutionary New Science of Love Relationships” – A great book examining the science of love and love relationships.
• Robert Karen’s “Becoming Attached: First Relationships and How They Shape Our Capacity to Love” – A great book about how we attach to parents as young babies and children, and what happens when we don’t. The childhood attachment process is essential in order to have healthy adulthood.

Actually, it’s the opposite of what you think. Yes, it sounds intense. But here’s the reality: A single 6-hour intensive equals approximately 6 weeks of traditional weekly therapy. An 8-hour intensive equals 8 weeks. A 12-hour intensive equals 12 weeks.

Most couples do weekly therapy for months without real momentum. You come in, rehash the same fight, leave, and repeat. The intensive compresses that into focused, structured time where you’re not in survival mode between sessions. You’re not managing your kids’ schedules, checking emails, or running a mental hamster wheel about what you said.

Instead, you’re in one room, one day (or weekend), getting to the root of what’s actually driving your disconnection—and then practicing a completely different way to talk about it while I coach you.

The intensity isn’t the problem. Spread-out, low-intensity sessions with no real progress? That’s what burns couples out.

This won’t happen the way you’re imagining. Because I’m leading the entire time, you won’t hit the kind of escalation you’re picturing.

What will happen: You’ll be uncomfortable. You’ll feel exposed. Your partner might say things you’ve been afraid to hear. You might cry or feel frustrated. That discomfort is actually the work—it means something real is shifting.

But volatility? No. I don’t allow conversations to become aggressive, contemptuous, or defensive spirals. When I see those patterns starting, I intervene immediately. That’s the entire point of my structure.

You’re safe. Both of you. The whole time.

No. This is one of the biggest differences between traditional couples therapy and my intensives. I lead the entire session. I do not let you argue with each other.

Here’s what actually happens: You will never be left alone to escalate into conflict. Instead, I coach you through conversations line-by-line. When volatility starts to rise, I pause, redirect, and teach you a different way to say what you’re trying to say. When defensiveness appears, I name it and show you what openness looks like. When you shut down, I help you re-engage.

My job is to protect both of you while you learn. Think of it like learning to swim—I’m not throwing you in the deep end unsupervised. I’m in the water with you, showing you how to move differently until you get the technique.

The structure is there from minute one. You’re not figuring it out on your own. That’s why this works.

I get this fear. You’ve probably done couples therapy before. It didn’t stick. So why would this be different?

Here’s what’s different: Traditional weekly therapy is reactive. You come in, report what happened during the week, and maybe get some tools to try. The sessions are disconnected. You lose momentum between appointments.

In clinical trials, attachment-based couples therapy has a 70-73% success rate at achieving the goals of couples therapy, with a 90% improvement rate, even when not all goals were achieved.

My intensives are immersive and applied. You don’t just learn new communication frameworks—you practice them in real-time while I coach you. You learn what your specific conflict pattern is (your “Baseline Battle”) and how to interrupt it. You build muscle memory. You leave with homework and follow-up to sustain what you’ve learned.

What I will tell you honestly: This works if you both show up willing. If one partner has already checked out or is unwilling to engage, no intensive in the world will work. But if you both want things to be different, this will move the needle.

I don’t take insurance because insurance dictates how I work, how long sessions are, and what I’m “allowed” to do. Insurance companies make clinical decisions, not me. My intensives are specifically designed outside insurance constraints. I can spend 12 hours with you instead of 50 minutes. I can structure the work exactly the way I know will help. I don’t have to justify every clinical decision to a third party. You pay out of pocket, which means you get my best work without bureaucratic constraints. That’s the trade-off.

Payment is straightforward: Half down to reserve your date, half at the time of your appointment. You won’t be charged the second half until two weeks before, when your assessments are completed.

Absolutely. And many couples do exactly this.

You get the intensive with me, learn the tools and patterns specific to your relationship, and then take that work back to your current therapist. Your therapist can help you maintain and go deeper on what we’ve uncovered.

This actually works really well. You get a concentrated, specialized intervention, then continue with the relationship you already have with your therapist.

An intensive is not the right choice if:

• There’s active intimate partner violence or coercive control
• There’s untreated substance dependence or acute psychiatric risk
• One of you has already decided to leave and won’t engage
• You’re not both willing to show up and try something different

If any of those apply, we’ll talk about what kind of support would actually help.

If you’re unsure whether an intensive is right for you, reach out to me directly. Call or text (214) 547-1318. I’ll ask you some questions and help you figure out if this is the right move—or if you need something different first.

An intensive is the right fit if any of these sound like you:

• You’re stuck in the same fight, over and over. You’ve had the same argument for months—or years. You know how it starts, you know how it ends, and nothing changes. You need someone to interrupt the pattern from the outside.
• You feel more like roommates than partners. You’ve gone quiet. You’re living parallel lives. The disconnection is louder than the conflict.
• You’ve tried weekly couples therapy, and it didn’t work. You went to sessions, maybe for months, and left more frustrated than when you started. You couldn’t get momentum. The sessions felt unstructured, or the therapist let you two go at each other without intervening.
• You’re in high conflict, and it’s escalating. Arguments are frequent, intense, and hard to recover from. You’re worried about what you say to each other, or what your kids are witnessing.
• You’re contemplating divorce, but you’re not sure. Part of you wants out. Part of you wants to try one more serious thing before making that decision. You want clarity—either way.
• You’re rebuilding after a rupture. An affair, a betrayal, a serious breach of trust. You want to do the work, but you need structure and expertise—not generic talking.
• You’re both committed but don’t know how to change. You love each other. You want to stay together. You’ve read the books, tried date nights, maybe done some therapy. Nothing has fundamentally shifted how you communicate.
• You’re busy professionals who can’t commit to weekly therapy for months. Your schedules don’t allow for 6 months of weekly appointments. You need focused, concentrated work that fits into a day or weekend.
• Your therapist referred you. Your individual therapist or couples therapist has recommended an intensive to break through a plateau. You’ll take what you learn back to your ongoing work.
• You want momentum, not maintenance. You don’t want to spend 6 months in first gear. You want to get to the root, learn new tools, and start practicing them—now.
• You’re preparing for marriage. You want to go deeper than typical premarital counseling and actually understand your attachment patterns before you commit.

What all of these have in common: You both still want the relationship to work. You’re both willing to show up, be uncomfortable, and try something different. That’s the non-negotiable ingredient.