SERVICES
COUPLES THERAPY INTENSIVE RETREATS
Why a couples
intensive therapy retreat?
Research has shown that the traditional insurance-driven model of weekly couples therapy is often inadequate to tasks at hand.
You can’t meet the needs of a committed couple in crisis with a 55 minute weekly cold reading.
With meetings spread out over weeks or months in 55-minute sessions, it's hard to feel like progress is being made at all.
In contrast, my science-based marriage counseling retreat offers a specific structure of one evening, and a 12 hour-2 day intensive (6 hours each day) for a more focused in-depth approach.
Troubled marriages
need a scientific approach.
A marriage intensive is intensive marriage counseling. It’s not for the squishy, or squeamish.
For appropriately motivated couples who want to find a way to stay together and keep their family intact, science-based couples therapy is 70-92% effective in relieving a couple's distress.
Science-based couples therapy offers reliability, because social science research is prepared by observing the data directly.
Well designed research yields clues that can lead to profoundly useful conclusions.
When a well trained couples therapist applies relevant research, the resulting empirical outcome is based in science, and is therefore repeatable,.predictable, and self-correcting.
That’s why science-based couples therapy is 70-92% effective for motivated clients. It works. Period.
Research Shows Intensive Couples Therapy Produces Better Outcomes.
Christensen, A., Atkins, D. C., Berns, S., Wheeler, J., Baucom, D. H., & Simpson, L. E. (2004). Traditional versus integrative behavioral couple therapy for significantly and chronically distressed married couples. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 72(2), 176-191. doi: 10.1037/0022-006X.72.2.176
This study compared traditional behavioral couple therapy (TBCT) to integrative behavioral couple therapy (IBCT) with distressed married couples. One of the differences between the two treatments was that TBCT sessions were 60 minutes long, while IBCT sessions were 2 hours long.
When you read the section under models “common factors” you’ll see that the use of different couples therapy models was irrelevant.
The salient detail is that 2 hours is better than one. In fact it’s been determined that the best time allotment for science-based couples therapy is between an hour and twenty minutes to an hour and a half.
The results showed that couples who received 2 hour had significantly greater improvements in relationship satisfaction and communication than couples who received 60 minute sessions, and these improvements were maintained at a 2-year follow-up.
Longer sessions allowed for more in-depth exploration of relationship issues, which can contribute to massively better outcomes.
A relationship expert with significant street cred.
You are in excellent hands..
Daniel Dashnaw co-founded the largest science-based group practice in the USA. He was also their lead content builder, blog editor, and Director of Development for 9 years.
When Daniel left for a slower-paced life in the Berkshires, they had nearly 40 therapists and could easily handle an international class of clients.
Daniel knew that having highly qualified therapists, which comprised an elite clinical team speaking 10 languages fluently, would be vital to attract the most discriminating “C” level clients.
Daniel Dashnaw is a also well-known thought leader in science-based couples therapy clinical practice.
He has personally trained with such seminal couples therapy thought leaders such as Dr. John Gottman, Michele-Weiner Davis, Dan Wile, Dr. Kyle Killian, Vagdevi Meunier, and EFT trainer, George Faller.
Daniel is also a trainer of therapists.
In February 2022, Daniel was invited by LingYu China International Psychology Centre of Canada to present the best practices for applying the most recent infidelity research to a large online audience of couples therapists in mainland China.
The American Family Therapy Academy held its 45th conference in Baltimore in June 2023. The conference theme was “Practice-Based Evidence.”
The conference spoke to my key interests…
• Expand supportive networks for engagement and action to initiate change.
• Create spaces where previously marginalized voices have center stage with an interested, receptive audience.
• Integrate theory and practice.
I was invited to present at this AFTA conference. My topic was: How can therapists explore client behaviors that could be understood as either neurodiverse or narcissistic?
What are the clinical “rules of thumb” to understand the differences between solipsism, narcissism, and neurodiversity?
RESEARCH:
Atkins, D. C., Baldwin, S. A., & Frazier, P. A. (2013). Early change in relationship quality and functioning as a predictor of overall treatment outcome in emotionally focused couple therapy. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 81(5), 949–957. doi: 10.1037/a0034153
Carlson, J., & Dinkmeyer, D. (2006). Intensive couples therapy: Working as a team in the treatment of marital conflict. Routledge.
Cordova, J. V., Scott, R. L., & Dorian, M. (2014). The Early Prevention of Relationship Anxiety and Distress: An Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy Approach. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 40(4), 417-425. doi: 10.1111/jmft.12077
Denton, W. H., Burleson, B. R., Clark, T., Rodriguez, C., Hobbs, B. V., & Criswell, C. (2000). Improving marital relationships: A comparison of two couples therapies. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 68(6), 1036–1040. doi: 10.1037/0022-006X.68.6.1036
Doss, B. D., Cicila, L. N., Georgia, E. J., Roddy, M. K., Nowlan, K. M., Benson, L. A., ... & Christensen, A. (2016). A randomized controlled trial of the web-based OurRelationship program: Effects on relationship and individual functioning. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 84(4), 285-296. doi: 10.1037/ccp0000085
This study evaluates the effectiveness of an online version of integrative couple therapy called OurRelationship. The authors found that couples who participated in the program had significant improvements in relationship satisfaction and individual functioning compared to a control group.
Lebow, J. L., Chambers, A. L., Christensen, A., & Johnson, S. M. (2012). Research on the treatment of couple distress. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 38(1), 145-168. doi: 10.1111/j.1752-0606.2011.00249.x
Johnson, S. M., Hunsley, J., Greenberg, L. S., & Schindler, D. (1999). Emotionally focused couples therapy: Status and challenges. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 6(1), 67-79. doi: 10.1093/clipsy.6.1.67
This article provides an overview of emotionally focused couples therapy (EFT), an intensive approach to couples therapy that focuses on emotions and attachment. The authors review the theory and research behind EFT and discuss the challenges and controversies surrounding its implementation.
Snyder, D. K., Wills, R. M., & Grady-Fletcher, A. (1991). Long-term effectiveness of behavioral versus insight-oriented marital therapy: A 4-year follow-up study. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 59(1), 138-141. doi: 10.1037//0022-006x.59.1.138
This study compares the long-term effectiveness of two approaches to couples therapy: behavioral therapy and insight-oriented therapy. The authors found that both types of therapy were effective in the short term, but that the benefits of behavioral therapy persisted over the long term.
Jacobson, N. S., & Christensen, A. (1996). Integrative couple therapy: Promoting acceptance and change. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.
This book provides a comprehensive overview of integrative couple therapy (ICT), an approach that combines behavioral, insight-oriented, and emotion-focused techniques. The authors discuss the theory and research behind ICT and provide case examples of how it can be used in practice.
Where do you conduct marriage intensive retreats?
I work with couples both online, and I hold in-person couples relationship therapy retreats in my beautiful office in the foothills of the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts.
Faster progress. Total focus on each other.
Intensive couples therapy is particularly helpful for busy couples who demand a better outcome from their couples therapy investment
Weekly 55 minute cold-read couples therapy.doesn’t cut it for these clients.
Many couples feel overwhelmed by how their conversations collapse into conflict.
You may feel stuck by how your negativity repeats, expands, and escalates.
If this sounds like you, you may make more progress with intensive as opposed to weekly couples therapy.
Getting out of Dodge, surrounded by nature, you'll have the time to resolve entrenched problematic dynamics.
As you relax, it is easier to learn new ways of relating to,and more deeply understanding one other.
An intensive couples therapy retreat or premarital counseling retreat is designed for couples in all types of relationships.
This is a private experience. It’s just the two of you. Unlike other programs, this is not a “small group” retreat.
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My In-person intensive in the Berkshires is the perfect way to ease into a slower pace, away from the pressures of chronic phone calls and emails.
Remember why you fell in love in the first place and what works in your marriage.
You’ll absorb information better when you take more time, allowing things to sink in as you ponder your own priorities and perhaps those of your partner and children.
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Your relationship is in chronic distress.
There is a critical betrayal or life transition that seems insurmountable
You’re existing together, but not really working toward mutual goals. You share no joint passions.
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Momentum matters in therapy. Intensive marriage counseling retreats can make a dramatic impact, and set a firm foundation for future growth.
After your intensive, You'll experience the deep satisfaction as you exhibit new found skills for problem-solving, listening deeply ( as opposed to impatiently waiting for a chance to say something yourself...), dealing with anger and frustration, and creating quality conversations where you might actually learn something new about one another..
It can take time to face your passive stance or confront self-righteous indignation.
My intensive couples counseling retreat will jump-start your progress and accelerate the pace of your healing and repair.
“Seeing the results of our assessment and Daniel’s game plan for treatment, made sense to both of us.
We realized that because our brains excessively focus on safety, we failed to realize just how compatible we actually are!
Daniel help us to focus and move forward. Working with Daniel was very powerful experience that we will never forget.”