Couples Intensives
in Fort Collins, CO
Extended therapy sessions for couples seeking intensive marriage counseling in Fort Collins and virtually across Colorado
Couples Intensives
Traditional weekly couples therapy can be highly effective, but sometimes a 50 to 60 minute session simply is not enough to work through the complexity of a relationship challenge. When you and your partner are feeling stuck, navigating a significant conflict, rebuilding trust, or wanting to accelerate your growth, a couples intensive gives you the time and focus to make real, meaningful progress.
A couples intensive is an extended therapeutic experience that lets partners move past surface-level conversation and into the deeper work. Instead of spreading things out across weeks or months, an intensive creates dedicated, uninterrupted time to focus on your relationship, free from the limitations that come with a standard weekly session. For many couples in Fort Collins and across Colorado, an intensive becomes the turning point that weekly therapy alone could not reach.
At Empowering Hope we offer two different styles of couples intensives, Skills Based and Process Focused, so you can choose the format that fits where your relationship is right now.
Generally recommended for couples who are just starting couples therapy, psychoeducational and skills-based intensives are more structured. They center on learning communication skills, identifying the patterns you keep getting caught in, building emotional regulation, and practicing those skills together in a supported, guided environment.
Rachel Berglund, our Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, offers this style of intensive. Drawing from her training in the Gottman Method and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). A 2024 meta-analysis found that roughly 70% of couples were free of relationship distress by the end of EFT treatment (Spengler et al., 2024). Similarly, In a randomized study, Gottman Method Couples Therapy helped couples rebuild trust and manage conflict after a betrayal more effectively than usual care (Irvine et al., 2024).
Rachel has created a 4 to 6+ hour educational process built around three core principles:
Emotional regulation, both as individuals and as a unit
A communication structure for conflict, so disagreements stop spiraling
Reconnecting emotionally through attachment-focused techniques
Couples intensives are not recommended in situations involving active abuse, coercion, or ongoing safety concerns. Partners should also have a reasonable foundation of individual emotional regulation skills to participate effectively.
Psychoeducational and Skills-Based Couples Intensives
Rates
Insurance does not cover couples intensives, so this service is private pay.
3-Hour Couples Intensive: $400
6-Hour Couples Intensive: $700
If you and your partner are looking for focused support, deeper conversations, and a chance to make significant progress in a shorter period of time, a couples intensive may be exactly what moves your relationship forward.
Process-Focused Couples Intensives
If you and your partner have done couples therapy in the past, or you already have solid communication and emotional regulation skills, a process-based intensive may be the better fit. It gives you space with a licensed therapist to help direct and guide you, plus time away from your busy schedule to put all of your focus on your relationship for a few hours.
A process-oriented intensive allows for deeper exploration of a specific issue, conflict, life transitions, or relational patterns that have been hard to address in weekly sessions. This is a less structured approach than the psychoeducational intensive. It is tailored to your specific needs and guided by what is needed in the moment, whether that is reviewing communication patterns, support in guiding a hard conversation, or simply holding a safe space for the two of you to share honestly with each other.
Rachel Berglund, our Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, offers this style of intensive as well. Her goal is to give you gentle guidance, brush up on communication and emotional regulation skills where helpful, and support you in working through conflict, disconnection, mistrust, or whatever is bringing you to these intensives.
Couples intensives are not recommended in situations involving active abuse, coercion, or ongoing safety concerns. Partners should also have a reasonable foundation of individual emotional regulation skills to participate effectively.
Rates
Insurance does not cover couples intensives, so this service is private pay.
3-Hour Couples Intensive: $400
6-Hour Couples Intensive: $700
If you and your partner are looking for focused support, deeper conversations, and a chance to make significant progress in a shorter period of time, a couples intensive may be exactly what moves your relationship forward.
Couples Intensives FAQ
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A couples intensive is an extended therapy session, typically 3 to 6+ hours, that replaces the usual 50-minute weekly format with focused, uninterrupted time to work on your relationship. It is designed for couples who want to make meaningful progress in a shorter period rather than spreading the work across many weeks.
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Weekly couples therapy works well for ongoing, steady support. An intensive is better when you feel stuck, are navigating a significant conflict, are rebuilding trust, or simply want to accelerate your progress. The extended time lets you move past surface-level conversation and into the deeper work in one focused block.
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Both. We offer couples intensives in person in Fort Collins and virtually to couples across Colorado, so you can choose whatever setting helps you focus best on your relationship.
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If you are new to couples therapy, the psychoeducational and skills-based intensive is usually the best starting point because it is more structured. If you already have some therapy experience and solid communication skills, the process-focused intensive allows for deeper, more flexible exploration of what is really going on.
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The biggest benefit is momentum. Because a couples intensive gives you 3 to 6+ hours of focused time instead of a single 50-minute session, you can get past the surface and into the real work in one sitting, rather than spending the first part of every weekly appointment re-explaining where you left off. Couples often make progress in one intensive that would have taken weeks or months to reach otherwise.
Other benefits include:
Fewer interruptions to the work. You stay with a hard conversation long enough to actually move through it, instead of stopping right as things open up.
Dedicated time away from the noise. An intensive carves out space away from your busy schedule so your relationship gets your full attention for a few hours.
Faster relief when you're stuck. For couples navigating significant conflict, rebuilding trust, or feeling disconnected, an intensive can be the turning point that weekly therapy alone has not reached.
A structure you can keep using. Whether you choose the skills-based or process-focused format, you leave with communication tools, emotional regulation skills, and a clearer sense of your patterns that continue to help long after the session ends.
Flexibility on setting. Intensives are available in person in Fort Collins and virtually across Colorado, so you can choose whatever helps you focus best.
A couples intensive will not fix everything in an afternoon, but for the right couple it creates the kind of focused, uninterrupted space where real reconnection can start.
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The Gottman Method is a research-based approach to couples therapy built on more than 40 years of studying what makes relationships work. It focuses on practical, observable skills: managing conflict without damaging the relationship, building friendship and fondness, and creating shared meaning together. In a couples intensive, the Gottman framework gives us concrete tools you can practice in the room and keep using at home, which is why it fits so well with the skills-based format.
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Emotionally Focused Therapy, or EFT, is an attachment-based approach that looks at the emotional bond underneath your conflicts. Instead of staying stuck in the same argument, EFT helps you understand the deeper needs and fears driving those patterns, so you can respond to each other with more safety and closeness. In an intensive, EFT is especially helpful for reconnecting emotionally and rebuilding trust after disconnection.