WHAT DOES MARATHON COUPLES COUNSELING INVOLVE?

• Fostering respect, affection, and closeness to build and share a deeper connection with each other’s inner world.  Keeping conflict discussions calm to facilitate breakthroughs.

• Resolving conflict grid-lock

• Strengthening and maintaining the gains in your relationship.

We start out by identifying the goals and intentions of the therapy process, right from the start. We  a compromise on their “gridlocked” issues: many times couples do not always have the same aspirations, hopes or goals, yet they need to come to some sort of resolution. We do our best to honor both individuals’ hopes and dreams. Our goal is to facilitate clients in accessing new strengths, learning new skills, and gaining new insights, which  moves them in the direction that they want their relationship to go.

Prior to coming in, you will complete an assessment packet that you can do online.  In this assessment packet, you will be asked several questions about the current state of your relationship, as well as what it is you hope to achieve during therapy. These goals will become our objective, and I will review your assessment packet prior to meeting with you.

We will first meet together, and then each partner will have the opportunity for an individual session as well.  (Often we do the individual sessions by phone prior to the couple attending the sessions).  After that, we will meet again with both partners to discuss the current state of your relationship, how it got there, and establish a plan for moving you toward your goals. Once we believe that we are all on the same page, the therapy begins.

WHO WOULD BENEFIT FROM MARATHON COUPLES COUNSELING?

• Any couple who is experiencing marital or relationship distress and wants their relationship to stay together, or would like to explore where they are at in the relationship.

• It helps if you are committed to the relationship, however, many couples who have suffered a significant setback are just not quite sure. This is okay, and we can work with that as well, helping you work through those issues to resolve this question.

• Any couple who does not live in the vicinity of The Five Towns.

• Any couple in distress who feel the need for urgent help and will be unable to schedule regular sessions over time due to demands on their own schedules — work or travel, for example.

WHO WOULD NOT BE A CANDIDATE FOR MARATHON COUPLES COUNSELING?

Couples who have already determined to leave their relationship and cannot commit to the therapy process are unlikely to derive significant benefit from this process and are, therefore, not candidates for this type of therapy.

HOW DOES THIS WORK?

If you live out of town, you will book several hours in a row, and/or two to three consecutive days of therapy. You would stay in a local hotel or commute back to your home, depending on travel distance. Depending on how the therapy evolves, you may choose to return for follow-up sessions every few weeks or months. You will pay in full prior to attending sessions, and there is a 3-week cancellation policy.

Marathon Couples Therapy is a specific type of therapy that is short-term and intensive. Its purpose is to help resolve your current crisis or a specific issue in the relationship. It is not meant as an on-going, long-term couples therapy. Because time is limited, it does not include a full relationship assessment nor a teaching of every skill. Rather, an assessment is done of the current crisis, and together with information gleaned from the written questionnaires filled out and sent to us earlier, goals are set to fit the time available. The methods to achieving these goals are then incorporated into the treatment.

Generally, Marathon Couples Therapy involves 2-5 consecutive days of intensive therapy. During each day, the sessions may include two to three hours of therapy in the morning, a break for lunch, and two to three hours of therapy in the afternoon. Your Marathon Couples Therapy will be structured depending on the issues to be addressed, the amount of time contracted for the therapy, the goals you have for the therapy, and your emotional needs.

The structure of each therapy day may vary depending on your needs. Establishing therapeutic goals and a treatment plan to guide your therapy will occur in the first session. Thereafter, all treatment sessions will focus on the problems and goals at hand.

The Marathon Couples Therapy approach has been shown to have benefits for couples that undertake it. It often leads to a significant reduction of feelings of distress, resolution of specific problems, and a stronger relationship. In many cases, it has moved couples from thinking of ending their relationship to recommitting to it in new ways.

However, it is important that you also understand the risks involved. Despite the “nuts and bolts” approach of this method, the Marathon Couples Therapy format may move you more quickly and intensely into the areas of difficulty to be addressed. Therefore, you and/or your partner may experience uncomfortable feelings like sadness, guilt, anxiety, anger, loneliness, and helplessness. Your therapy may also involve recalling unpleasant aspects of your history together and/or individually.

Difficulties between the two of you may become temporarily amplified. Additionally, difficulties with people important to you may also occur, family secrets may be disclosed, and despite our best efforts, therapy may not work out well. Thus, we can make no guarantees about how the therapy process will be for the two of you specifically or what the outcome will be for your relationship. In addition, Marathon Couples Therapy, as with couples’ therapy in general, has limitations and may be unadvisable in the following situations.

Should you have any questions regarding the following issues, please contact us for clarification about whether the Marathon Therapy method is suitable for your situation. These issues are:

• If there is active alcohol and/or drug addiction on the part of either or both partners, from either partner’s perspective
• If there is serious violence in your relationship, threats by one or both partners that serious violence might occur, or fear of such serious violence on the part of one or both partners
• If either partner currently has an untreated major mental illness (schizophrenia, recurrent psychotic depression, or bipolar/manic-depressive illness.) This does not include past, successfully treated psychotic episodes (e.g. postpartum depression with psychosis).
• If there is an undisclosed, current affair that you are not willing to disclose (such secrets predict marital therapy failure)
• If either partner is currently experiencing suicidal or homicidal thoughts, or has a history of serious harm inflicted on him/herself or another person

Upon completion of the therapy, we can prepare a written summary of your therapy process and recommendations for you as a couple, and if indicated, for each of you individually. We may recommend that Marathon Couples Therapy be followed by couples therapy conducted in your home locale. In some cases, coordination between your home locale therapist and us may be advisable. In this case, your therapist will have you both sign a Release of Information form to allow for this exchange, if further treatment is needed.