Couple Counseling
Using Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), our marriage counseling offers a highly effective solution for couples facing relationship difficulties. Our experienced and skilled marriage therapists specialize in helping couples overcome challenges and improve communication. Whether in-person or through online video sessions, our couple counseling services are available in Fort Worth, DFW, and the surrounding areas.
Using Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), our marriage counseling offers a highly effective solution for couples facing relationship difficulties. Our experienced and skilled marriage therapists specialize in helping couples overcome challenges and improve communication. Whether in-person or through online video sessions, our couple counseling services are available in Fort Worth, DFW, and the surrounding areas.
Table of content:
- What is covered in the couples Counseling intensive?
- What does a sample day look like?
- Couples Counseling intensives are designed who couples who are:
- Through targeted, personalized professional help, you will gain:
- How to Schedule a Couple Counseling Intensive?
- How to prepare for couples counseling?
- How much does Couple Counseling cost?
- Is this covered by Insurance?
- Couples intensives are not for you:
- Is Couple Counseling worth it?
- Extended Sessions
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is the modality we use for couples counseling. Research studies find that 70-75% of couples who use EFT move from distress to recovery and approximately 90% show significant improvements.
Have you been feeling frustrated, discontented or stuck in your relationship and don’t know what to do? You want to feel close and connected but don’t know how to get there. You’re in a tough spot where you are unhappy and just wish things would change. Everything seems to get worse as you try to change your partner’s behavior. You wonder – Will our relationship ever change? Will we stop fighting? How do we get out of this cycle that we are stuck in? Is divorce looming ahead? This distance serves as a massive abyss between the both of you, and it may seem as though there’s nothing you can do to rebuild the connection. You’ve tried everything, but you and your partner can’t seem to get any closer. It is time to take the next step and get some professional help. Our skilled therapists have a clinical map that targets how relationships work. They know where to go and what to do to get there. We work with couples in the following ways:
Couples therapy sessions are typically either 60 minutes or 90 minutes. It is typically recommended to begin treatment weekly, and as the relationship sees improvement to gradually reduce frequency of sessions to biweekly, then monthly.
Private two-day or three-day couples counseling intensives. Imagine if you could shorten the time it takes to heal and strengthen your relationship. Instead of spending months in therapy shorten this time by attending a couples therapy intensive. Intensives are designed with Dr. Sue Johnson’s and Kenneth Sanderfer, Created for Connection material along with EFT tools and techniques. We focus on de-escalating your negative cycle and taking your marriage to new levels of emotional connectivity. During intensives couples find new hope, understanding, and the feelings of togetherness they have been so desperately missing.
Is it hard for you and your partner to attend weekly sessions with your schedules or lifestyle? Do you sometimes feel like more time is needed during couples sessions? If so, we have designed another option for you! Extended sessions are longer therapy sessions that can be chosen in lieu of weekly sessions or incorporated as needed into your care. We are excited to collaborate with you to customize your care in the most effective way. Here are some examples of what it could look like:
- A full day of therapy in-person once a month with a 90-minute virtual or in-person session in between
- A 3-Day Intensive to jump start the process followed up with 60-minute virtual or in-person monthly sessions
What is covered in the couples Counseling intensive?
• Attachment – understand the science of attachment, learn your attachment style and how it affects your relationship.
• Trauma and triggers – trauma plunges us into fear and helplessness. Learn more about trauma and triggers and how these present themselves in your relationship.
• Demon Dialogues – these are the destructive cycles of conflict that destroy your relationship – you know it, you can feel it coming – this negative cycle keeps your marriage hostage creating distance, resentment and enmity with your spouse. In this module you will identify and learn how to stop your Demon Dialogue.
• Raw Spots – these are the sensitivities that come from our temperament, our personal attachment histories and from negative experiences in our relationship with our partner. They always reflect moments when a loved one was perceived as not responding to our need for loving attachments, hence triggering our attachment fears. In this session, you will identify you and your spouse’s raw spots, learn how to soothe your partner’s raw spot and learn how to be vulnerable with each other.
• Rocky Moments – these are previous relationship incidents and injuries that left you feeling disconnected. Revisiting a rocky moment can help you and your partner slow down your demon dialogue in the moment and help you to process and repair incidents where your demon dialogue did take over and left you feeling disconnected at the end of that interaction. The goal is to help you and your partner claim your moves in your Demon Dialogue, own how your moves trigger your partner’s attachment fears, and start to generate ways you can work together to take control of your Demon Dialogue and create a new dance together.
• Engaging and Connecting – Here we learn how to slow down and connect with each other about core emotional needs, outside of the Demon Dialogues. This is at the core of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). It is important to be able to deal with emotion in a way that pulls your partner towards you instead of away from you. Learn how to interrupt the attacks you lob at each other as bids for attention and secure attachment.
• Forgiving Injuries – In all relationships, we make mistakes. Research has shown that learning how to repair is the most important relationship skill in healthy, loving relationships. We will hurt those we love. Our loved ones will hurt us. It is how we deal with this that matters. Entering into a process of forgiveness is a choice. If you choose to not forgive, and you close yourself in order to not risk ever being hurt again, you lessen your chances for closeness and connection with your partner. In this module we will walk through a process of forgiving a relationship injury.
• Sexual Intimacy – Here, couples learn more about how emotional connection enhances physical connection, which in turn creates deeper emotional connection – the best kind of cycle.
• Keeping Love Alive – This last session is built on the understanding that love is a continual process of losing and finding emotional connection; it asks couples to be deliberate and mindful about maintaining connection.
What does a sample day look like?
Below is an example schedule for a three-day intensive for our couple counseling. However, this schedule is flexible and is adjusted based on the unique needs of every couple. The three intake sessions will be conducted the week prior to the intensive.
12:00-1:15 Couples Counseling
1:15-2:00 Break and couple work on “Attachment”
2:00-3:15 Couple Counseling
3:15-4:00 Break and couple work on “Trauma and Triggers”
4:00-5:15 Couple Counseling
5:15-5:30 Wrap-up and evening assignment for “The Demon Dialogues”
10:00-12:00 Couple Counseling
12:00 – 1:00 Lunch Break
1:00 – 2:00 Couple work on “Finding the Raw Spots”
2:00-3:15 Couple Counseling
3:15-4:00 Break and couple work on “Revisiting A Rocky Moment “
4:00-5:15 Couple Counseling
5:15-5:30 Wrap-up and evening assignment for “Engaging and Connecting”
10:00-11:15 Couple Counseling
11:15-12:00 Couple work on “Forgiving Injuries “
12:00 – 1:00 Lunch
1:00-2:15 Couple Counseling
2:15-3:15 Break and couple work on ” Bonding Through Sex and Touch “
3:15-4:15 Couple Counseling
4:15-5:00 Break and couple work on ” Keeping Your Love Alive”
5:00-5:30 Debrief intensive and discuss follow-up care options and recommendations
Couples Counseling intensives are designed who couples who are:
• Stuck in a negative cycle of fighting, arguing and disconnection
• Recovering from Infidelity
• In crisis for which weekly therapy is not helping
• On the verge of separation or divorce
• Cannot attend traditional weekly therapy sessions
• Seeking to rebuild, reconnect with their partner through an effective method of counseling
• Desperate for change to come sooner rather than later
• Requiring more privacy when working on their relationship
• Experiencing significant distress in their relationship
• Desperate for some type of change in their relationship
Through targeted, personalized professional help, you will gain:
• Better communication
• More connectedness, closeness and safety
• Creation of new relational dynamic
• More joy and less conflict
• Renewed sense of togetherness, partnership
• Understanding of how the relationship was stuck
• Tools to stay out of negative cycle
How to Schedule a Couple Counseling Intensive?
• Couple Counseling Intensives are typically scheduled over the weekend e.g., FRI/SAT/SUN
• Typically it will take 2-5 weeks to schedule your intensive date depending on availability
• To inquire, please complete following Intensive Consultation Form
how to prepare for couples counseling?
• Book your free Intensive Consultation
• Be pre-screened and complete intake paperwork
• Select and confirm date for retreat
• Arrange childcare & take off work
• Make travel arrangements as needed – we are happy to help you with your accommodation and recreational bookings
• Arrange payment – we accept cash/check/credit
• Read Created for Connection or Hold Me Tight authored by Dr. Sue Johnson prior to the intensive
How much does Couple Counseling cost?
$3,800 for new clients; $3,500 for current clients. A deposit of $1,000 is required to hold the date with the balance due a week prior to meeting.
$3,500 for new clients (this includes the 3 intake sessions done before the weekend); $3,000 for current clients (who have already had their 3 intake sessions). A deposit of $1,000 is required to hold the date with the balance due a week prior to meeting.
$1,500 (for current clients or those who have previously completed an intensive) A deposit of $500 is required to hold the date with the balance due a week prior to meeting.
Is this covered by Insurance?
All services of The Love Seat Counseling are fee-for-service. We will provide you with an invoice if requested for you to file with your insurance company for an out-of-network reimbursement. Understand that not all insurance companies reimburse for out-of-network, so you will need to discuss this with your insurance provider.
Couples intensives are not for you, if:
• There is an ongoing affair
• There is a current addiction with no recovery treatment plan
• There is domestic violence
• One or both partners are not committed to working on the relationship or is looking to end the relationship
Is Couple Counseling worth it?
Think about what you are trying to save – your marriage, your family, your bloodline. If your relationship gets worse, you could be paying far more than the cost of couple counseling intensive therapy for divorce attorneys, relocation, therapy, child support, and more. The financial costs of relationship deterioration are huge; the family and emotional costs are even bigger and longer lasting. Your marriage deserves the best possible help, and we can provide that to you
Extended Sessions
Is it hard for you and your partner to attend weekly sessions with your schedules or lifestyle? Do you sometimes feel like more time is needed during couples counseling sessions? If so, we have designed another option for you! Extended sessions are longer therapy sessions that can be chosen in lieu of weekly sessions or incorporated as needed into your care. We are excited to collaborate with you to customize your care in the most effective way. Here are some examples of what it could look like:
- A full day of therapy in-person once a month with a 90-minute virtual or in-person session in between
- A 3-Day Intensive to jump start the process followed up with 60-minute virtual or in-person monthly sessions