Couples Therapy Intensives
Understand each other clearly. Soften what’s gotten hard. Repair what’s been hurt. Find better ways forward together.
You’ve talked about it. Fought about it. Tried not talking about it. Maybe even gone to therapy for it.
And somehow, you keep ending up back in the same place.
You may still love each other very much… you may also be tired of hoping things will get better.
Something between you needs to change, you just haven’t been able to figure out how to change it together.
The STG Signature Couples Intensive gives us something weekly therapy often can’t: enough time and space to understand what’s actually happening between you, reconnect underneath it, and begin doing something different.
Maybe you know exactly what happens next.
One of you brings something up. The other gets defensive. Someone explains. Someone interrupts. Someone gets louder. Someone shuts down. You argue about what actually happened. You defend what you meant while your partner tries to explain how it felt.
Or maybe your relationship doesn’t look anything like that. Maybe things have simply gotten quieter. Less affection. Less curiosity. Less vulnerability. Less you together.
Either way, you can reach a point where both people are hurting and both people are waiting for the other person to finally understand why.
And that creates one of the most painful places a couple can get stuck:
You’re each trying so hard to be understood that you’ve lost the ability to understand each other.
Most struggling couples don’t have an information problem.
You probably already know you’re supposed to communicate better. Listen. Validate. Compromise. Criticize less. Spend more time together. Stop getting so defensive.
Maybe you’ve read the books, listened to the podcasts, learned your attachment styles, taken the quizzes, or even been to couples therapy before.
The problem is that knowing what to do and being able to access those things when you’re hurt, scared, angry, lonely, or overwhelmed are two very different things.
Because the problem usually isn’t just the problem you’re arguing about.
The argument might be about money. Sex. Parenting. Housework. In-laws. Trust. Work. Phones. How much time you spend together. How much time you spend apart.
But underneath what couples fight about is often a much more complicated relationship story. There are histories. Differences. Old hurts. Expectations. Assumptions. Unspoken needs. Protective strategies. Ways you’ve learned to respond when you feel rejected, criticized, controlled, abandoned, dismissed, inadequate, or unsafe.
And two nervous systems that can react much faster than two thoughtful adults can communicate.
That’s the relationship I’m interested in understanding with you.
Not so we can decide which one of you is the problem.
So we can finally see the problem clearly enough to do something different with it.
Before I ask you to change your relationship, I want to help you understand it better.
We slow things down and look at what happens between you and what happens inside each of you when it does.
What do you feel?
What meaning do you make?
What are you protecting?
What are you longing for?
What does your partner experience in response?
And what happens next?
Your experience matters. And your partner’s experience matters. Those two things can be true at exactly the same time, and seeing your partner’s reality doesn’t require abandoning your own.
Understanding your partner doesn’t mean agreeing with them. Validation doesn’t mean admitting they were right. And compassion doesn’t eliminate accountability.
We aren’t trying to determine whose version of the relationship wins. We’re trying to become curious enough about yourselves, each other, and what happens between you that you can begin responding to the relationship instead of only protecting yourselves inside it.
We begin moving from: ME vs. YOU
Toward: US vs. WHAT KEEPS HAPPENING BETWEEN US.
And then we use that understanding to make conversations, connections, and repair possible in ways they haven’t felt possible before, or for a very long time.
The Signature Couples Intensive
A private, personalized couples therapy experience designed around the way relationship change actually happens.
Investment: $4,950
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Before we try to fix what’s happening, we figure out what’s keeping you stuck.
We’ll build a clearer picture of your relationship: your story, strengths, communication and conflict patterns, individual experiences, important differences, underlying needs, protective strategies, hurts, and the connection that may have become harder to access.
We’ll slow interactions down enough to notice not only what happens between you, but what happens inside each of you when it does.
This is where:
“Here we go again.”
starts becoming:
“Oh. This is what happens to us.”
Once you can recognize the pattern, you have a better chance of interrupting it.
And once you can see the person underneath how they’re reacting in the moment, there’s often a little more room for compassion, curiosity, and connection.
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You take what we’ve uncovered back into real life.
You’ll have intentional practices and structured support while you notice what changes, what returns, what surprises you, and where you still get stuck.
Rather than expecting an “intensive high” to magically sustain itself, we get to discover what actually happens when you try to live this differently.
I’ll keep working too.
I’ll begin synthesizing what we’ve learned, connecting the pieces we’ve uncovered, and building your personalized Relationship Roadmap.
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Understanding the cycle matters, but eventually we have to practice doing something different inside it.
We’ll work on slowing down the cycle, staying emotionally present, regulating when things get hard, creating shared understanding, taking meaningful responsibility, and repairing the places that need care.
We may work through a specific conflict or relationship injury.
We may practice communicating about something you’ve never been able to discuss without getting lost.
We may uncover the softer feelings, fears, needs, histories, or longings underneath positions that have seemed completely incompatible.
And sometimes the work is simply learning to stay with one another a little longer before your usual protection takes over.
The goal isn’t to perform a communication exercise correctly.
The goal is to experience one another differently.
Because repair isn’t just saying the right words after something goes wrong.
It’s learning how to find each other again.
And the goal isn’t to never struggle again.
It’s to become better at what you do when you do.
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You won’t leave with a pile of worksheets. You’ll leave with a map.
After we’ve spent this much time understanding your relationship, I’m not going to send you away with a generic list of things healthy couples are supposed to do.
I’ll create a personalized Relationship Roadmap that brings our work together.
Your Roadmap is my reflection back to you of what we’ve discovered about your relationship, including things like:
The relationship cycle we’ve identified and how each of you gets pulled into it
The experiences, sensitivities, needs, and protective strategies underneath that cycle
Important differences that need to be understood rather than endlessly solved
Strengths, connection, and parts of your relationship worth intentionally protecting
Relationship injuries or areas that may need continued repair
The responsibility and growth edge each of you brings to the relationship
Specific practices, rituals, communication strategies, and tools that fit your relationship
Priorities and recommendations for the road ahead
The Roadmap isn’t a diagnosis of your relationship. And it isn’t a report card.
And it isn’t a set of directions for becoming some imaginary perfect couple.
Think of it less as directions for the perfect relationship and more as a map of the terrain you’re actually standing in.
Something you can return to when you forget what you learned.
Something that helps you recognize when you’ve wandered back onto an old road.
And something that reminds you where you’re trying to go together.
Because I don’t want you leaving an intensive knowing more about how relationships are supposed to work.
I want you understanding how yours works.
And knowing where to go from there.
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Because real relationships happen outside of therapy.
It’s one thing to understand your relationship while I’m sitting there helping you slow everything down.
It’s another thing entirely when it’s Tuesday night, everybody is tired, the kitchen is a disaster, somebody says something with a tone, and suddenly your beautifully understood relationship cycle has entered the chat.
That’s why the Signature Intensive doesn’t end after Session Two.
You’ll take your Relationship Roadmap and the work we’ve done back into your actual life.
Then we’ll meet again for an included 90-minute Integration Session.
We’ll look at what’s shifting.
Where you’re catching the cycle sooner.
Where you’re still getting pulled in.
What’s working.
What isn’t.
And what sounded brilliant during therapy but turned out to be considerably harder when you attempted it at home.
We’ll troubleshoot, practice, clarify, and adjust your next steps.
Integration isn’t an afterthought to the intensive. It’s part of the intensive.
The goal isn’t for you to leave dependent on me.
It’s for the two of you to become increasingly capable of recognizing what’s happening between you and knowing what to do next.
Is a Couples Intensive right for us?
You don’t have to be on the verge of divorce to need meaningful help.
And you don’t have to wait until you are.
Couples come to intensives because of recurring conflict, emotional distance, communication breakdowns, loss of trust, relationship injuries or infidelity, differences around sex and intimacy, parenting, money, extended family, life transitions, resentment, or simply feeling stuck.
Sometimes nothing is catastrophically wrong… you just know this isn’t the relationship either of you wants to keep having.
A Couples Intensive may be a good fit if:
You both still care about the relationship and want to give the work a genuine try.
You’re stuck in recurring conflict or disconnection.
You’ve lost trust, closeness, intimacy, friendship, or hope.
You’re navigating a significant hurt or betrayal.
You understand your problems intellectually but can’t seem to change what happens between you.
You’ve tried weekly couples therapy and need something deeper or more focused.
You’re willing to get curious about yourself, your partner, and the relationship you’ve created together.
You’re willing to look not only at what you want your partner to change, but at your own part in the relationship too.
You don’t need to arrive already knowing how to communicate beautifully. You don’t need to agree about everything. And you definitely don’t need to know exactly what’s wrong.
Figuring that out is part of our work.
Why spaced sessions instead of one marathon experience?
Because more therapy all at once isn’t always better therapy.
Traditional couples intensives often concentrate relationship work into one or two consecutive, very long days. I’ve intentionally designed this one differently.
There are enormous benefits to having more time than a traditional therapy hour gives us. But relationship work also asks a lot of your brain, your emotions, and your nervous system.
Eventually, more hours don’t necessarily mean more useful work.
So we go deep. Then we stop.
You rest. You regulate. You think. You notice. You practice. You take what we’ve discovered back into the relationship where it actually matters. And then we come back together.
Session Two is typically scheduled 1–3 weeks after Session One, giving us enough time for meaningful integration without losing the momentum we’ve created.
The space between sessions isn’t a break from the intensive. It’s part of the intensive.
Hi, I’m Kim.
And I’ve spent more than a decade working exclusively with couples.
Which means I’ve spent a lot of hours sitting with two good people who are absolutely convinced the person sitting next to them has lost their damn mind.
Usually? Neither person is crazy. They’re experiencing the same relationship from two very different places.
And that’s one of the things I love about this work.
How I Help
My job isn’t to referee the fight, I’m interested in understanding why the fight keeps happening.
I’ll slow you down when you’re moving too quickly to hear each other. Interrupt patterns that aren’t helping. Ask questions you may not have thought to ask yourselves. Help translate what’s underneath what you’re saying. Support each of you in understanding your own experience while asking you to become genuinely curious about your partner’s.
And yes, sometimes I’ll tell you something you probably don’t particularly want to hear.
Warm doesn’t mean passive, and compassionate doesn’t mean directionless. I care deeply about creating a space where both people feel understood. I also care about the relationship sitting between them.
My Approach
My approach draws from more than a decade of specialized couples work, extensive relationship therapy training, my background with The Gottman Institute, Discernment Counseling, attachment and relational work, nervous-system regulation work, and what years of sitting with couples has taught me.
But I don’t believe any single model can explain an entire relationship.
I use the theories... I don’t make your relationship fit inside one!
Our work is personalized because your relationship is.
Signature Couples Intensive
$4,950
Your investment includes the complete Signature Intensive process, from preparation and assessment through your final integration session. This isn’t three extended couples therapy appointments packaged together and called an intensive. It’s one cohesive process designed around one relationship: YOURS!
Comprehensive preparation and relationship assessment before our work begins so we arrive ready to work.
PREPARE + ASSESS
Session One is a full day focused on understanding your relationship, recurring patterns, individual realities, strengths, needs, differences, and connection.
UNDERSTAND + RECONNECT
Intentional practice between sessions, personalized recommendations, and structured email support.
GUIDED PRACTICE
Session Two is a full day focused on emotional safety, regulation, shared understanding, accountability, repair, and practicing new ways of responding together and navigating conflict.
SOFTEN + REPAIR
A personalized written synthesis of what we’ve learned about your relationship and a practical plan for continuing the work.
RELATIONSHIP ROADMAP
A 120 minute follow up Integration Session to troubleshoot real-life application, reinforce what’s working, and clarify your next steps.
INTEGRATE
Exercises, practices, and resources curated specifically for your relationship rather than giving every couple the same workbook.
PERSONALIZED TOOLBOX
A few things you might be wondering...
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Yep. And that’s intentional.
The Signature Couples Intensive is designed as a virtual, spaced experience, which allows us to do deep relationship work without adding travel or an unfamiliar environment to an already emotionally demanding process.
You get to do the work from your own space. Then you get to step away from the screen, regulate, rest, and return to your actual life together.
And because our two primary sessions are separated, I get something valuable too:
I get to see what happens next.
What changes once you understand your cycle?
What comes up again?
What feels different?
Where do you still get stuck?
That becomes information we can use when we come back together.
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Because relationship work needs integration, not just endurance.
There is a point where more therapy stops meaning more useful therapy.
The spaced model allows us to go deep, stop before emotional saturation makes the work less productive, and then use what happens in real life as part of the next phase of therapy.
The pause isn’t lost therapy time. It’s part of the clinical design.
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Sessions Two and Three are typically scheduled 1–3 weeks after Session One, with no more than four weeks between sessions.
That gives you meaningful time to integrate and practice without losing momentum.
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Approximately 15 Hours
Your investment also includes the work that happens outside those clinical hours: assessment and preparation, review and synthesis, development of your Relationship Roadmap, between-session support and recommendations, and personalized tools and resources.
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You wouldn’t be the first couple to arrive here having already done therapy.
Sometimes couples learned genuinely useful things but struggled to use them once therapy ended.
Sometimes weekly sessions became an endless recap of whatever fight happened since the last appointment.
Sometimes they spent months understanding what they do without getting much closer to understanding why it happens or how to change the experience underneath it.
An intensive gives us the luxury of staying with something longer.
Instead of finally reaching the vulnerable thing underneath the argument at minute 47 and having to stop, we have room to follow it.
We can slow down. Back up. Try again. Notice what happens between you in real time. And stay with an important moment long enough for something different to happen.
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You don’t have to become my therapy clients forever.
For some couples, the intensive provides exactly the concentrated reset and roadmap they needed, and they continue practicing on their own.
Others decide they want ongoing couples therapy to keep building on the work.
Some return periodically for maintenance or another focused session when something new arises.
There isn’t one prescribed path.
That’s rather the point of having a Roadmap.
Success isn’t me keeping you in therapy.
It’s helping you understand what your relationship needs next and making sure you have a realistic path for getting there.
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You might.
You’re coming to couples therapy, not couples summer camp.
You don’t need to demonstrate your best communication skills for me.
In fact, seeing some version of your actual pattern can give us incredibly useful information.
My job isn’t to sit back and watch you destroy each other.
I’ll slow things down, interrupt when necessary, help you recognize what’s happening, support regulation when either of you becomes overwhelmed, and help us use what’s occurring in the moment to better understand the relationship.
You don’t need to perform a healthy relationship for therapy.
We’re there to work with the one you actually have.
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No.
Two people can experience the same relationship, conversation, or event very differently.
We’re much more interested in asking:
“Can I understand how this made sense from where you were standing?”
than:
“Which one of us remembers it correctly?”
Understanding your partner’s reality doesn’t require abandoning your own.
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I can’t promise that.
And I wouldn’t trust anyone who did.
Sometimes deeper understanding creates renewed hope and connection.
Sometimes couples discover there’s more repair possible than either expected.
Sometimes the work makes clear how much individual or ongoing couples work is still needed.
And occasionally, seeing the relationship more clearly leads people toward difficult truths they hadn’t been ready to face.
The goal isn’t to manufacture a particular outcome.
It’s to help you understand your relationship more clearly, interrupt what’s hurting it, strengthen your ability to work together, and make thoughtful choices about where you go from here.
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Absolutely not.
Understanding doesn’t erase accountability.
We can have compassion for the history, fear, vulnerability, or protective response underneath someone’s behavior while still acknowledging:
That behavior hurt your partner. Something needs to change.
Your experience matters.
Your intentions matter.
And your impact matters.
Good relationship work has room for all three.
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Then I probably don’t want to sell you an intensive yet.
If one partner is seriously considering ending the relationship while the other wants to preserve it, Discernment Counseling is often a more appropriate starting place.
The goal of discernment isn’t to repair the relationship. It’s to gain clarity about whether you’re going to end the relationship, maintain the status quo for now, or make a genuine commitment to a period of couples therapy.
If you choose the therapy path, we can talk about whether an intensive makes sense from there.
Maybe you’ve spent enough time asking what’s wrong.
What’s wrong with your communication.
What’s wrong with your relationship.
What’s wrong with your partner.
What’s wrong with you.
I’d rather get curious about what makes sense.
How did you get here?
What keeps happening between you?
What is each of you protecting?
What have you been longing for?
What’s been hurt?
What’s still here?
And what would need to become different for this relationship to feel like somewhere you both can be happy again?