Intensive Couples Therapy and Marriage Intensives in Florida
A marriage intensive is a focused one or two-day couples therapy experience, typically providing 10 to 14 hours of dedicated relationship work. We offer intensive couples therapy in our Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Sarasota offices with licensed couples specialists trained in Gottman Method couples therapy and Emotionally Focused Therapy. Intensives give couples dedicated time to address conflict, rebuild trust, and strengthen connection without waiting between weekly sessions.
What Is a Marriage Intensive
A marriage intensive is an extended form of couples therapy that concentrates several hours of focused therapeutic work into one or two days. Instead of stopping after a traditional weekly session, couples have dedicated time to identify relationship patterns, work through difficult conversations, practice new skills, and develop a plan for continuing progress after the intensive.
"Intensive therapy allows couples to dive deep into their patterns without the distractions of daily life, fostering real vulnerability and repair in a safe, guided space." – Dr. Mary Perleoni, PhD
Our approach empowers you to address root issues like emotional distance or recurring arguments, emerging stronger and more united.
A couples intensive may be appropriate when you and your partner need more time and focus than a traditional weekly session can provide. Couples often consider an intensive when they are facing:
Frequent or escalating conflict that has become difficult to resolve
Emotional or physical disconnection
Infidelity or betrayal and the need to rebuild trust
A relationship that feels more like roommates than partners
Parenting stress, struggles with family, or major life transitions
Uncertainty about separation, divorce, or whether to continue the relationship
Repeating patterns that have not changed through traditional weekly marriage counseling
An intensive does not guarantee a particular relationship outcome. It creates dedicated therapeutic time to understand what is happening, address the patterns maintaining the problem, and determine meaningful next steps.
Is an Intensive Right for Your Relationship
Our Intensive Formats
relationship Discernment
Our discernment intensive is designed for couples who need focused time to determine whether to move toward repairing the relationship or separating. For couples who need a less concentrated format for making this decision, we also offer discernment counseling.
Intensive Couples Therapy After Infidelity or Betrayal
Infidelity creates an urgent crisis that can't wait for weekly appointments. The pain is too raw, the questions too pressing, and emotions too volatile to process in scattered weekly infidelity counseling sessions. Our Affair Recovery Intensive provides couples with a structured space to process the impact of infidelity, begin the process of rebuilding trust, and address the emotional aftermath.
This intensive format provides immediate and focused intervention using evidence-based approaches specifically designed for infidelity recovery, including the Gottman Method for treating affairs and Systematic Affair Recovery Therapy.
Our structure allows the hurt partner to receive the needed support in processing the pain and trauma, while learning whether healing is possible. The partner who strayed gains insight into their choices and learns genuine accountability and repair. Through guided dialogue and targeted interventions, couples work through the crisis and gain clarity about their path forward.
The Affair Recovery Intensive isn’t about rushing forgiveness or moving forward pretending it didn’t happen. It's about facing what happened, processing the depth of pain, and making informed decisions about your future together or apart.
Relationship Reignite
Our Reignite Weekend Intensive utilizes strategies from both Gottman and EFT to deliver a focused program designed to deepen emotional connection and strengthen communication. Couples engage in evidence-based exercises and guided dialogue to break negative cycles, rebuild intimacy, and reignite their relationship with renewed clarity and closeness.
Weekend Intensives
A weekend intensive can be a practical option for working parents, busy professionals, or couples traveling to Florida who want dedicated relationship work without spreading therapy across several months. Rather than meeting for one hour at a time, couples work through structured therapeutic blocks across Saturday and Sunday, with breaks for rest, meals, and reflection between sessions.
This weekend marriage counseling format gives couples time to identify recurring patterns, work through difficult conversations, practice new ways of communicating, and develop concrete next steps while the work is still fresh. Each weekend intensive is tailored to the couple's needs and treatment goals. A follow-up session is scheduled within two weeks to review progress, address challenges that emerged after returning home, and reinforce the couple's plan moving forward.
How a Couples Intensive Works
Intensive couples therapy compresses months of traditional weekly counseling into focused, immersive sessions that create breakthrough moments and lasting change. Unlike standard 60-minute appointments spread across weeks or months, our marriage intensives typically span one to two days, with sessions ranging from four to eight hours per day depending on your needs and goals.
The Consultation Call
Before committing to an intensive, we begin with a complimentary consultation call to discuss your relationship concerns, determine if an intensive format is right for your relationship, and answer any questions about the process. This conversation helps us understand your situation and ensures we can provide the support you need.
The Structure
Each intensive begins with an assessment where we identify the core issues affecting your relationship, understand your individual and shared goals, and create a customized treatment roadmap. Throughout the intensive, we may alternate between joint sessions, individual reflection sessions, and skill-building exercises. This format allows us to work through patterns, conflicts, and communication breakdowns in real-time rather than waiting a week between appointments to revisit an issue.
After the Intensive
The work doesn't end when your intensive concludes. We provide structured follow-up support to help you maintain the progress you've made and navigate challenges as they arise. This typically includes scheduled check-in sessions at intervals that work for your relationship and situation (whether that's weekly, biweekly, or monthly). These maintenance sessions allow us to reinforce new skills, troubleshoot obstacles, and ensure the breakthroughs from your intensive translate into lasting change in your daily life.
This concentrated approach is particularly effective for couples in crisis, those preparing for major transitions, or partners who've felt stuck in traditional therapy and need a different approach to create meaningful change.
Intensive or Retreat and How to Choose
A couples retreat in Florida and a marriage intensive both provide dedicated time to work on your relationship, but they differ in structure, duration, and level of support. A marriage intensive typically provides 10 to 14 hours of focused couples therapy across one or two days. It may be a good fit when you need more time and momentum than traditional weekly sessions provide.
A couples retreat offers a more immersive experience, with multiple days of therapeutic work and a collaborative team addressing different dimensions of the relationship. Couples navigating complex concerns involving trauma, intimacy, betrayal, resentment, attachment injuries, or repeated relationship ruptures may benefit from this broader format.
During your complimentary consultation, we can help you determine which approach best fits your relationship, goals, and current circumstances.
What to Look for in a Marriage Intensive
When comparing marriage intensives, look beyond promises of rapid change and consider how the program is actually structured. A high-quality marriage intensive should include:
A pre-intensive assessment of both partners. The therapist should understand each partner's concerns, the patterns affecting the relationship, and the couple's goals before beginning intensive work.
An evidence-based approach to couples therapy. The intensive should be guided by established clinical methods, such as the Gottman Method or Emotionally Focused Therapy, rather than relying on an unstructured series of conversations.
A therapist whose expertise fits your needs. The clinician leading the intensive should have experience addressing the primary concerns affecting your relationship, whether those involve communication, betrayal, intimacy, trauma, attachment, or recurring conflict.
A clear follow-up plan. Couples should leave with practical next steps for applying what they learned and a plan for maintaining progress after the intensive ends.
Our marriage intensives incorporate these elements, creating a structured therapeutic process that begins before the intensive itself and provides direction for continuing the work afterward.
Intensive Couples Therapy in Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Sarasota
intensive marriage therapy in tampa
Our Tampa intensives are held at 550 N Reo Street in Westshore, convenient for couples in South Tampa, North Tampa, and Carrollwood. Couples come to our Tampa office for focused one- and two-day intensive therapy when weekly sessions do not provide enough time to address entrenched conflict, betrayal, emotional disconnection, or major relationship decisions. The extended format gives you and your therapist time to understand the patterns affecting your relationship and work through them without waiting another week between conversations.
intensive marriage therapy in st. petersburg
Our St. Petersburg intensives are held at 12425 28th Street and serve couples throughout Pinellas County, including Clearwater, Largo, Seminole, Gulfport, and surrounding communities. The intensive format provides dedicated time for couples dealing with persistent conflict, disconnection, infidelity, or other concerns that may be difficult to address within traditional weekly sessions. Couples can use the concentrated time to identify patterns, practice new skills, and develop a plan for continuing their work after the intensive.
intensive marriage therapy in sarasota
Our Sarasota intensives are held at 5939 Approach Road and serve couples throughout Sarasota, Lakewood Ranch, Bradenton, Venice, and surrounding communities. Couples who need more focused support than weekly therapy provides can dedicate one or two days to addressing recurring conflict, rebuilding trust, strengthening communication, and reconnecting emotionally. The concentrated format provides time to explore difficult relationship patterns while developing practical strategies that couples can continue using after the intensive.
Intensive Couples Therapists in Tampa, St. Petersburg & Sarasota
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![Mary Perleoni, Ph.D., licensed couples therapist and marriage intensive specialist at IBWHC in Florida]()
Mary Perleoni, Ph.D., LMHC
Dr. Mary Perleoni Ph.D., helps couples in Tampa Bay and Sarasota rebuild trust and intimacy through evidence-based marriage intensives and counseling.
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![Dr. Alex Castañeda, LMHC, intensive couples therapist in Tampa, FL, smiling in a blue polo against a white brick wall]()
Dr. Alex Castañeda, LMHC
Dr. Alex Castañeda, LMHC, guides couples through intensives using EFT, the Gottman Method, and EMDR to repair conflict, heal betrayal, and restore connection.
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![Emma Groskind, LCSW, Certified EMDR Therapist and intensive couples therapist in Tampa, FL, headshot against a white brick wall]()
Emma Groskind, LCSW
Emma Groskind, LCSW, a Certified EMDR Therapist, helps couples in intensives process relational trauma, rebuild trust after infidelity, and heal attachment wounds together.
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![Marriage therapist in St. Pete specializing in trauma, attachment wounds, and emotional repair]()
Tyler MacDonald, MA, LMHC
Tyler supports couples and men in intensives by blending practical tools with holistic care to build stronger marriages.
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![Chelsea Walker, Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist in Sarasota Florida specializing in intensive marriage therapy]()
Chelsea Walker, Marriage & Family Therapist
Chelsea specializes in helping high-achieving individuals to reignite their marriage across Sarasota.
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![Melissa Zentner, LMHC, couples counselor specializing in stress and relationship performance intensives at IBWHC]()
Melissa Zentner, MS, LMHC
Melissa brings her background in sex therapy to help couples strengthen communication, & reignite intimacy in intensive therapy.
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![Amanda Farris, LCSW, couples therapist focused on communication skills and marriage intensives at IBWHC]()
Amanda Farris, MS, LCSW
Amanda guides couples through intensive therapy to break negative cycles, improve communication, and restore emotional closeness.
Couples Intensive FAQs
Are there weekend or intensive marriage therapy options?
Yes. Marriage intensives can be scheduled as one- or two-day experiences, including weekend formats when available. Rather than limiting the work to weekly sessions, an intensive provides dedicated time for couples to address relationship concerns in a concentrated format. A complimentary consultation can help determine which schedule and structure best fits your relationship.
What is a marriage intensive?
A marriage intensive is an extended form of couples therapy that concentrates approximately 10 to 14 hours of therapeutic work into one or two days. Couples have dedicated time to identify recurring relationship patterns, work through difficult conversations, practice communication and repair skills, and create a plan for continuing progress after the intensive.
How is intensive couples therapy different from weekly couples therapy?
Intensive couples therapy provides several consecutive hours for relationship work rather than dividing therapy into weekly sessions. The additional time allows couples and their therapist to explore patterns, practice interventions, and work through difficult conversations without stopping when a traditional session ends. Whether this format is appropriate depends on the couple's needs and circumstances.
How many hours is a couples therapy intensive?
A couples therapy intensive typically includes approximately 10 to 14 hours of focused clinical work across one or two days. The exact structure depends on the couple's concerns, treatment goals, and recommended format. Sessions include time for assessment, therapeutic work, skills practice, reflection, and planning for how the couple will continue their progress afterward.
Is a marriage intensive worth it?
A marriage intensive may be worthwhile for couples who need more time and focus than weekly therapy provides, particularly when they feel stuck in recurring patterns or face an urgent relationship concern. The right format depends on your goals, relationship circumstances, and readiness to participate in concentrated therapeutic work with a couples specialist.
Can a couples intensive help after infidelity?
Yes. A couples intensive can provide dedicated therapeutic time to address the impact of infidelity, understand what happened, rebuild emotional safety, and determine what each partner needs moving forward. Intensive therapy does not rush forgiveness or guarantee reconciliation, but it can provide a structured setting for addressing betrayal and exploring the relationship's next steps.
How much does a couples intensive cost?
The cost of a couples intensive depends on the recommended format and number of clinical hours involved. During your complimentary consultation, our team can discuss the available intensive options, determine which structure may fit your relationship's needs, and provide the applicable fee before you decide whether to schedule the intensive.
Do you offer marriage intensives in Sarasota?
Yes. We offer marriage intensives at our Sarasota office for couples throughout Sarasota, Lakewood Ranch, Bradenton, Venice, and surrounding communities. Couples can complete approximately 10 to 14 hours of focused therapy across one or two days, providing dedicated time to address relationship concerns without relying solely on traditional weekly sessions.
Take the First Step Toward Rebuilding Your Relationship
You don’t have to face this season of your marriage alone. Our Marriage Intensive Therapy programs provide a safe, supportive space to heal, rebuild trust, and reconnect. Schedule your free, confidential consultation today and discover if a marriage intensive or couples therapy retreat is right for you.