Intensives

Couples Intensive Therapy in Boise Idaho

Some seasons in a relationship need more than an hour a week.

An intensive gives you a full block of focused time with no interruptions and no waiting until next Tuesday to pick up where you left off. Some couples come to rebuild connection and learn to handle conflict differently. Others come to heal after a betrayal. And some people come on their own, carrying the weight of what a partner did, and need space that belongs only to them.

There are three intensives to choose from, and a short conversation is usually enough to tell which one fits.

Michele Haynes is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who has completed Level 3 Gottman Method Couples Therapy training and is trained in EMDR. All intensives are held at our Boise office or virtually for clients in Idaho, Oregon, California, and Washington.

Our Intensives include:

Couples Communication & Connection Intensives (Click Here)

Couples Intensive: Healing After Betrayal (Click Here)

Individual Betrayal Trauma Intensive (Click Here)

Couples Communication & Connection Intensive

Building the Friendship That Protects the Relationship

Who it’s for: Couples who are fundamentally stable but stuck in recurring conflict patterns, poor communication habits, or emotional disconnection — and want focused, concentrated work rather than once-a-week sessions stretched over months.

Framework: Grounded in the Gottman Method’s Sound Relationship House and Gottman Method Couples Therapy, this intensive targets the skills that research shows distinguish couples who thrive from couples who don’t.

What's covered

  • Building Love Maps — deepening partners’ knowledge of each other’s inner worlds

  • Fondness & Admiration / Turning Toward — rebuilding the friendship system and responding to bids for connection

  • The Four Horsemen & Their Antidotes — identifying criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling in the couple’s own patterns, and replacing them with gentle start-up, appreciation, taking responsibility, and physiological self-soothing

  • Solvable vs. Perpetual Problems — learning to tell the difference and manage each appropriately, since most relationship conflict is never fully “resolved”

  • Dreams Within Conflict & Accepting Influence — uncovering the deeper meaning behind gridlocked issues

  • Creating Shared Meaning — aligning on rituals, goals, and values going forward

Format: One day (6 hours) intensive at our Boise location or virtual for couples that reside in Idaho, Oregon, California or Washington.  The intensive is pre-scheduled any day of the week, excluding Sundays.

Outcome: Couples leave with a shared language for conflict, concrete tools for de-escalation and repair, and a clearer picture of the dreams and values underneath their recurring arguments.

What's Included

Six hour intensive led by a licensed marriage and family therapist with almost 20 years of practice and completion of level three Gottman Method Couple’s Therapy and Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) trained.

A 90- minute post-intensive follow-up

Branded journal for you and your partner

Light breakfast, catered lunch, refreshments, and snacks

Complimentary copies (2) of The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman

Cost for the intensive is $1,697.00

Couples Intensive: Healing After Betrayal

Rebuilding Trust and Safety Together

Who it’s for: Couples working through infidelity, secret-keeping, or another significant breach of trust, who need concentrated time and a structured process rather than trying to process a crisis in 50-minute increments.

Framework: Draws on trauma-informed and Gottman-based approaches to betrayal recovery (e.g., the Atone–Attune–Attach framework), treating betrayal as a relational trauma that requires distinct phases of healing rather than standard conflict-resolution work.

What's covered

  • Establishing Safety & Stabilization — containing crisis-level distress, setting ground rules for disclosure and communication, and slowing down reactive cycles
  • The Injured Partner’s Experience — validating trauma responses (hypervigilance, intrusive thoughts, triggers) without pathologizing them
  • The Involved Partner’s Accountability — moving through remorse, transparency, and full ownership without defensiveness or minimization
  • Atonement — a structured process for the involved partner to understand and take responsibility for the impact of the betrayal
  • Attunement — rebuilding emotional responsiveness and empathy between partners
  • Attachment & Trust Rebuilding — creating new relational patterns and a renewed sense of commitment, if both partners choose to move forward
  • Decision-Making Support — for couples who are still determining whether to stay together, space to explore that question honestly

Format: One day (6 hours) intensive at our Boise location or virtual for couples that reside in Idaho, Oregon, California or Washington.  The intensive is pre-scheduled any day of the week excluding Sundays.

Outcome: Couples leave with a shared understanding of what happened and why, a concrete plan for continued healing (including referrals to ongoing weekly therapy), and — for the injured partner especially — validation and tools for managing trauma symptoms.

What's Included

Six hour intensive led by a licensed marriage and family therapist with almost 20 years of practice and completion of level three Gottman Method Couple’s Therapy and Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) trained. 

A 90- minute post-intensive follow-up

Branded journal for you and your partner

Light breakfast, catered lunch, refreshments and snacks

Complimentary copies (2) of Not Just Friends by Shirley Glass

Cost for the intensive is $1,897

Individual Betrayal Trauma Intensive (with EMDR)

Processing the Trauma of Discovery

Who it’s for: Individuals who have experienced a partner’s betrayal (infidelity, deception, addiction-related betrayal, etc.) and are struggling with trauma symptoms — intrusive images, hypervigilance, obsessive thinking, panic, or emotional flooding — that are interfering with daily functioning, regardless of whether the relationship continues.

Framework: Combines betrayal trauma-informed clinical care with EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), which is well-supported for treating trauma symptoms by helping the brain reprocess distressing memories so they lose their emotional charge.

What's covered

  • Assessment & History-Taking — understanding the full scope of the betrayal, prior trauma history, current symptom severity, and readiness for reprocessing work

  • Stabilization & Resourcing — building affect-regulation and grounding skills before trauma processing begins, essential given how activating betrayal trauma can be

  • Psychoeducation on Betrayal Trauma — normalizing symptoms like obsessive thinking, hypervigilance, and identity disruption as trauma responses, not signs of “going crazy” or being “too sensitive”

  • EMDR Reprocessing — targeting specific distressing memories (the discovery moment, key images, recurring intrusive thoughts) using bilateral stimulation to reduce their emotional intensity

  • Cognitive Reframing — shifting negative self-beliefs that often develop after betrayal (“I’m not enough,” “I can’t trust my judgment”) toward more adaptive beliefs

  • Identity & Meaning-Making — for many clients, betrayal trauma shakes their sense of self and worldview; the intensive makes room to rebuild this

  • Integration & Aftercare Planning — consolidating gains and creating a plan for continued support, since intensives accelerate but don’t replace ongoing care

Format: Three consecutive days – 90 minutes each day for slow and steady processing is recommended.  The sessions are at our Boise location or virtual for individuals that reside in Idaho, Oregon, California or Washington.  The intensive is pre-scheduled any day of the week excluding Sundays.

Outcome: Clients leave with reduced intensity around the most distressing memories and images, a clearer understanding of their trauma responses, concrete regulation tools, and a plan for continued individual therapy if further processing is needed.

What's Included

Four and a half hours intensive led by a licensed marriage and family therapist with almost 20 years of practice and completion of level three Gottman Method Couple’s Therapy and Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) trained. 

Branded journal

Refreshments

Complimentary copy of The Betrayal Bind by Michelle Mays

Cost for the intensive is $715