Live training for couples therapists
Couples Therapy Intensives:
The Blueprint
Move beyond the limitations of the 50 minute session and learn how to confidently offer couples therapy intensives in your practice.
A six week live training for couples therapists who want a clear clinical framework for doing deeper work with couples, along with the practical tools to structure, explain, price, and begin offering intensives.
Live
Tuesdays, October 27 through December 8
Time
3:00 to 5:00 PM Eastern
Price
$1,500 paid in full or 3 payments of $550
A Letter From Shane
You've spent the first part of the session catching up.
Maybe the couple came in activated from a fight they had that morning.
Maybe one partner is angry and the other is shutting down.
You slow things down. You help them feel safe enough to actually talk. You begin to understand what's happening underneath the argument.
And finally, something opens up.
Then you look at the clock.
There are three minutes left.
You do your best to contain what just happened, help them regulate, schedule the next appointment, and send them back out into their lives.
I've experienced some version of this countless times as a couples therapist.
And at some point, I started asking myself:
What if the problem isn't always the therapy?
What if sometimes the container is simply too small for the work we're trying to do?
I still believe in weekly couples therapy. Intensives aren't a replacement for it, and they aren't appropriate for every couple or every situation.
But I've also seen what becomes possible when we have more time.
Instead of constantly watching the clock, we can slow down.
We can understand what each partner really wants. We can identify the cycle they're caught in and explore what's happening underneath it. We can pay attention to what is happening inside each partner right now. We can understand how their histories may be showing up in the relationship.
And when something meaningful finally happens, we don't necessarily have to stop because our 50 minutes are over.
An intensive might be two hours, three hours, four hours, a full day, or sometimes more.
The point isn't that longer is automatically better.
The point is having enough time to do the work the couple actually needs.
Of course, there's a big difference between believing in this way of working and feeling ready to actually offer it.
What would I actually do with a couple for four or six hours?
How would I structure the time?
What if they become highly activated?
What if I get stuck?
How much should I charge?
How do I explain an intensive to a couple?
Will my clients actually pay for this?
And sometimes there's an even deeper question:
Am I allowed to practice differently from the way I've always been taught?
Those are exactly the questions I created this training to help you answer.
Shane Birkel, LMFT
Introducing Couples Therapy Intensives: The Blueprint
The Blueprint is a six week live online training designed to give experienced couples therapists the clinical and practical framework they need to begin offering couples therapy intensives confidently.
This isn't about memorizing a rigid six hour agenda.
Couples don't work that way.
It's about understanding the arc of an intensive and developing a clinical framework that helps you know what you're trying to accomplish even when the session inevitably goes somewhere you didn't expect.
By the end of our six weeks together, my goal is for you to be able to say:
“I understand how to structure an intensive. I know what I'm trying to accomplish clinically. I know how to offer it to couples. And I feel ready to schedule one.”
What You'll Learn Clinically
Over the six weeks, you'll learn how to:
Structure the arc of an intensive
without relying on a rigid formula
Establish safety and expectations
from the beginning
Clarify what each partner really wants
from the relationship and the intensive
Identify and work with the cycle
underneath the presenting conflict
Use the 4 Cs as a clinical compass
when you're not sure where to go next
Incorporate family of origin work
when it's relevant to what's happening in the relationship
Work with
shame, defensiveness, accountability, and repair
Navigate highly activated or difficult moments
without losing the direction of the work
Bring an intensive to a meaningful close
and help the couple understand what comes next
And You'll Learn How to Actually Offer Intensives in Your Practice
Knowing how to conduct an intensive doesn't help very much if you never feel confident enough to actually offer one.
We'll also address the practical questions that can keep therapists from ever getting started, including how to:
Decide what intensive formats to offer
in your practice
Price your intensives
in a way that makes sense for you and your clients
Respond to inquiries
from prospective couples
Explain the intensive model
clearly and confidently
Help couples determine whether an intensive is appropriate
for them
Schedule intensives
alongside your existing caseload
Present a different way of working
to both new and existing clients
I'm not asking you to throw away the couples therapy training you already have.
You Don't Need to Become a Different Therapist
I've spent years learning from approaches including EFT, Relational Life Therapy, Gottman, IMAGO, PACT, trauma work, and other models.
What I've found is that intensive work can create a larger container for the clinical skills you already have.
You may discover that the way you currently work with couples fits beautifully inside this structure.
The difference is that you have more time to follow the work where it needs to go.
Learning to offer intensives changed the way I thought about my clinical practice. There is the clinical benefit of having enough time to do deeper work.
But there is also another possibility.
You can become more intentional about how you want your practice to fit into your life.
For some therapists, that might mean fewer clinical hours or fewer clinical days. It might mean doing more meaningful work with fewer couples. It might mean increasing revenue without simply adding more appointments to the calendar.
Or it may simply mean having another option available when a couple needs something different.
I'm not going to tell you there's one correct way to build your practice.
I want to help you create one that works for you.
Tuesdays from 3:00 to 5:00 PM Eastern
The Six Week Live Experience
We'll meet live for six two hour sessions:
October 27
November 3
November 10
November 17
December 1
December 8
We'll have time for teaching, clinical examples, questions, discussion, and applying what we're learning to the situations you're likely to encounter when you begin doing intensives.
Recordings will be available if you can't attend every session live.
Our Work Doesn't Stop After Six Weeks
Your enrollment also includes six months of access to The Couples Therapist Inner Circle, my ongoing professional community for therapists committed to doing excellent couples work.
You'll have access to ongoing clinical masterclasses and case consultation, along with a community of couples therapists where you can continue integrating what you've learned as you begin putting intensives into practice.
Who This Training Is For
This training is designed for therapists who already have some experience working with couples.
You don't need to have done an intensive before. In fact, you may be here precisely because you haven't.
This may be a good fit if you've found yourself frustrated by the limitations of the 50 minute session, you're curious about longer format couples work but don't know where to start, you want more confidence working with difficult couples, you want a clearer structure for intensive work, or you'd like another way to organize your clinical practice.
This isn't intended to teach couples therapy from the ground up.
We're going to build on the skills and experience you already have.
Your Investment
Couples Therapy Intensives
The Blueprint
$1,500
paid in full
or 3 monthly payments of $550
Six weeks of live training
12 hours together
Recordings and training resources
6 months of The Couples Therapist Inner Circle
Frequently Asked Questions
Why couples therapy intensives instead of the way I've always done couples therapy?
You don't necessarily have to choose one or the other. I still believe in weekly couples therapy, and intensives aren't appropriate for every couple or every situation. But after years of working with couples in longer formats, I've stopped thinking about an intensive as a completely different kind of therapy. All couples therapy is intensive therapy. We're working with attachment, family history, shame, fear, sexuality, betrayal, parenting, identity, longing, trauma, and some of the most important relationships in people's lives. That's intensive work whether we give ourselves 50 minutes or six hours. The question is whether the container fits the work. Learning to work in longer containers hasn't just changed the way I conduct intensives. It's changed the way I practice couples therapy altogether.
I don't feel completely ready. How do I know if this program is right for me?
You don't need to feel completely ready. In fact, that's part of why I created this training. One of the biggest obstacles I see for therapists considering intensives isn't a lack of clinical skill. It's uncertainty. What if I don't know what to do? What if the couple becomes highly activated? What if I get stuck? What if I'm not ready? This training isn't designed to eliminate every moment of uncertainty you'll experience with couples. It's designed to give you a strong enough framework that when you're not sure what to do next, you know what to pay attention to. If you already have experience working with couples but don't yet feel confident offering an intensive, you're exactly who I created this training for.
Do I need to have done a couples intensive before?
No. This training is specifically designed to help therapists develop the framework and confidence to begin offering intensives. You should, however, already have some experience working with couples.
Does an intensive have to be six hours?
No. Intensives can take many forms. You might offer two hour, three hour, four hour, full day, or other formats. We'll talk about how to determine what makes sense for your practice and the couples you serve.
Do I need to stop offering weekly couples therapy?
Absolutely not. This isn't an either or model. Intensives can become another option within your practice.
What if I can't attend every session live?
Sessions will be recorded. I encourage you to attend live whenever possible because questions and discussion are an important part of the experience, but missing a session doesn't mean you'll lose the material.
Will you teach the business side too?
Yes. Knowing how to conduct an intensive doesn't help very much if you don't know how to actually get one on your calendar. We'll address pricing, positioning, responding to inquiries, explaining the model to couples, scheduling, and integrating intensives into your existing practice.
Is this a certification program?
No. This training is designed to give you the clinical and practical framework to begin offering intensives. Therapists looking for advanced experiential training and certification can explore my Certified Intensive Therapist Training.
How is this program different from the Certified Intensive Therapist Training?
This six week live training is designed to give you the clinical framework, structure, and practical tools to confidently begin offering couples therapy intensives. CIT is my advanced five day, in person immersive training. It goes much deeper into experiential learning, practice, observation, feedback, advanced clinical application, and provides a pathway toward certification. You don't need to complete CIT to begin offering intensives. This training is designed to help you get started. CIT is there for therapists who decide they want to go deeper and develop intensive couples therapy as an area of advanced practice.
Couples Therapy Intensives: The Blueprint
You Know the Container Matters
You already know how powerful couples therapy can be. You've probably also experienced the frustration of finally reaching something important just as the session is ending. There is another way to structure this work.
My goal isn't to convince you that every couple needs an intensive.
It's to help you become the kind of therapist who can recognize when a couple might benefit from more time and confidently say: