It can be hard to carve out space for personal relationships in our fast-paced world. Yet, when couples run into serious difficulties, the old standbys of weekly counselling sessions and time apart may not be enough. Remedies like these tend to act more on the surface of problems than on their deeper, often hidden, roots. So, let's now consider an alternative that may be unfamiliar to some and that certainly is not as well endorsed as traditional couples counselling. It's called "marathon couples counselling." The name of this treatment modality describes what it is—an intensive, immersive few days or weeks of therapy for couples that attempts to go down deep into what ails their relationship.
Why Choose Marathon Counselling?
Couples who seek marathon counselling don't want to wait any longer for results. They have a clear need to work on their relationship, and they want to do it intensively and immersivity.
Time Constraints
Today, many couples find it difficult to incorporate conventional therapy into their jam-packed schedules. Marathon counselling allows for a concentrated period of working on their relationship, without dragging the process out over months.
Crisis Management:
When lives and relationships are in significant distress—whether due to infidelity, poor communication, or just plain old resentment—an immediate, focused intervention can keep things from going from bad to worse.
Emotional Connection
While traditional therapy might take time to uncover the deep-rooted issues that underlie a couple's problems, a "marathon" session tends to dive in much more quickly, allowing couples to address the core issues that are causing the problems. And we're not talking about a one-hour session. We're talking about two or three full days of good, hard work.
How Does It Work?
Longer sessions with a therapist can help partners rediscover their emotional connection. In a couple's therapy marathon, the counsellor first conducts an assessment of the partners. After that, the real work begins. The couple and the counsellor tackle the big issues in the relationship: the way the partners communicate with each other, the way they trust each other or don't, the way they resolve conflicts, and how intimate and emotionally connected they are. In one of these sessions, the couple goes deep with the counsellor, covering a lot of territory and several layers of an issue. The surface is not skimmed. Problem-solving happens during the session. The couple and the counsellor find healthier ways for the partners to relate to each other.
Benefits of Marathon Counselling
The concentrated form of marathon counselling allows couples to fully engage in the therapeutic process without outside distractions. Spending an extended amount of time on a relationship issue can enable a counsellor and the couple to dig deep and really work on the problem. Both partners can benefit from the almost ridiculous hour intensity of this type of counselling.
Marathon couples counselling provides a potent and time-efficient way to confront relationship problems. It allows couples to immerse themselves in the therapeutic process, which can result in accelerated progress and even deeper healing than traditional formats offer. If your relationship is at a crossroads, and you're looking for a way to hit "reset," consider bidding your time problem with the marathon.