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Are you interested in expanding the services that your practice offers? Are you curious about working with couples? Have you considered offering couples intensives?
In this podcast episode, LaToya Smith speaks about growing your practice with couples intensives with Carole Cullen.
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Meet Carole Cullen
Carole Cullen is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, AAMFT Clinical Supervisor, and public speaker. She is a Certified Gottman Method and Emotionally Focused Therapist specializing in working with couples in crisis.
She has a group practice in Wake Forest, NC where she helps couples learn practical tools to reconnect with their partner and create lasting love.
Visit Carole’s website, Couples Workshops NC, and connect on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
FREEBIE: Download Carole’s PDF Guide to Relationships
In This Podcast
- Couples intensives
- How to structure your intensive
- Starting out new
Couples intensives
Many clients and couples are searching for intensives as counseling becomes more destigmatized and people are becoming used to asking for help when it is needed.
A couples intensive is a longer session, unlike group therapy, a retreat, or a workshop, where the therapist works directly with one couple at a time.
It’s therapy with one couple and you just spend a longer amount of time in one sitting with that couple to accomplish deeper work, longer lasting [results], and quicker returns on the work that you’re doing.
Carole Cullen
How to structure your intensive
You can design the layout of your couples intensive in any which way that best suits you, your practice, and your schedule.
Below is Carole’s recommendation that you can learn from if you are new to offering this service:
Day 1: 6 hours: the assessment phase – six weeks of therapy in one day
I start by getting to know the couple and talking to them about their current issues in the relationship. What’s bringing them into therapy?
Carole Cullen
Day 2: 4 hours: the interventions – unbalancing the systems
Day 3: 4 hours: the interventions – teaching new systems and correcting old patterns
They came back and it was like a brand-new couple, and they were ready to do the work, and we had a fantastic third day. So, from the first moment they walked in to the moment that they left, in that time something shifted for them, and they left with a renewed sense of hope for the relationship.
Carole Cullen
Starting out new
If you want to offer couples intensives, here are some things to know:
- People often come to you as a last resort. They are fed up, heartbroken, or close to giving in. There is a lot of pressure, so you have to be willing and ready to work with them at every level.
- Start slow! Build a curriculum over time. Start simple and offer incrementally longer sessions until you feel comfortable stretching the intensives over a couple of days.
- Offer slightly longer sessions with couples that you’ve already been working with. Do a one-day intensive.
- Pick a couples therapy method like Gottman’s and become certified in it.
- Learn about EFT and start to incorporate it into the therapy sessions.
Useful links mentioned in this episode:
- Use promo code ‘JOE’ to get three free months to try out TherapyNotes, no strings attached, and remember, telehealth is included with every subscription free.
- Visit Carole’s website, Couples Workshops NC, and connect on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Check out these additional resources:
- Creating A Culture of T.R.U.S.T. with Poonam Natha | GP 143
- Practice of the Practice Network
- Group Practice Launch
- Group Practice Boss: www.practiceofthepractice.com/grouppracticeboss $149 a month
- PoP Group Practice Owners Facebook Group
- Free resources to help you start, grow, and scale
- Work with us
- Practice of the Practice Network
Meet LaToya Smith
LaToya is a consultant with Practice of the Practice and the owner of LCS Counseling and Consulting Agency in Fortworth Texas. She firmly believes that people don’t have to remain stuck in their pain or the place they became wounded. In addition to this, LaToya encourages her clients to be active in their treatment and work towards their desired outcome.
She has also launched Strong Witness which is a platform designed to connect, transform, and heal communities through the power of storytelling.
Visit LaToya’s website. Connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, Strong Witness Instagram, and Twitter.
Email her at latoya@practiceofthepractice.com
