Looking for individual therapy intensives?
Explore Individual Therapy IntensivesCouples Therapy Intensives
When the weekly fight isn't the real conversation.
A dedicated container for couples who are tired of circling the different conflicts in weekly increments. Half-day and full-day sessions using IFIO, EMDR, and somatic integration — designed to move beneath the surface argument and into the deeper work that's actually asking for attention.
Offered By
Nancy Phung-Smith, LMFT 138181
What This Is
A different kind of space for two people.
A couples intensive isn't a just a longer therapy session. It's a purposefully built container that gives both partners enough time and room to go beneath the recurring fight — the one that shows up about the dishes, the schedule, the tone of voice — and find what's actually underneath it.
Instead of unpacking a conflict just to then packing it back up until next week, we stay with it. We slow it down, track what's happening in each person's body and nervous system, and let the deeper material surface at its own pace — not the pace a fifty-minute hour allows.
This isn't about assigning blame or figuring out who's right. It's about helping both of you understand what the conflict is actually carrying, and giving your relationship a shared language for what's been living underneath the surface.
Why This Format
What changes when you have enough time.
Beneath the recurring fight
The same argument about the same things isn't really about those things. An intensive gives us time to follow the thread all the way down to what's actually being activated — for both of you.
Your nervous system, not just your words
Conflict lives in the body. We track what's happening physiologically — the shutdown, the surge, the protection — so the work reaches the layer where patterns actually live.
Shared language, shared repair
When both partners see the same process unfolding in real time, something shifts. You stop being opponents and start becoming witnesses to each other's deeper experience.
Real momentum, not weekly restarts
Weekly therapy often spends the first fifteen minutes reconnecting to where you left off. An intensive lets you stay in the work — deepening, integrating, and landing it in one sustained arc.
What the Research Shows
From published studies on intensive, EMDR-based trauma treatment
~75%
No longer met PTSD diagnostic criteria after an 8-day intensive combining EMDR and exposure therapy (N = 1,015)
92%+
Loss of Complex PTSD diagnosis following intensive trauma-focused treatment
8 Days
Average length of the studied intensive program that produced these outcomes
0
Dropout in multiple studies of intensive, EMDR-based trauma treatment
For Working Professionals & Busy Parents
The hardest part of weekly therapy is finding the time to go deep enough.
If you're both working, raising kids, managing a household, and trying to hold a relationship together — the idea of adding weekly therapy to the calendar can feel like one more obligation you don't have room for. And even when you do go, the hour barely covers the conflict that came up since the last session, let alone the pattern underneath it.
An intensive is designed for exactly this. One block of focused, protected time — a half-day or full day — instead of months of fifty-minute sessions that keep circling the same surface. It's the difference between treating the symptom of the week and actually reaching the source.
We're not here to rehash every recent argument. We're here to use what's most alive between you right now as the door — the entry point — into the deeper healing that recent conflict is pointing toward. The fight isn't the problem. It's the signal that something underneath is ready to be met.
The recent conflict as a doorway
Most couples come in wanting to resolve the latest fight. But that conflict — the one that brought you here — isn't the obstacle. It's the opening. It shows us exactly where the deeper work lives, for each of you as individuals and for the relationship as a whole. We use it, not as something to get past, but as the entry point into the healing that's been waiting underneath.
The Approach
EMDR Therapy for Couples
Nancy is also trained in EMDR Therapy for Couples — a specialized application of EMDR that brings the power of memory reprocessing into the relational space. While EMDR is widely known as an individual therapy for trauma, its use with couples is less commonly understood, yet profoundly effective.
Every relationship carries shared experiences — and some of those experiences leave marks. The moment one partner felt abandoned. The argument that crossed a line neither of you saw coming. The betrayal, the rupture, the time trust was shaken. These aren't just memories; they're living imprints that get activated every time a similar dynamic arises, shaping how you respond to each other in ways that feel automatic and impossible to reason away.
What it is
EMDR for Couples uses bilateral stimulation — the same mechanism that helps individuals reprocess traumatic memories — but directed at the relational wounds that live between two people. It helps identify the specific moments of injury that are driving the current conflict, and reprocesses them so they stop hijacking the relationship in the present.
What it can look like
One partner identifies a painful relational memory — a moment of rupture, dismissal, or betrayal — and processes it while the other witnesses. Then you switch. The partner who was hurt gets to release what the body has been carrying, and the partner who caused the pain gets to be present to its full impact — not in defensiveness, but in repair.
Why it matters.
Couples often come to therapy stuck in a loop they can see but can't break. They understand the pattern. They've named it. And yet it keeps happening — because the pattern isn't living in the thinking brain. It's living in the nervous system, in the body, in the part of you that learned long ago that closeness means risk.
Traditional couples therapy works at the level of insight and communication — and that matters. But insight alone doesn't reprocess the moment your body learned to brace. EMDR goes to that level. It addresses the relational trauma that's operating beneath the surface, so the changes you make in therapy actually hold — not just in the session room, but in the moments that matter most: the ones where the old pattern used to take over.
When EMDR is woven together with IFIO, the work deepens. Parts work helps you understand who is showing up in the conflict; EMDR helps release what those parts are carrying. Together, they address both the structure of the relationship and the wounds that have been living inside it.
Already in Therapy?
Working alongside your current therapy
Many people come to intensives already in weekly therapy — this isn't a replacement, it's depth work in addition to it. We can use the time to go somewhere weekly sessions don't have room for, and I'll build a post-intensive plan you can bring back to your therapist, or hold onto until you're ready to return to it yourself.
Learn more about adjunctive therapyFormat & Logistics
What this actually looks like.
Couples intensives are available in half-day and full-day formats. Most couples start with a full day. Multi-day options are available for more complex relational histories.
Half-Day
3–4 hours
A focused entry point — one contained piece of work, typically a single memory, pattern, or stuck point. Good for those newer to intensive work or wanting to test the format.
Full Day
5–6 hours
The most common format. Enough time to go somewhere, get through it, and begin landing it. Includes built-in breaks for grounding, movement, and integration throughout.
Multi-Day
2–3 consecutive or spaced days
For deeper or more complex trauma histories, or for clients who have previously done intensive work and are ready for another layer. Days can be consecutive or spaced a few days apart.
Standard Rate
$320 / hour
Ongoing couples sessions.
Intake Session
$350
90 minutes — clinical assessment and treatment planning.
Extended sessions are designed for deeper, more focused work than a standard weekly hour allows. Intensives can be scheduled on consecutive days or spaced out over time, based on what works best for your goals. Each intensive is individualized, typically ranging from a half-day to several consecutive days, and integrates modalities such as EMDR, IFS, and Brainspotting.
Before we begin
A 90-minute pre-intensive call to assess your readiness, understand your nervous system, and co-create the shape of your intensive. You'll leave the call knowing exactly what to expect.
During the intensive
Grounding and orienting, followed by focused EMDR, IFS, and/or Brainspotting reprocessing. Breaks are built in throughout — this is not a marathon, it's a rhythm. Nothing gets forced.
After the intensive
Fatigue is normal — like a hard emotional workout. You'll have a 60-minute post-intensive integration session to land what moved. If you're in weekly therapy, we'll also create a plan you can bring back to your therapist.
Where it happens
In person at our San Diego office, or virtually throughout California, Oregon, and Florida. Both formats are fully supported.
Who leads the work
All intensives are led by Nancy Phung-Smith, LMFT — founder, EMDRIA Approved Consultant, and PhD candidate with a background in community mental health and psychiatric hospital settings.
What makes this different from weekly therapy?
Weekly therapy moves in 50-minute windows. An intensive removes the clock entirely. Without the session-end pressure, the nervous system has time to actually open — and the work has room to complete rather than stopping at the edge of something real. You don't spend the first 20 minutes warming back up, and you don't leave mid-process every week. The depth available in one intensive day can represent months of weekly work.
Not Ready to Book?
Take your time.
This is a big decision and investment. Leave your info and we'll send you more to look over — no pressure, no obligation. It'll be here if this is something you want to revisit down the road.
Your information will not be shared.
Sliding Scale & Reduced Fee
A limited number of reduced-fee intensive openings are available.
If the standard rate doesn't fit your circumstances right now, reduced-fee intensive spots are periodically available. Reach out to check current availability.
Learn moreThe Approach
IFIO — Intimacy From the Inside Out
IFIO is a couples modality developed from IFS (Internal Family Systems). Instead of treating your partner's reactions as the problem — or yours — it helps both of you get curious about the parts of yourselves that show up in conflict. The protector that goes sharp. The part that shuts down. The part that reaches for connection in a way that pushes the other person away.
In an IFIO session, you're not just talking about your relationship. You're witnessing each other's internal world in real time — seeing the parts that have been carrying old wounds, the parts that have been trying to keep you safe, and the parts that are actually reaching for each other beneath the friction.
What it is
A structured approach that brings the compassion and curiosity of IFS into the space between two people. It helps you see your partner not as the source of your pain, but as someone carrying their own — and creates a shared space where both can be witnessed in it.
What to expect
You'll take turns doing your own internal work while your partner witnesses — not fixing, not defending, just being present to what's real for you. Then you switch. The experience of being truly seen in your pain — and witnessing your partner in theirs — is often where the deepest shift happens.
Witnessing each other's work.
One of the most powerful parts of a couples intensive is what happens when you witness your partner doing their own deep work — and when they witness yours. Not as a spectator, and not as someone responsible for fixing it, but as someone choosing to be present while the person they love meets a part of themselves that's been hidden, guarded, or in pain.
That act of witnessing — real, undivided, without defense — is itself the repair. It tells the nervous system: you are not alone in this. And it builds something between you that no amount of conflict-resolution technique can replicate: a shared experience of being seen, held, and met at the level where it actually matters.
What to Expect
How the day unfolds.
Every couple is different, so every intensive is shaped to what you're carrying. But the overall arc looks something like this:
Before the Intensive
We'll have a consultation call to understand what's bringing you in, what's been happening between you, and what you're hoping for. You'll each complete a brief intake so I understand your individual histories and the relationship's patterns before we begin.
During the Intensive
We move at the pace your nervous systems can handle — not the clock. We'll use IFIO, EMDR, and somatic integration to follow what's most alive, with each partner doing their own work while the other witnesses. Breaks, grounding, and regulation are built in throughout.
After the Intensive
You'll leave with a shared understanding of what surfaced, what it means, and what comes next. I'll provide a post-intensive plan you can bring back to your individual or couples therapist, or hold onto as you integrate what opened up.
What's Incorporated
Tools that support the deeper work.
Wim Hof Method Breathwork
Using rhythmic breathing to shift blood chemistry, steady the nervous system, and gently open space for deeper emotional release and trauma healing.
Somatic Embodiment & Regulation
Practices that help you go beyond talk therapy, release stored tension, and reconnect with the body's innate wisdom for deeper, lasting trauma healing.
Opus SoundBed
A multisensory sound-healing journey designed to harmonize your system, release tension, and create the ideal internal environment for cellular repair & emotional integration.
A Note From Nancy
It is in relationships that we heal.
I work with couples because I believe something fundamental: it is in relationships that we heal. The very dynamics that wound us are also the ones that can repair us — when we're given the right conditions and enough time to actually meet what's underneath.
The goal of a couples intensive isn't necessarily to push through and just stay together. Sometimes that's the outcome, and sometimes it isn't. The goal is to make space for what the emotions are telling us, and what the behaviors are serving. The shutdown, the pursuit, the criticism, the withdrawal — none of it is random. It's all carrying something, and until we can see what that something is, we're just managing symptoms.
What I love about the intensive format is that it gives both partners enough room to go beneath the surface fight and find what's actually being activated — not just in the relationship, but in each person's own history. When both of you can see that, and witness each other in it, something shifts that no amount of conflict-resolution technique can replicate.
If something in this resonates and you're wondering whether it's the right fit for the two of you — that's what the consultation call is for. We'll figure it out together.
The Deep Dive Option
Your 3-Day Journey
For couples who want to go further than a single day allows, the 3-day immersion is our deep dive option — three 4-hour days plus a 90-minute intake session, paced so both of your nervous systems can actually metabolize the depth. We can discuss more about what that looks like for the two of you on a consultation call.
Structure
Three 4-hour days + 90-min intake
Total Cost
$3,880
Day 01
4 Hours
Build Trust With the Parts
We begin slowly. Before any deeper work happens, we spend the first day in IFIO and IFS — getting to know the parts each of you carries into the relationship, and the parts that show up between you. We build trust with those parts and identify where the work is actually waiting.
What You'll Experience
- Meet the parts each of you brings into the relationship — the protectors, the pursuers, the ones who shut down
- Identify the relational pattern beneath the conflict and where the work is waiting
- Build the safety and trust needed before any processing begins
- Map the landscape of your shared system so the deeper work has a clear direction
Day 02
4 Hours
Process With EMDR & Brainspotting
With the groundwork laid, we move into the processing itself. EMDR and Brainspotting help your nervous systems finish what they couldn't complete on their own — moving what's stuck from something that still feels like it's happening into something that happened.
What You'll Experience
- Reprocess the relational wounds and experiences your systems have been holding
- Follow where the body is already carrying it, beneath language and story
- Move at a pace both of your nervous systems can actually metabolize
- Grounding and regulation woven throughout, not tacked on at the end
Day 03
4 Hours
Integrate & Soft Landing
The third day is for landing. We come back together to notice what shifted between you, put language to what changed, and give your bodies, hearts, and souls the space to settle into the work — so what moved here can travel with you back into your life together.
What You'll Experience
- Notice and name what shifted between you across the three days
- Somatic integration to help both nervous systems register the change
- A post-intensive plan for carrying the work forward as a couple
- A soft, grounded landing — for the body, the heart, and the soul
Curious if the deep dive is right for you?
We can talk through what the three days would look like shaped around your story.
Sliding scale & equity pricingCommon Questions
Things couples often ask.
Looking for individual therapy intensives?
Explore Individual Therapy IntensivesNot Ready to Book?
Take your time.
This is a big decision and investment. Leave your info and we'll send you more to look over — no pressure, no obligation. It'll be here if this is something you want to revisit down the road.
Your information will not be shared.