Imago Therapy Couples Intensive in Zürich
Stuck in the same painful relationship patterns?
Give the pattern room to change — in as little as a single weekend.
An Imago Therapy 10-hour couples intensive in Zürich for English-speaking couples—designed to help meaningful change take hold sooner, often reaching in one focused weekend what weekly sessions can take months to approach.
Real change works on two levels—understanding the pattern clearly and experiencing each other differently as it shifts. This weekend works to help you reach both.
If this sounds familiar
You love each other. That was never the question.
What wears you down is the same argument in a hundred disguises. The conversation that turns before you know why. The silence afterward, where you each feel a little more alone than before. From the outside your life looks like it works, and in many ways it does. But between you, something tender has gone cold or quiet, and neither of you seems able to reach it the way you used to.
You are not failing. Nearly every committed relationship reaches a point where early closeness gives way to the same recurring hurt. It can feel isolating, yet it is both common and, in its way, to be expected. In Imago therapy, conflict like this is understood as growth trying to happen: a signal, not a verdict. It begins to ease when both partners are genuinely willing to own their part and to change, and from there the very pattern that divided you can become where your bond grows deepest.
What it is
A focused weekend of relationship work
Roughly ten hours over a single weekend, drawing primarily from Imago Relationship Therapy, attachment theory, trauma-informed counseling, and parts work—with hypnotic and experiential techniques when they serve you. Rather than stopping just as insight begins to surface, we have the time to go deeper and practice new ways of relating to each other in real time.
The difference a weekend makes
Why ten focused hours move differently
A weekly hour
Built for steady, ongoing support. Each session re-enters the feeling and finds where you left off, then pauses at the hour—and a week later, the openness has often closed and old defenses re-arm.
A focused weekend
Built for the breakthrough. The thread stays unbroken, and momentum can build across two days, helping couples move through rupture into repair in real time—covering ground that weekly sessions often take months to reach.
Is this the right format?
Determining fit is one purpose of the 90-minute preliminary consultation. Not every couple will be recommended for an intensive. When appropriate, referrals will be made to therapists or services better suited to your needs.
The weekend
Day One
Seeing the pattern
- Relationship history & assessment
- Naming the recurring conflict cycle
- Each partner’s emotional experience
- Imago dialogue & communication work
Day Two
Repair & reconnection
- Deepening relational understanding
- Repair conversations
- Practicing new patterns together
- A practical roadmap forward
Meet your therapist
About Elizabeth, Your Couples Therapist
I’m Elizabeth Carter—a licensed clinical mental health counselor from the US and a certified clinical hypnotherapist with over seven years of trauma-informed work with couples, groups, and individuals. For five of those years I’ve worked with Paracelsus Recovery, a bespoke Zürich rehabilitation clinic specializing in treating UHNW individuals with executive burnout, addiction, and severe mental health disorders, where I have regularly supported couples and families as they navigate recovery together.
This weekend is built on that same depth, joining a clear understanding of what is really happening between two people with the willingness to stay with the feelings underneath it.
How to begin
Start with a conversation, not a commitment
A free 15-minute call
A relaxed conversation so you can get a feel for how I work, ask questions, and hear how the weekend is structured. There’s no charge and no obligation; this call is simply for you to get a sense of whether we’re a fit.
A 90-minute preliminary consultation
If it feels right, we meet for a deeper assessment of your relationship and goals and confirm the intensive is the appropriate format.
The intensive weekend
Ten focused hours over two days: the work itself. It includes personalized treatment planning, individual assessments for each partner, guided imago dialogues and communication coaching, and written recommendations and resources.
A four-week follow-up
A 90-minute session about a month later to review progress, address obstacles, and reinforce the gains from the weekend.
Please note: with only one or two couples taken on each month, spaces are limited and cannot be guaranteed.
After the weekend
What you carry home
Change that happens in a concentrated weekend tends to travel differently than change assembled one week at a time. Most couples leave not with their difficulties erased, but with something more durable to take home.
You catch the cycle sooner
The argument that once ran for days becomes something you can often name in the moment and step out of before it takes hold.
You repair more easily
Rupture stops feeling like evidence that the relationship is failing and starts feeling like something the two of you know how to come back from.
You hear the need beneath the words
What once sounded like criticism becomes more legible as longing, making it easier to respond to your partner rather than to the complaint.
None of this makes a relationship effortless. What it offers is a steadier way of being together, one you can return to long after the weekend ends.
None of this makes a relationship effortless. What it offers is a steadier way of being together, one you can return to long after the weekend ends.
Investment
Your investment in change
The intensive is offered as a single, all-inclusive package, with a preliminary consultation beforehand to confirm fit. Full details, including everything the package contains, are on my services and costs page.
Begin with a conversation
The first step is a free, no-obligation 15-minute call—a chance to ask questions, hear how the weekend is structured, and sense whether this is right for you both.