FAQ on Intensives

FAQ on Intensives

Are you looking for a major impact on your relationship in a short period of time? Has your relationship hit a crisis? Perhaps you are dealing with a betrayal or some other significant life event that requires immediate focus for yourself as an individual or as a couple.

All in the Family Counseling has developed 1, 2- or 3-day intensives, therapy sessions to help clients get a critical mass of skills and knowledge to process their feelings, dilemmas in their life, and their relationships.

Common questions people have around intensives:

• Why do we have to go off site to Bintan or to a hotel in Singapore?
  • The purpose for going off site is to allow clients to create the space that they need to focus on themselves: their feelings, their thoughts and their relationships. In today’s world, with 24-7 connection to technology and people, busy life schedules, work, children and stresses, people do not have the time to slow down and become aware of what their feelings are trying to tell them, what their body is telling them, or what’s happening in their life.
  • The 24-hour, day to day demand makes it very difficult for people to become aware. By removing oneself from the day to day life to Bintan, where there is no access to household chores, errands, demands of life, couples are forced to slow down, rest, and they have the ability to reflect. So the purpose of going away is very, very important.
• Why are you doing it in Bintan?
  • We have carefully selected Bintan and a specific resort because of the unique offerings the location has. Bintan is a short 45-minute trip away from Singapore, yet it offers an escape from the pressure and hectic frantic life of Singapore.
  • The Angsana hotel offers a short 7-minute ride from the Bintan ferry, so the clients can quickly settle in and start the detoxing and relaxation process. There is very easy access to a very clean, quiet beach, that’s easy for swimming and reflecting. There is the ability to do nature walks, and it is very affordable.
• We want to do an intensive, but we do not have a live-in help or anybody to watch our kids.
  • All in the Family Counseling provides intensives done in a staycation mode in Singapore. There are a few adaptations, but the ability to get away, disconnect, recharge is still available by doing it in Singapore. The main focus is to be able to disconnect from your day to day life chores so that you can focus.
• Doing an intensive and having so many sessions back to back… don’t we need more time to process?
  • No the back to back sessions model is designed very purposefully. First, the immediacy that an intensive can bring when dealing with issues, feelings, conflict, is wonderful. The therapist is truly entering into your couple system and seeing how you function. Once inside the couple’s system, the therapy has intimate knowledge of how the couple communicates, problem solves, plans and functions. This allows the therapist to make rapid, meaningful interventions on the spot.
  • Normally, in a regular once a week session, we are reporting on activities that may have happened 5, 6 or 7 days ago, so the immediacy is lost, the intensities of the feelings are lost and the ability to grab immediate insight is diminished.
  • During an intensive, issues and feelings are dealt with in real time. Insights become more profound, and the ability to go in immediately and translate insight into action is much, much higher.
• The ability to get better insight into conflict, into your partner, into your marriage is much higher because of the immediacy of the sessions. In addition, because the clients have time in between sessions just to focus on what is happening in the session and their feelings, clients can get much more use out of each interaction because they are not blasting in and out of appointments and from next to next situation.
  • Therapy requires space to think and feel, and the intensives provides for this
• Will the intensive fix all of our problems?
  • No, the intensives are a way to do deeper work. If you’ve been doing therapy for a while, it’s a way to go deeper and address the issues where you may be stuck because the therapist is truly entering into the couple’s system.
  • If you are in a crisis, it allows us to get a critical mass of therapy and form a working team in a short period of time.
  • Or, if you are a couple who is travelling from overseas, intensives allow us to accomplish work that might take a couple of months. We can do it in the period that you are visiting Singapore, we can strategically plan them.
• Do I still need therapy before or after an intensive?
  • Yes! We need to do a bit of therapy to see if an intensive is suitable to you and your situation.
  • You’ll need therapy and maybe another intensive after this one.