Can 'Intensive Therapy' Save Woods' Marriage?

(Dec. 9) -- So Tiger Woods is very much in the doghouse, and also in couples therapy, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. A gossip columnist for the paper reported Dec. 2 that the golf star and his wife, Elin Nordegren, had entered into "intense marriage counseling," with a therapist leading the two through several sessions a day in their Windermere, Fla., mansion.

One wonders, of course, how the steady stream of revelations about Woods' alleged infidelities (seven, eight, nine purported mistresses, and counting) and assorted peccadilloes (in case you somehow missed it, one of the more recent disclosures is that he is insecure about his calves) has complicated the counselor's task. But more fundamentally: Is such a vaguely SWAT-style intervention an accepted way to try salvage a union? And how exactly does intensive marriage counseling work?

"You don't go to school and take a class in intensive therapy," says Dr. Joy Davidson, a New York psychologist and sex therapist. She describes it as not unlike an inpatient rehabilitation program for alcoholics or drug addicts: There are usually several hours a day of sessions with a therapist, in addition to other activities to help foster self-awareness. The workshops, she adds, will be customized to deal with whatever crisis a couple is facing, whether that's infidelity, sexual incompatibility or a lack of communication.

Davidson argues that intensive therapy can be particularly effective in breaking down the barriers put up by recalcitrant spouses -- precisely because it is such an exhausting process. "With intensives, there is no let-up. It's one thing to go in to your therapist once a week and maintain your guard and then come back a week later. For that short period of time, your guard can maintain very well." Lasting four hours or more apiece, intensive therapy sessions make it more likely for the parties to reach a breakthrough.

That said, as with other modes of counseling, it's the skill of the therapist that can prove most decisive. "You can do a lot of very bad therapy very quickly," says Dr. David Schnarch, director of the Marriage and Family Health Center in Evergreen, Colo. In fact, he says, the very nature of intensive therapy makes couples who resort to it especially vulnerable to misguided guidance. "Particularly in the middle of a crisis," he says, "most people will follow the therapists' lead."

Twenty years ago, Schnarch and his wife, Dr. Ruth Morehouse, developed what they call the "Crucible Intensive Therapy Program." The program is exactly what it sounds like: an extremely intense, four- to seven-day regimen that asks both partners to go through what Schnarch calls "a dark night of the soul." Patients often then make follow-up visits to work out lingering issues.

When it comes to infidelity, Schnarch and Morehouse don't focus on asking the cheater to beg for forgiveness. They believe it's too easy to issue a mea culpa and be done with it. Even worse, such a resolution gives cheaters little incentive to stay faithful, since they come to think they can just make things better with another apology should they stray again.

Schnarch says that if he were treating Woods and Nordegren -- which he isn't -- he'd instead begin with the aggrieved party. The identity of many high-profile wives is inextricably linked to that of their husbands (and vice versa, of course), so he starts by asking these women to "unhook" themselves from their powerful spouses. In addition to moving on from the humiliation of the affair, he coaxes them to get over the inflated sense of self that comes from having a celebrity partner. Otherwise, he says, they will always be trophy wives, competing with ever-younger women for the attention of their mates. "That is usually the kick in the pants they need to take action," he says.

It's also unlikely to be enough, say some infidelity experts, who argue that revelations or awakenings precipitated by intensive sessions won't themselves lead to healing. Instead, says marital and family therapist Rona Subotnik, long-term therapy is essential, because of the different ways men and women process the trauma of unfaithfulness. In therapeutic settings, men tend to more goal-oriented. "They are taught to be problem-solvers, which means being remorseful and getting it over with," says Subotnik, author of "Surviving Infidelity." On the other hand, women display a tendency for "obsessive review" of the affair, analyzing and reliving it over and over again in an attempt to understand it. "It's like 9/11, or any another traumatic event. We keep reliving the images over and over in our heads in order to process it," she says. "You need to have continuous help from a therapist to get through any unexpected anger, depression or resentment that might arise." It's a mourning process, says Subotnik, and one that typically lasts two years.

Though Schnarch says he knows of "therapists to the stars" who will go so far as to move in with their clients, he hopes Woods, for his sake, isn't considering that kind of permanent house call. "It's very hard to confront somebody on their own turf and in their own home," he says. "It's very appropriate the way he's drawing the curtain around his family right now, rather than putting them in a car and sending them out with the tinted windows and the paparazzi. But that has got to stop soon."

Experts tend to agree that relationships can survive -- and even thrive -- in the wake of infidelity. Still, the goal of counseling should never be saving the marriage at all costs. "Paradoxically, sometimes successful therapy means realizing that the relationship can't go forward. If you're just plunking down a bunch of money and saying, 'Here, Doc, figure this out for us,' then you're better off saving your money," Davidson says.

Of course, if the reports are true, Woods and Nordegren's counseling sessions haven't been the only exchanges between the couple during their days in the spotlight. According to The Daily Beast, the two have renegotiated their prenuptial agreement. Under the original deal, Nordegren had to be married to Woods for 10 years in order to be eligible for a payout of $20 million, but now she is reportedly in line for $55 million if she stays with him for two more years; she is also said to have received an immediate $5 million payment. It's an unromantic view, perhaps, but as motivations for giving it another try go, that kind of sum could be more potent than anything a relationship guru could tap into -- in intensive sessions, or otherwise.