Relationship Checkup
You schedule regular checkups for your physical health, your car, and your pets — what about your relationship?
Like all other health systems, relationships benefit from regular attention and care. In the absence of routine care, even the healthiest relationships tend to drift apart or build up distress over time. The Relationship Checkup disrupts this trend by offering a brief, strengths-based, and preventative approach. The Checkup involves two sessions designed to foster your relationship’s strengths, learn specific solutions to potential issues, and grow toward deeper connection & understanding.
25+ years of clinical research has repeatedly shown that the Relationship Checkup improves relationship satisfaction, intimacy, and longevity. The Relationship Checkup is effective for couples at all relationship stages and satisfaction levels, from couples building on an already strong bond to those seeking to address significant concerns.
Dr. Dovala trained directly under Dr. Córdova, the developer of the Relationship Checkup, and has over 7 years of experience providing Relationship Checkups. She has trained over 300 other providers in how to facilitate the Relationship Checkup.
Through her doctoral dissertation, Dr. Dovala pioneered research tailoring the Relationship Checkup to address the unique strengths and stressors that LGBTQ+ couples may experience.
The Relationship Checkup is a brief, two-session exploration of your relationship. Think of the Relationship Checkup as preventative care — like a dental cleaning or an oil change. During those two sessions, we’ll work together to identify your relationship’s strengths, patterns, and areas of concern. Afterward, you’ll receive a personalized report that summarizes applicable findings from scientific research on relationships, highlights recommendations that are most relevant to you and your partner’s key strengths and concerns, and offers a list of ideas for ways to continue supporting the health of your relationship.
Although most couples find the two sessions of Relationship Checkup sufficient to address their goals, all couples have the option to continue in ongoing couples therapy if you’d like to dive deeper.
Many couples wait until the relationship is nearing a breaking point before they come in for couples therapy. The Relationship Checkup is designed to foster connection and deepen mutual understanding, whether you’re in a new relationship or you’ve been married for 50 years. A central priority of the Relationship Checkup is celebrating the strengths of your relationship, not just focusing on the challenges.
The Relationship Checkup is supported by over 25 years of clinical research and has been proven to increase relationship satisfaction, acceptance, intimacy, longevity, and positive communication, while also decreasing rates of divorce, distress, conflict, and depression.
Here are a few published papers supporting these findings:
- Increasing Access to Marital Health Care
- A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Marriage Checkup Adapted for Private Practice
- The Marriage Checkup: Adapting and Implementing a Brief Relationship Intervention for Military Couples
- A Randomized Controlled Trial of Annual Relationship Health Checkups
- A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Marriage Checkup: Depression Outcomes
Hear what other couples have to say…
