Improving Intimacy: The Course — full curriculum

Ten modules. 46 lessons. Eight guided exercises. Twenty to thirty minutes a day, and your partner’s participation is not required.

This page is the whole thing, laid out. Not a sales pitch with the details withheld — the actual lesson list, so you can decide whether this is the work you’re looking for before you spend anything.

The course is built for individuals: married, dating, divorced, or single. That is deliberate. Most marriage material assumes two willing participants in the room, which leaves out everyone whose partner isn’t ready — or who doesn’t have a partner yet and would rather not repeat the last pattern. The work here is on you, which is both the harder path and the only one you control.

Module 0 — Welcome & Orientation

Where you actually are right now, before anything changes. The Intimacy Compass you set here is the instrument you’ll re-read at the midpoint and again at the end.

0.1 Welcome
0.2 How This Course Works
0.3 Is This Course Right for You, Right Now?
0.4 Your Starting Point: The Intimacy Compass
0.5 Not Married? Not in a Relationship? Start Anyway

Module 1 — Why Nothing Has Worked Yet

Why the shelf of marriage books didn’t change anything, why fairness is the wrong frame, and why the individual is the unit of repair.

1.1 “Aren’t There Already a Lot of Books About Marriage?”
1.2 Book Speak
1.3 The Fairness Trap
1.4 Heal the Individual

Module 2 — Define Your Destination

You cannot navigate toward a destination you’ve never named. The four myths that quietly set most people’s destination for them, and how to measure by what’s working rather than what isn’t.

2.1 The Dream Vacation Parable
2.2 The Four Myths of Love
2.3 Measure Successes, Not Failures
2.4 Sign-Seeking

Module 3 — The Pull of the Familiar

Homeostasis: why good people stay stuck in patterns they can describe perfectly and still cannot leave. What the behaviour is doing for you, and where you learned it.

3.1 Why Good People Stay Stuck
3.2 What Value Does That Behavior Give You?
3.3 The Family You Came From

Module 4 — Reclaim Yourself

Two questions most people cannot answer about themselves, the pattern you keep re-entering, and the reason joy is often the hardest thing to tolerate.

4.1 Two Questions
4.2 Do You Know Who You Are?
4.3 Recognize Your Pattern
4.4 Why We Avoid Joy

Module 5 — Face Your Fears

The central diagnostic of the course: whether a given choice is driven by fear or by love — and how reliably fear disguises itself as the latter.

5.1 Fear or Love: What Actually Drives You?
5.2 Half Dome
5.3 Fear Wearing Love’s Clothing
5.4 The Downward Arrow

Module 6 — Self-Care Is Relationship Care

The distinction between self-sacrifice and self-care, which in faith communities is frequently collapsed — and what your actual priorities list says when you write it down honestly.

6.1 Self-Sacrifice vs. Self-Care
6.2 The Priorities List
6.3 Fear Orders the List

Module 7 — See Your Partner Clearly

The stories you’ve been telling yourself about who they are, the antidote to reading everything as a sign, and a daily practice that changes what you notice.

7.1 The Stories We Tell About Each Other
7.2 The Antidote to Sign-Seeking
7.3 Daily Adore

Module 8 — Connect Without Book Speak

Not another communication script. The four traps that make conversations fail, the four Cs, and how repair works — including why the mess itself is usable.

8.1 Why This Isn’t Just Another Communication Technique
8.2 The Four Traps
8.3 The Four Cs + Love
8.4 Repair: Leveraging the Mess

Module 9 — Live It

Re-reading the Compass you set in Module 0, what to do when the old pattern comes back — and it will — and how to keep going without the course.

9.1 Your Compass, Then and Now
9.2 When Homeostasis Comes Calling
9.3 Your Next Chapter

The guided exercises

Eight written exercises run alongside the modules, plus a midpoint check-in. These are where the course stops being something you read and becomes something you did.

G.O. 1 — Your Resource History
G.O. 2 — The Miracle Question + DRAIN
G.O. 3 — Homeostasis Self-Awareness
G.O. 4 — Grounding + Values
G.O. 5 — Discovering Your Fears
G.O. 6 — Your List
G.O. 7 — The Generous Interpretation Log
G.O. 8 — The Empathy Exchange
Midpoint Check-In: Your Compass

Common questions

Do I need my partner to take it with me?

No. The course is built for one person to do alone, and Module 0 addresses directly what to do if you’re not currently in a relationship at all.

How long does it take?

Ten weeks at one module per week, twenty to thirty minutes a day. It’s self-paced, so slower is fine — though the guided exercises work better with time between them than crammed.

Is this therapy?

No. It’s education built from clinical practice, and taking it does not create a therapeutic relationship between us. If you’re in crisis or working through trauma, please do that with a licensed provider who can see you.

Is it specifically LDS?

It’s written by someone who understands that context and takes it seriously, and it works whether you’re in the faith, out of it, or somewhere unresolved. Nothing in it requires you to hold a particular position.

Enroll — $197

Daniel A. Burgess is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with 25 years of clinical work with couples, and the author of Divine Sexuality.

Improving Intimacy: The Course — Full Curriculum