A therapy intensive is an extended, focused session that goes beyond the usual 45-50-minute length of a traditional session. You can schedule 90 minutes, 120 minutes, and beyond; intensives are tailored to your unique needs. 

Intensives are the best choice for accelerated treatment modalities such as EMDR and ART. We also offer extended sessions for talk therapy (CBT, DBT, parts work, etc.).  These sessions are perfect for you if you want to make progress quickly or dive deep into your issues or trauma. One advantage of scheduling therapy intensives is that the more time you spend with your therapist, the deeper the therapeutic relationship becomes. Research has shown that a strong therapeutic relationship is one of the most important factors in accomplishing your treatment goals and making the most of therapy—so the format of an intensive can help you feel better faster.

• You’ve tried traditional therapy, but you’re feeling stuck; you feel like you’re spinning your wheels, you’re not making progress, and you’re frustrated.

• You know you need therapy, but you’ve been putting it off. There’s never enough time, your schedule is so full, the daily demands are constant, and the thought of fitting in a weekly session on top of everything else makes you groan.

• You understand your problems, but all the insight in the world isn’t making a difference in how you feel or the behaviors you keep doing; you’re ready for deep and lasting change that goes beyond head knowledge.

• You need immediate relief; your symptoms are intense, they’re disrupting your life, you can’t do it anymore, and you can’t afford to wait months for therapy to start to work.

• You are serious about change and you’re ready to put in the work to heal and begin living life more fully.

It’s simple: the longer you spend with your therapist, the deeper the connection and the more work you can accomplish. Intensives are an express lane to healing, growth, and lasting change. It’s possible to achieve results in a single intensive session that would take you months to accomplish in traditional therapy. 

This is not to downplay traditional therapy. It has its place, and can be tremendously helpful—but it’s not for everyone. It can take time to see change when you come to therapy week after week for a relatively short session. Life happens, and portions of each already short session are spent on what’s going on in your life that week, which takes away from the time you have to spend diving deeper and working on treatment goals. An intensive pares all of that away, so you can concentrate on the therapeutic work that’s most important to you.

Are you short on time? Are you tired of struggling to make change, and feeling stuck in your regular weekly or biweekly sessions? Do you want to get to the core of your pain and actually heal it, without waiting months or years to see transformation? These are all great reasons to consider a therapy intensive.

Therapy intensives can save you time and money. The initial cost may seem like a big investment, but it’s common for people who complete an intensive to feel that they no longer need weekly therapy. By eliminating months of weekly sessions, therapy intensives can cost far less in the long run. And don’t discount the pricelessness of feeling better that much sooner!

Research shows that patients with PTSD respond well to trauma-focused therapy applied in an intensive format. Research demonstrates that intensives reduce symptoms faster, providing better results while also reducing the risk of patients dropping out of therapy prematurely.

Intensive EMDR treatment reliably leads to improvement in PTSD in a very short timeframe. Learn more here.

An intensive treatment program using EMDR therapy is a safe and effective treatment alternative for complex PTSD (C-PTSD). Learn more here.

Compared to other trauma therapies, the intensive format can decrease treatment time because clients don’t spend session time on a.) checking in at the beginning of each session, b.) addressing current crises and concerns, c.) focusing on stabilizing and coping skills that clients won’t need after healing from trauma, or d.) assisting clients in regaining composure at the end of the session. Learn more here.

We love having options! If you want more time with your therapist in traditional talk therapy, you can schedule an extended session using modalities such as CBT, MB-CBT, ACT, SFBT, etc. If you want intensive trauma treatment, or you want to work on self-esteem, relational or attachment issues, or complex trauma, then EMDR or ART is the best option for a deep healing experience.

First, we will meet for a 75-90 minute pre-intensive session where we will get to know each other, identify your goals, and develop a treatment plan based on how your trauma or symptoms are impacting your body (negative physical sensations), your thoughts (negative cognitions), and your life (relationships, job, etc.). We’ll take a deeper look at the pain points in your life and the underlying themes of your symptoms. For instance, do you feel unsafe or vulnerable? Do you struggle with responsibility? Is control or choice an important theme in your life? Do you feel defective? Are you disconnected from yourself or from others? This work will help us understand how your past is currently affecting your present.

In the pre-intensive session, we will also delve into your hopes for the future. How do you want to feel in your body? How do you want to think about or respond to the world? How do you want to be connected to yourself and others? We can then decide how many intensive hours to schedule, and whether it would help to space them out. These decisions are based on your wants and needs. You don’t have to wait several months or years to start feeling better.

During the intensive itself, we use EMDR, the flash technique, or ART to process past traumas and negative experiences that have been holding you back, preventing you from reaching your full potential. We will instill positive core beliefs, and help you embody them, so you can find your way to an empowered and confident future.

After the intensive, we will meet for a post-intensive session, where we will review the work we have done and identify any new goals you might want to pursue in the future. It’s highly possible that you may not need any more therapy after you have completed your intensive treatment plan. Of course, you are always welcome to check back in the future if a new issue arises.

An example of traditional weekly therapy:

• 10 minutes checking in

• 25 minutes processing trauma or working toward goals

• 10 minutes closing the session

Cost for a month of weekly talk therapy sessions: ~$800

If you’ve been to therapy before, you know it can take several months to start seeing meaningful changes. It can take years to get the deep-level life change you desire. So let’s say you spend six months in therapy. That could cost $4800. And if you’re in therapy for a year? That’s almost $10,000!

An example of a therapy intensive:

• 10-15 minutes checking in

• Up to 2 ½ hours processing trauma or working toward goals

• 10-15 minutes closing the session

Cost of a 3-hour intensive session: $900

And for just a little bit extra, you can have double the time to process and do healing work. This equates to months of what traditional therapy can accomplish. Many clients finish intensive work and find they don’t need weekly therapy anymore. This is not only money saved; this is months or even years saved, months and years you can be enjoying the life you want.