Intensive Therapy

Could it be time to start thinking about a more intensive therapy experience?

• Maybe you have been trying to reach out to a therapist and have not been able to connect with anyone, and you really feel like something needs to change… now.

• You have some memories or a sense that things are getting in your way, and you aren’t sure you want to spend months in therapy in order to find some relief.

• Maybe you have done some good work with a therapist to cognitively understand where you are - or even are currently working with a therapist - but still seem to have some stuck places, have not fully been able to step into a new experience of yourself, or your body is still giving you confusing messages. 

• Maybe you and your partner are doing couples therapy, but it feels like some of your old patterns and stories might be holding you back from making real progress.

Intensive sessions can be the key to moving forward.

Intensive sessions can harness the power of EMDR and Psychedelics outside the weekly therapy session model. Rather than week after week of therapy, an intensive experience allows us to tackle an event or belief in a targeted way, working in longer blocks of time. I pair EMDR and approved psychedelic medicine with my relational and attachment-focused background along with advanced trauma focused psychotherapy (including ego state work, polyvagal and somatic techniques) to help you:

• Discover the origins of limiting beliefs in order to update those old storylines about how you get to show up in the world, who you are and what can bring you a sense of relief and belonging.

• Alleviate anxiety, depression, and trauma symptoms through a positive, growth-oriented process grounded in the philosophy that everyone is seeking wholeness.

• Identify and resolve some of the key triggers that seem to get in the way of you feeling at ease and being in the place you want to be in your life. 

The research on the effectiveness of intensive EMDR is encouraging:

Intensive application of trauma-focused therapy seems to be well tolerated in patients with PTSD, enabling faster symptom reduction with similar, or even better, results, while reducing the risk that patients drop out prematurely. Learn more here and here.

Intensive EMDR treatment is feasible and is indicative of reliable improvement in PTSD symptoms in a very short time frame. Learn more here.

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

The economy is compelling: even compared to other trauma therapy, the intensive format may decrease treatment time, because of time not spent on a) checking in at the beginning of each session, b) addressing current crises and concerns, c) focusing on stabilizing and coping skills that you won’t need after trauma healing, or d) assisting you in regaining composure at the end of the session. Learn more here.

Costs

Intensives are a specialized, focused service, and requires commitment of time and energy from both from you and me as your therapist. In order to allow the space needed for this deep work, Therapy Intensives are offered as a package rate that includes a 90 minute pre-Intensive interview, a customized treatment workbook, your 3-hour-3 day Intensive block, and a 90 minute follow up session. Costs vary between $2400-$2600 depending on scheduling. Insurance does not cover the costs of Intensive Therapy. Additional costs for medical evaluation (ketamine) and psychedelic medicine

Let’s break down the benefit of the cost:

• In weekly therapy, we usually spend the first 10ish minutes of each session reconnecting and catching up, then we have about 30 minutes for deep work before we begin to wrap up and transition out of the meeting.  When we do an intensive, we don’t need time to catch up or close down.  We get 2-3 hours of uninterrupted deep work.  That’s 4-6x more time or the equivalent of 6 sessions at once!  Imagine how much more progress we could make.

• Let’s also remember that the structure of 1-hour sessions per week was designed by insurance companies and not by therapists who have their client’s best interests at heart.  Imagine if you were going in for surgery and after 1 hour the surgeon says, “Well, we’ve reached our time limit for today.  I’ll stitch you up and we’ll pick this up next week.”  That’s a terrible idea!  Once you’re “in it” you don’t want to pause or return to daily life - you want to move through to the other side. Intensives allow us to do exactly that.  

Your well-being is a difficult thing to put a price tag on. While the lump sum cost of an intensive might seem high, consider the overall savings of time and copays that typically add up in standard treatment. Think about how your life might be different if some of your stuck points were less …sticky. We don’t always look at the things that hold as back as “costs” but they are, they cost us relationships, opportunities, joys. When you weigh how much this work could be worth to you, I urge you to take those things into consideration as well.