psychotherapy intensives: when depth matters

Psychotherapy Intensives are about creating the right conditions for deeper work to unfold. They offer a carefully held container for people who want to work with a specific theme, pattern, or unresolved experience and feel ready for more concentrated attention.

The day weaves together trauma-informed breathwork, mindful movement, sound, and an extended synthesis of experiential therapies — all held within a clear, intentional structure that supports safety, depth, and integration. This structure provides rhythm and continuity — allowing the nervous system to stay oriented and supported while remaining engaged with what matters.

The experiential work is relational and sustained, creating space to stay with emotional and somatic experience without the interruption. This depth is what often allows meaningful shifts or moments of breakthrough to emerge — not because they are forced, but because the conditions make them more possible when the system is ready.

For some people, weekly therapy is exactly what’s needed. For others, there are moments when something calls for more continuity, more depth, and more room for experience to unfold than a single session can hold. An intensive creates that space.

An integrative mind–body experiential synthesis

At the heart of this work is a coherent synthesis of mind–body experiential psychotherapy approaches, offered as a unified process. Change happens through experiences that are felt, regulated, and integrated in real time.

Movement, breath, sensation, emotion, memory, and relationship are all part of the same experiential arc. Rather than shifting between methods, the work follows what is alive in you, allowing depth with flexibility.

Why this synthesis works

One of the most important opportunities of this integrated approach is continuity and the creation of conditions for significant shifts to occur.

In an intensive, we are not starting and stopping every 50 minutes, and repeatedly interrupting the work just as something meaningful is beginning to unfold. There is time to settle, to follow what emerges, and to stay with emotional and bodily experience long enough for it to move through a complete arc — without having to contain, defer, or “pick it back up” the following week.

This continuity matters. Instead of repeatedly re-orienting and re-entering the same material session after session, the work can build on itself in real time. Emotional and nervous-system processes are allowed to complete rather than remain suspended, supporting deeper integration, resolution, and a felt sense of coherence.

The difference is not just more time — it’s continuity and space that allows change to take hold.

What holds the synthesis together

This work is held together by a clear organizing intelligence: Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP). AEDP is an experiential, attachment-focused approach that prioritizes emotional safety, relational presence, and careful pacing. It shapes how depth is approached and how emotional and relational experiences are accompanied so they can move and resolve.

At the heart of AEDP is a simple, but powerful principle: healing happens when experiences that once had to be endured alone are finally met in connection. You are accompanied, understood, and responded to as the work unfolds. This is what allows difficult experiences to soften and reorganize.

Within this organizing frame, different approaches serve specific roles:

  • Parts-focused work, like IFS, helps support internal collaboration and respect protective responses

  • Memory work, like EMDR, supports traumatic memories when they are ready to be addressed

  • Somatic approaches, like Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, DBR, and Therapeutic Breathwork, help release what has been held in the body, supporting regulation and emotional access

These are not separate tracks. They function within one continuous, held, experiential process.

How the day unfolds

A psychotherapy intensive is a seven-hour experience, with a built-in break for rest and nourishment. While each intensive is unique, the day generally follows this rhythm:

Arrival and grounding

We begin by slowing down and arriving fully —emotionally and physically — establishing a sense of steadiness, setting intentions, and being accompanied from the start.

Mindful movement and settling

The day begins with gentle, mindful movement, drawing from qi gong and trauma-sensitive yoga. These practices are slow, accessible, and choice-based. They help the body orient to the present, release surface tension, and restore a felt sense of grounding. Movement supports grounding, orientation, and a felt sense of safety in the body.

Therapeutic breathwork

From that grounded starting place, we move into breathwork, an intentional, therapeutic pathway in its own right. While breathwork can be soothing, it may also invite deeper experience, depending on what’s emerging. For some people, the breath becomes a primary doorway into the work —bringing forward experiences that are ready to be met and worked through. For others, it calms, releasing stored nervous system activation.

Breathwork is always guided, paced, and held in relationship, with careful attention to integration so that whatever emerges can be understood, supported, and carried forward into the rest of the work.

Integrated experiential psychotherapy

With intention and care, we then move into extended integrated experiential psychotherapy. This is the heart of the day — the place where there is time to stay with experience as it unfolds, without rushing or interruption. We remain closely attuned to what you’re feeling and noticing in the moment, allowing emotions, bodily sensations, memories, and relational themes to come forward in their own time.

The work is paced carefully and held in relationship. Attention is given not only to what is emerging, but to how it is being met — so that experiences that once felt overwhelming or unfinished can be approached with steadiness, support, and presence. Nothing is forced, and nothing is done in isolation. You are accompanied throughout, as the work deepens and begins to move.

Integration and meaning-making

Reflection is an inherent part of the process. At the end of our time together, we’ll consolidate the experience and discuss how best to carry it forward into your life.

A midday break is included, and the overall rhythm balances depth with sustainability.

Focused Intensive Pathways

Psychotherapy intensives share the same integrative, mind–body experiential foundation. The pathways below differ only in where the work places its emphasis.

The Synthesis Intensive

This synthesis is the heart of my work: multiple experiential, trauma-focused approaches are held together and tailored within a single, continuous therapeutic process. We focus on helping experiences that have been stuck or unfinished finally move, settle, and integrate — while being accompanied rather than facing them alone.

This pathway is especially well suited for people working with complex trauma, relational wounds, or long-standing patterns, as well as for those who want depth and flexibility held within a coherent, relational frame.

EMDR Intensives

EMDR intensives offer a more focused, memory-centered pathway within the same relational, experiential container described throughout this page. These options are for people who feel drawn to working more directly with specific memories or experiences, while still wanting the work to be carefully paced, supported, and integrated.

Rather than approaching memory work in a procedural or isolated way, EMDR is held within an experiential frame that emphasizes presence, attunement, and staying connected throughout the process. This allows memory work to unfold with depth and care, without feeling mechanical or overwhelming.

Two EMDR-focused pathways are available, depending on how you tend to experience and relate to your inner world.

1. AEDP-Informed EMDR Intensive

This pathway integrates EMDR within a strongly relational, attachment-focused frame. Attention is given not only to the memory itself, but to how emotional experience is unfolding moment by moment as the work progresses.

Throughout the process, we stay closely attuned to your responses, allowing emotional shifts, bodily sensations, and relational experience to guide pacing and depth. Memory work is supported through presence and responsiveness, so that experiences that once felt isolating can be met in connection and allowed to soften and resolve.

This option can be a good fit for those who want EMDR work that feels emotionally engaged, relationally supported, and deeply human.

2. IFS-Informed EMDR Intensive

This pathway combines EMDR with a parts-informed approach, offering additional support when there is inner conflict, ambivalence, or strong protective responses around the work.

We take time to notice and respect the different parts of you that may have concerns, hesitations, or strong feelings about engaging with certain memories. EMDR is introduced with attention to internal consent and collaboration, allowing memory work to unfold in a way that feels respectful and contained rather than pressured.

This option can be especially helpful for those who experience strong inner protectors, mixed feelings about change, or a sense of being pulled in different directions internally.

Choosing a pathway

Some people arrive knowing which pathway feels right. Others are less certain and appreciate taking time to explore what would be most supportive. We’ll talk together about your goals, history, and preferences, and decide collaboratively which approach best fits you.

All pathways share the same values of care, pacing, and relational presence. They differ only in how the work is supported internally and relationally, not in the depth or seriousness of the work itself.

Two ways to work together

Option 1: Intensive + Preparation Session

  • 30 minute consultation

  • 60 minute preparation session

  • Full-day psychotherapy intensive

Option 2: Intensive Series (Recommended)

  • 30 minute consultation

  • 60 minute preparation session

  • Full-day psychotherapy intensive

  • Three 60 minute integration sessions, for continued to work and consolidation

Availability

Because this work is immersive and carefully held, psychotherapy intensives are offered with care and may be fully scheduled at times.