A Focused Path to Healing: Is a Grief & Trauma Intensive Right for You?
Trauma and grief are powerful human experiences that can fundamentally alter a woman's life.
While traditional weekly therapy is a valuable tool, some women may feel the pace is too slow, especially when dealing with intense emotional pain or seeking significant personal growth.
For those seeking a more accelerated and immersive path to healing, a focused, in-person therapy intensive can be a transformative option.
This post will explore what a trauma and grief intensive is, how it works, and help you determine if it's the right choice for your healing journey, whether you seek relief from suffering or a catalyst for personal growth.
Understanding Grief and Trauma
Trauma and grief are distinct yet often intertwined.
Trauma can result from a wide range of experiences, such as physical or emotional abuse, accidents, natural disasters, or witnessing violence.
It can leave a lasting imprint on both the mind and body. Grief is the natural human response to loss, whether it's the death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, or a significant life change.
When these experiences are left unaddressed, they can lead to debilitating symptoms like flashbacks, emotional detachment, intense sadness, and social isolation.
Understanding the prevalence and impact of these experiences is key.
According to the National Center for PTSD, approximately 6.8% of adults in the U.S. will experience PTSD in their lifetime. Trauma can significantly impact a woman's physical and mental health. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) reports that adults with PTSD are more likely to experience depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and suicidal thoughts.
For women specifically, the experience of trauma is often linked to relationship and family dynamics, and a woman's journey with healing may involve navigating complex social and emotional landscapes.
Grief is a universal experience, but for some women, it becomes complicated.
The American Psychiatric Association estimates that 7% to 10% of bereaved adults will experience prolonged grief disorder (PGD). This is a condition where intense and persistent symptoms of grief interfere with daily life long after a loss.
These statistics highlight that while trauma and grief are normal, they can become overwhelming and require dedicated, focused attention.
The Power of Longer Therapy Sessions
Traditional therapy typically involves 45 to 60 minute weekly sessions. This format is effective for many, providing consistent support and a gradual pace.
However, it also has limitations, especially when dealing with complex trauma or deep-seated grief.
The process of warming up, sharing updates, and then diving into a core issue can take up a significant portion of a standard session.
Just as a you begin to reach a deeper emotional space, the session may be ending. This can leave you feeling like you’re perpetually "on the verge" of a breakthrough without ever fully getting there.
Longer therapy sessions, as part of an intensive, allow for a different kind of therapeutic experience.
Instead of a series of brief stops on a woman's healing journey, an intensive is like a dedicated road trip with no distractions.
This extended time provides several crucial benefits:
Deeper Immersion and Flow: Longer sessions create an environment where a woman can truly immerse herself in the therapeutic work. It takes time to move past surface-level thoughts and into the deeper emotional and somatic (bodily) experiences of trauma and grief.
With an hour or more dedicated to this process, she can reach a state of therapeutic flow. This is a state where she is fully engaged and present in the work. This flow state allows for more spontaneous insights and a more organic, unhurried exploration of difficult emotions.
Less Time Spent on "Catch-Up": In weekly therapy, a significant portion of each session can be spent on "catching up" on the events of the past week. An intensive format minimizes this. Because the sessions are clustered over a few days, the focus remains squarely on the core issues.
There is no need to recap her entire week, allowing us to maintain momentum and stay focused on the healing work.
The Opportunity for True Processing: Trauma and grief are not just mental experiences, they are also physical and emotional. Processing these experiences involves not just talking about them, but also feeling them in a safe and contained way. This kind of emotional processing cannot be rushed.
A longer session provides the necessary time and space to navigate difficult emotions, tears, and physical sensations as they arise, without the pressure of a ticking clock. This is where real and lasting change happens.
Integration of Body and Mind: Many women hold trauma in their bodies, manifesting as chronic pain, tension, or a general sense of unease. Longer sessions are essential for modalities that integrate the mind and body, such as Brainspotting. We have the time to track physical sensations and connect them to emotional memories, allowing for a more complete and holistic release.
This is often difficult to accomplish in a short session. The brain's role in trauma is complex; it can get "stuck" in a state of hypervigilance or shutdown. An intensive provides a powerful opportunity to create new, healthier neural pathways by dedicating time to gentle and consistent reprocessing in a safe environment.
Beyond Symptom Reduction: Intensives for Growth and Expansion
While intensives are incredibly effective for addressing the symptoms of trauma and grief, their benefits extend far beyond just feeling "better."
The concentrated format is also ideal for women who are not in crisis but are seeking accelerated personal growth and a deeper understanding of themselves.
In this context, an intensive becomes a tool for expansion. It's a way for a woman to hit the pause button on her life and dedicate focused time to self-exploration.
This might be perfect for a woman who is…
Going through a life transition:
Facing a career change, the end of a relationship, the transition to motherhood or an empty nest, or another major life shift can bring up many questions.
An intensive can provide the clarity and internal resources she needs to navigate this transition with confidence. We can work on understanding the past that informs her present choices and build a vision for her future that feels aligned with her deepest values.
Seeking to deepen a relationship:
This can mean deepening her relationship with herself, fostering a stronger sense of self-worth and self-compassion. It can also mean gaining insight into patterns and dynamics that affect her relationships with others, whether it's a partner, family, or friends.
An intensive can give her the tools to communicate more effectively and set healthier boundaries.
Exploring spirituality:
For some women, an intensive provides a safe and supportive space to explore questions of meaning, purpose, and spirituality. This can be a journey of self-discovery that helps her connect to a deeper sense of self and the world around her. The focused and intentional nature of the work can be a spiritual practice in itself, allowing her to tap into her inner wisdom.
The uninterrupted nature of an intensive, particularly when combined with certain therapeutic modalities like psychedelic therapy, can open doors to new perspectives.
It can help you move past limiting beliefs and access a greater sense of possibility.
We’re not “healing what is broken,” - we’re building and strengthening what is whole and healthy within you.
How Therapy Intensives Offer Accelerated Healing
Therapy intensives are a concentrated form of treatment, often scheduled over a few consecutive days with longer, more focused sessions.
This format allows for a deep and uninterrupted exploration of your experiences, fostering faster progress than a series of weekly appointments.
My intensives, held in my tranquil office in Steamboat Springs, are designed to provide a dedicated space for a woman to fully engage in the therapeutic process without the distractions of her daily routine.
The therapeutic space itself, with comfortable indoor areas and inspiring outdoor spaces, is an integral part of the healing process.
This accelerated approach can lead to significant breakthroughs and a reduction in overall treatment time.
My intensives, which are 5, 8, or 12 hours total and completed in a period of 2 weeks or less, are designed to give a woman the time and space she needs to get to the heart of the matter.
Key Benefits of a Trauma and Grief Intensive:
Deeper Exploration: The extended time allows us to delve into the core issues of your trauma or grief, helping you gain a more profound understanding of its impact.
Targeted Treatment: We can prioritize and focus on a specific trauma, unresolved grief, or a personal growth goal, facilitating faster progress.
Building Momentum: By dedicating concentrated time to healing and growth, you can build significant momentum and move forward more quickly.
Effective Emotional Processing: The intensive format provides a safe and supportive container for working through difficult emotions more effectively.
Reduced Overall Treatment Time: While the initial time commitment is greater, intensives can ultimately shorten your healing journey by addressing core issues in a focused manner.
Therapeutic Techniques We May Use
During an intensive, I utilize a variety of evidence-based modalities tailored to your specific needs. These may include:
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing): This technique uses bilateral stimulation (such as eye movements) to help a woman process and reframe traumatic memories, reducing their emotional charge. With more time, we can work through multiple traumatic memories or a single complex memory in a way that is just not possible in a 45-minute session.
Brainspotting: This method helps a woman identify and process where trauma is stored in her body, allowing for emotional and somatic (bodily) release in a safe and controlled environment. Longer sessions are particularly beneficial for this modality, as the process of finding and staying with a brainspot requires time and patience.
Internal Family Systems (IFS): IFS views a woman's mind as a "family" of parts. This approach helps her understand and unburden these parts with compassion, allowing her "Self"—her core of wisdom and calm—to lead the way toward greater internal harmony. IFS can be integrated into any of the modalities we use.
Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy (PAT): While PAT is an emerging and highly specialized field, it may be a part of your treatment plan if it aligns with your goals and you meet the specific criteria. I only recommend PAT if it is clinically indicated and safe for you. It is important to note that my 5-hour intensive does not include PAT. We would discuss this carefully during our initial assessment to ensure it is an appropriate approach.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How do I know if I'm "ready" for this? A: "Readiness" isn't about being perfectly prepared. It’s about having a willingness to show up for yourself and a desire for change. Intensives can be emotionally challenging, so having a good support system outside of therapy is also very helpful. Schedule a call if you’d like to talk it through.
Q: Is an intensive a replacement for long-term therapy? A: An intensive is a great way to jumpstart your healing or work through a specific issue. Many women find that it significantly reduces their overall treatment time. However, it can also be a powerful complement to ongoing therapy. We'll discuss what your next steps might be during our integration session.
Q: What happens after the intensive? A: The work doesn't stop when the intensive ends. The integration session is designed to help you process and solidify your progress. We will create a plan for ongoing support, which may include follow-up sessions, resources, or recommendations to continue your healing journey.
Q: Is there a payment plan available? A: Yes, to make this powerful work more accessible, I offer a 4-month payment plan for your intensive. The total cost is split into four equal payments with no additional fees or penalties. This allows you to focus on your healing without added financial pressure.
Taking the First Step
Healing from trauma and grief is a brave and powerful act, and so is seeking accelerated growth.
We can discuss your unique situation and determine if an intensive is the right next step for you.
