Intensive Grief Therapy
A weekend set aside for your grief, hosted on the peaceful shores of Lake Michigan.
Focused, in-person grief therapy designed for deep healing, clarity in transition, and progress beyond symptom reduction.
Available Summer 2026 Weekends:
July 31-Aug 1 | Aug 14-15 | Sept 18-19
Are you looking for something beyond the ordinary?
You haven't found the relief you need through traditional talk therapy.
You're carrying a loss, recent or old, that weekly sessions haven't been able to reach.
You're naturally introspective and self-aware, ready to dive deep into your inner world.
You're ready to step away from logging into video meetings and give your grief real, uninterrupted time.
You want a deeply personalized experience that uses EMDR, IFS, nature therapy and somatic work to create lasting change.
Why Intensive Therapy?
☼ Accelerated Healing - experience real shifts and progress in a condensed timeframe.
☼ Deep Immersion - dive deep into your grief, away from the normal chaos, for focused, transformative treatment.
☼ Water Therapy - the Lake Michigan shoreline gives your grief room to move, with part of our work held on the beach itself.
☼ In-Person EMDR Therapy - use buzzies and walking for effective EMDR that goes beyond visual or audio bilateral stimulation.
☼ Personalized Attention - receive uninterrupted 1:1 support, a pretty space for decompressing, curated snacks, beverages and treats. Because therapy can be delightful, too.
Grieve ☼
Remember ☼
Renew ☼
Grieve ☼ Remember ☼ Renew ☼
Prefer to explore virtual therapy options?
Intensive grief therapy in West Michigan offers dedicated, uninterrupted time to go beyond “managing symptoms.”
It's a space for significant shifts and personal growth, allowing you to ~
Find Clarity in Grief: When a loss or multiple losses feel overwhelming, intensives provide focused time to untangle stuck points, foster acceptance, and make room for what comes next. No “moving on” necessary.
Transform Trauma: Intensives offer a contained space to process emotional pain from betrayal, violence, or sudden, disturbing loss, helping you reclaim your sense of safety and self.
Grieve a Complicated Relationship: When the person you lost also hurt you, grief gets tangled with relief, anger, and guilt. Intensives allow both realities to exist without pushing towards forgiveness or cheap acceptance.
Recover From Caregiver Exhaustion: If you’ve spent months or years caring for someone, your grief carries burnout inside it. Intensives provide focused time to rebuild from exhaustion and take care of guilt that caregiving leaves behind.
Navigate Life After Loss: Loss reshapes so much. Your identity, your POV, your roles… your sense of purpose. Intensives offer an accelerated path through the transitions grief forces on you.
Break Through Guilt and Rebuild Self-Trust: Address the inner critic, the should-haves, and the root-causes of guilt and grief. Intensives can help you rebuild trust in yourself and your decisions.
Step 1:
Consultation Call
To begin, schedule a 15 minute consultation to talk with me about intensive therapy and if it’s a good fit for you.
Step 2:
Intake
Before the intensive, we’ll work together to go over goals and begin treatment planning for successful intensive therapy.
Step 3:
Intensive Therapy
We’ll meet at my office space in West Michigan, steps from Lake Michigan, for your in-person, two-day (12 hour) intensive.
Step 4:
Integration
We’ll debrief, begin integrating your experience and plan for the future, including continued integration sessions if helpful.
What’s included with Intensive Therapy?
Intake, preparation, and post-intensive integration support
Personalized treatment planning that includes your input and preferences
A beautiful space in my Lake Michigan office, with beach and outdoor access before and after the intensive
Curated snacks, treats, and beverages to keep you and your environment full and focused
An individualized plan to support your progress before, during, and after treatment
Hi, I’m Carly ☼
I work with clients a lot like you - people looking for something deeper, something that goes beyond addressing symptoms.
I get it. Between turning 20 and 30, I lost my little brother to cancer and my dad to suicide. Intensive grief therapy helped me get unstuck. It offered me a path back to myself, to curiosity and presence.
During your intensive, we use powerful modalities like EMDR, nature therapy, Somatic therapy, Brainspotting, IFS, and creative expression.
If you’re curious, schedule a free call and we can explore your options.
Your Grief Intensive Weekend
Available dates:
July 31 – August 1, 2026
August 14 – 15, 2026
September 18 – 19, 2026
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You’ll fill out a questionnaire to ensure we’re on the same page and the grief intensive feels like the right fit.
We’ll use asynchronous intake to prepare together, map what we'll work on, and set intentions so you arrive ready.
*If you hope to do the intensive with a partner, please inquire with me first.
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6 hours of in-person work each day.
We move between the therapy space and the beach, with time to rest, walk, and integrate between blocks of work.
The space sits steps from the shore, and the beach is yours before and after our sessions, not just during them.
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We’ll plan for after even before the intensive is over. You’ll take home resources and a journal.
Well have a virtual integration session around a week and a half later, so your intensive work continues.
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$3,450
Includes your intake session, two full days of intensive work, food and beverages, a workbook to guide your process, use of the beach space during the entire weekend, and your integration aftet the intensive.
*Please note, a 50% deposit is required to book your intensive.
faq
Intensive In-Person Therapy
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Intensive grief therapy offers a focused and accelerated approach to honoring your grief, loss, and process.
This immersive format allows for deeper exploration than traditional weekly sessions, leading to significant support in a concentrated timeframe.
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Unlike weekly virtual sessions, intensive therapy is a contained, intentionally designed session that includes preparation and goal setting, two days of immersive therapy, and post-intensive integration and debrief support.
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Intensive therapy can be a good fit for adults who:
Are grieving a loss, whether that's a death, a divorce, an estrangement, burnout, or a major life transition like divorce, and want dedicated time to actually process it
Want to grieve somewhere that isn't an office or computer, with time on Lake Michigan to truly let nature do its job
Feel frustrated with the pace of weekly therapy and want to move faster
Are carrying grief that's tangled up with trauma, anxiety, or depression, but are not in immediate crisis
Want to experience intensive EMDR in person, with visual, audio, and tactile bilateral stimulation
Have at least one supportive person in their life
Curious? Schedule a time to chat with me and we can explore your options.
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Intensive therapy may not be the best fit for individuals who:
Don’t want to actively engage in the therapeutic process (Intensive Therapy is not a passive process).
Have no support system in place. While even one supportive person can be beneficial, a complete lack of support may make intensive processing more challenging.
Are currently experiencing active psychosis or are actively suicidal with a specific plan and intent. These situations often require more immediate and specialized crisis intervention. (Please call or text 988 for help).
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Intensive therapy sessions are held in my comfortable and private office space located close to Lake Michigan.
The address will be shared during our preparation, in order to uphold client confidentiality and privacy.
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Your personalized intensive includes:
An extensive initial evaluation to understand your history, needs, and goals
Collaborative treatment planning built around your input and preferences
Two full days of focused therapy, 9am to 3pm each day, blending EMDR, Brainspotting, IFS, somatic therapy, nature therapy and artistic expression
Time on the Lake Michigan shoreline woven into the clinical work
A journal to use during our weekend and keep afterward
Take-home resources chosen for you, which might be a book, printed materials, or both, depending on what will support your work best
Snacks, drinks, and treats throughout both days
Personalized strategies for tracking your progress after the intensive ends
Lodging, transportation, and full meals are not included, though I'm happy to share local recommendations for your stay in West Michigan.
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My grief intensives are tailored to address:
Grief and loss, including bereavement, relationship endings, divorce, estrangement, and major life transitions
Trauma, whether single-incident, complex, or betrayal trauma
Anxiety and depression, especially when they're woven into a loss
The ripple effects of grief on your relationships, work, and sense of self
We can also work with harder-to-name material, like:
Existential dread
Disillusionment
Burnout and compassion fatigue in caregivers
Depression that hasn't responded to other treatment
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During intensive therapy, we use evidence-based and modern therapies. The exact blend is completely personalized to your needs, but might include:
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing): Processes distressing memories so they lose their charge. In person, we can use visual, audio, and tactile bilateral stimulation, including handheld pulsers, which often allows deeper processing than online formats.
Brainspotting: Uses focused eye positions to access grief and trauma held in deeper brain regions. It's well suited to the extended sessions an intensive allows.
IFS/Parts Work (Internal Family Systems): Works with the different parts of you, including the ones in conflict about your loss, like the part that wants to move forward and the part that isn't ready.
Somatic therapy: Body-centered techniques for the grief you carry physically, in your chest, your shoulders, your sleep.
Artistic expression: Drawing, doodling, and creating as another way in when words fall short, which with grief is often.
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Intensive therapy prep work will include identifying intentions, goals, expectations, resources and interventions. We will work collaboratively to prepare for your intensive therapy.
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Right after your intensive, I recommend resting and trying to keep the next few days relatively low-key.
You’ll leave with some reflection work and a journal to use.
Around 1.5 weeks following your intensive, we’ll meet for an integration session to discuss your experience and make a plan for maintaining the progress you've made.
This may include recommendations for ongoing weekly therapy sessions (either with me or another therapist in your area) for longer-term support.
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Currently, my intensive therapy sessions are offered in person in West Michigan, to maximize the experience and to fully utilize modalities like tactile bilateral stimulation and extended Brainspotting/EMDR sets.
However, I do offer virtual grief counseling, EMDR, and brainspotting sessions and can discuss if an extended virtual format might be suitable for specific needs during a free consultation.
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$3,450
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Many clients travel to West Michigan for Intensive Therapy. Taking time away from the normal hustle and bustle is a distinct benefit of intensive therapy over weekly therapy sessions.
The lake offers an unmatched, beautiful environment for healing especially during the summer, which is why the intensives are only offered during the summer.
I can provide you with information on local accommodations and resources to make your stay here as comfortable as possible.
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Schedule a free consultation phone call with me.
In the meantime, click around my website to read more about me and my approach.
Can’t wait to connect!
Location for In Person Grief Therapy Intensive: West Michigan
What Could Two Days Change?
Imagine your grief having room to move.
The tangled parts, the guilt, the anger, the things you never got to say…finally getting the time and attention they've been asking for.
Imagine remembering without bracing.
The memories that ambush you now becoming ones you can turn toward on purpose, without the overwhelm or freeze.
Imagine trusting yourself again.
The second-guessing, the should-haves, the inner critic, all of it quieting enough, trusting enough, that you can hear yourself think.
You don't “get over” a loss in a weekend.
But you can change how you carry it, and that changes everything else.
Questions about intensive therapy?
Contact me using this form or my email.
info@carlypollacktherapy.com
Located in West Michigan, Michigan