Some Healing Doesn’t Want to Wait
Healing Intensives for Those Ready to Go Deep, and Go There Faster
You know there’s more to reach. You’ve been doing the work, showing up week after week, and something has shifted. But you can feel there’s a deeper layer waiting. One that the pace of weekly sessions hasn’t quite been able to access.
An intensive is how we get there, but not the way most people do it.
Is This You?
- You’ve been in therapy and you’ve made progress, but you’re ready to go further.
- You’re carrying something that feels too big for one hour a week.
- You want dedicated, uninterrupted time to do the deep work without the stop and start of a weekly schedule.
- You’re at a crossroads, a transition, or a moment in your life where something needs to shift and shift now.
- You’re drawn to the idea of giving your nervous system the space and time it truly needs to move.
What Makes This Intensive Different
Most practitioners offering intensives are doing the same thing: multiple sessions of one specific modality in close succession over a few days. While there is value and healing to be had in that, it is not what happens here.
My intensives are customized and built on attuning to your brain / body system’s innate wisdom to heal itself and trust in its process from one moment to the next. There is no one size fits all plan. I attune to your processing and invite you to attune to it as well. I may draw from many healing modalities and invite you to experience how your system responds.
Healing is about turning toward what’s been buried. I mostly incorporate parts work, Brainspotting, and Deep Brain Reorienting.
For the Brainspotting, I utilize techniques from the Digging Roots Devlopemntal Model of Brainspotting, a depth-oriented approach to developmental trauma that I have trained in extensively with its developer, Steve Sawyer, and whose trainings I assist.
The difference is this: rather than beginning Brainspotting and hoping we get to the root, we dig to the root first. This may include mapping of parts or somatic mapping, an attachment genogram, exploring your patterns of connection versus patterns of protection, mapping your arc of nervous system activation, exploring the physiology of shame, a life map in images of your experiences/stories etc. and more.
We identify where the current distress is held in the body, and do significant excavation work before we ever bring up the pointer and begin Brainspotting. We are working from the origin – core aloneness pain, rather than working our way toward it. THIS is how we make our way from cognitive (thinking) processes, through the somatic blocks, and to the child within the physiology to heal early childhood trauma, in utero trauma, and historical trauma that we all carry – for your highest healing.
This is what I mean when I say this intensive goes deeper. Not deeper in a vague sense. Deeper in a very specific, clinically precise, physiological sense.
The deepest healing cannot be predictably scheduled or fit into planned lengths of time. My approach honors how people actually heal and is a departure from the rigidity of models that schedule healing timeframes. This is what truly honoring the wisdom of the brain and body system to heal itself looks like. You are invited to devote the entire three days to immersing yourself in your won healing process, not just during our time together.
What We Work On
Intensives are particularly powerful for:
1.
Complex and developmental trauma that has roots going back further than conscious memory.
2.
Intergenerational and ancestral patterns that have followed you across your lifetime and your family line.
3.
Chronic pain and somatic symptoms that haven't responded to other approaches.
4.
Significant life transitions, grief, loss, or moments where something needs to fundamentally shift.
5.
Anxiety, shame, and self-worth wounds that live too deep for weekly sessions to fully reach.
6.
Perfectionism, sleep disturbances, social withdrawal, and physical symptoms that are expressions of unhealed nervous system activation.
7.
Preparation or integration around major life events, relationships, or decisions.
Before the Intensive Begins
Before your intensive starts, we meet for at least one double-length session, two full therapy hours, for assessment and intention setting. This is where we begin to understand what you’re bringing in, what your nervous system is ready to move, and how to design the intensive around you specifically.
Intake information can only capture what is accessible in the thinking brain. What lies beneath, what is ready to be healed, will be revealed through the processing itself. This is why no two intensives look the same and why the design cannot be fully determined in advance. We begin with intention, and we follow your system from there.
What Becomes Possible
People who come to intensives often describe what happens afterward as a before and after. Not because everything is resolved, but because something fundamental has shifted in a way that weekly therapy rarely achieves in the same timeframe.
The weight that felt immovable begins to lift. Patterns that have run in the background for decades start to lose their grip. There is a sense of having actually arrived somewhere, of having gone to the place that needed to be reached and come back different.
Some people find that an intensive gives their ongoing weekly work a depth charge, something to build on for months afterward. Others find that the intensive itself is the container they needed and they carry the work forward on their own. Both are valid. Both are possible.
What becomes available on the other side is more presence. More steadiness. A nervous system that has been met, heard, and given the space it needed to finally let something go.
Every intensive is fully customised around the individual
What the Intensive Looks Like
We begin with a series of exercises designed to dig to the root of the current source of distress before Brainspotting begins. These may include:
Exploring Your Defensive System
Types of dysregulation – relational, self, somatic, attentional, behavioral, affective, and more.
Mind Mapping
We begin to dig into and trace back the current source of distress, connecting it to where it is being held in the body. This is key to identifying the relevant neural networks involved and is always the starting point for the deepest work.
Somatic Mapping
We map where trauma is held in the body, creating a felt-sense foundation for the processing work that follows.
Parts Mapping
Drawing from IFS, we identify the protective and wounded parts that are present and understand how they are organized.
Attachment Genogram
We map generational trauma and attachment patterns, understanding where the current distress has its deeper roots in family and ancestral history.
Relational Dysregulation Mapping
We identify patterns of moving toward connection or protection in relationships, understanding the relational blueprint the nervous system is working from.
Patterns of Protection and Patterns of Connection
Discovering how your system responds and learning to recognize these patterns through this lens.
Activation Arc
Begin to recognize the patterns that exist when you experience dysregulation in your nervous system.
Once this excavation work is complete, we begin the Brainspotting itself.
Because we have already located the root, the Brainspotting can go directly there from the start. This is why the healing that happens in an intensive of this kind reaches places that regular Brainspotting sessions, however many, take much longer to access.
We may move between these exercises and the Brainspotting over the course of the intensive as the nervous system guides us. You may also find it meaningful to continue adding to these maps during the integration periods between sessions, capturing what emerges as your nervous system processes.
How the Schedule Works
The intensive typically takes place over two to three days. But the schedule is held loosely, because the nervous system sets the pace, not the clock.
Sessions may run longer than anticipated. You may need more sleep or integration time between sessions. We may do two sessions in a day instead of three. Every adjustment is made in real time, honoring what your system is asking for. Any changes to the planned schedule are updated at the end of each day in the Simple Practice app and billed overnight.
What this flexibility honors is something most therapy models don’t: the reality that the deepest healing cannot be scheduled. It cannot be fit into a predetermined structure. When we try to force it, we interrupt it. When we follow it, something profound becomes possible.
Where We Work
In Person in Ventura, CA
My office is uniquely designed for comfort and very deep work, with space to connect with nature. You may find your body needing to sit on the floor, on large pillows, in a backjack chair, or to lie down during session. All of this is welcome. The body knows what it needs.
Sessions can also be held at the ocean. Our ancestors all once healed in connection with the Earth, and our design has not evolved from that. Something in your body still remembers that this is how healing was always meant to happen. Clients spend time at the ocean before, between, and after their Brainspotting sessions while the nervous system integrates the work. My office is located across the street from a hotel and close to many restaurants in downtown Ventura, making it easy to fully devote the days to your healing.
Virtually
Intensives are also available virtually throughout California and Arizona.
I always recommend in-person for the full experience, and especially for the ocean. But the virtual format can still reach remarkable depth.
After the Intensive
The work doesn’t stop when the sessions do. Your nervous system will continue processing in the days that follow, and we honor that fully.
An integration session is scheduled two to three days after the completion of your intensive. This is a dedicated space to be with what has moved, what has emerged, and what is continuing to reorganize.
It is always recommended to take at least a full day off from regular life responsibilities following the intensive. Sleep. Rest. Let the body do what it has been asked to do. When our body is finally released from what has been held for so long, it makes us tired. Even people with chronic insomnia whose systems have been stuck in a state of hyperarousal are often surprised by this, and realize how welcome the invitation to finally rest actually feels.
Investment
An intensive is a significant and meaningful investment in your healing. Rates are based on the length and structure of your intensive and are discussed during the discovery call, where we design the experience together.
Payment Options
To secure your intensive dates, a 50% non-refundable deposit is required at the time of booking. The remaining balance is due two days before your intensive begins. You are welcome to pay in full at the time of booking if you prefer.
You have the right to receive a “Good Faith Estimate” explaining how much your medical care will cost. Under the law, health care providers need to give patients who are not using insurance an estimate of the bill for medical items and services.
Questions You Might Have
Intensives are designed for people who are ready to do deep work, and that readiness doesn’t always require prior therapy experience. That said, this is something we’ll talk through carefully during the discovery call to make sure the format is the right fit for where you are right now.
Most Brainspotting intensives consist of multiple sessions in close succession. What happens here is fundamentally different. My intensives are built on the Digging Roots model, which means we spend significant time excavating and mapping the root of your distress before the Brainspotting begins. We start at the origin rather than working our way toward it. This requires extensive specialized training and a level of clinical depth that most practitioners offering intensives have not yet developed.
Yes, and for many people it’s a powerful combination. An intensive can give your ongoing work a significant depth charge, reaching layers that weekly sessions build toward over time. If you’re working with another therapist, I’m happy to collaborate where appropriate.
An integration session is scheduled two to three days after completion. Your nervous system will continue processing and we want to make sure you have dedicated support for that. Many people also choose to continue with individual sessions to build on what shifted during the intensive.
The 50% deposit is non-refundable as it secures your dates and holds dedicated time for your intensive. If you need to reschedule, please reach out as early as possible and we will do our best to find a solution that works.
Ready to Go Deeper?
If something in you already knows it’s time, trust that.
Let’s have a conversation to bring that knowing and figure out what the next right step looks like.