Online therapy for overwhelmed moms across Maryland
Half/Full Day
Intensive Trauma Therapy
Heal when you're ready On your terms
What if you didn't have to make a longterm therapy commitment in order to feel better?
If the mountain seems too high to climb, or the waters to rough to swim, the idea of a weekly therapy appointment might also feel too daunting.
You don't have to take on another burden in order to let go of the ones you have.
If your daily life is too busy, you may quite literally never have an open space on your calendar.
You don't have to commit to the long-haul in order to get some relief when you're ready.
Half- and Full-Day Trauma Intensives condense weeks or months of therapy into a single day.
Less talk. More relief.
Has anyone told you, "maybe you should talk to someone."
The truth is: "talk" therapy has very little effect on traumatic memory, emotional reactivity, and long-held behavioral patterns.
Brainspotting turns on your natural ability to do what traditional talk therapy takes several sessions to accomplish. By tapping into the brain's preference for balance, we trust your brain's wisdom to deliver the resolution you need most.
Tailored to your needs, an Intensive condenses weeks—perhaps even months—of therapy into 3-6 hours.
What you'll do at your Trauma Therapy Intensive
The following describes the flow of a half-day intensive. Full-day intensives follow this schedule until lunch.
1. Arrive and check-in (5mins)
We'll get acquainted to the room. If you had a long drive, you may want to use the restroom or stretch out before settling in. Finally, you'll choose your seating, and prep any supplies you brought for comfort and facilitating your processing.
2. Brainspotting, incorporating curiosity, grounding, mindfulness, and parts-work. (90mins)
3. Break - Stand up, walk around, stretch, visit the restroom (5-10mins)
4. Resume session (60mins)
5. Wind-down using Brainspotting techniques to ease out of midbrain processing. (10mins)
6. Debrief with reflection, summary, and gratitude or acknowledgement.
Reflecting on the full session, connecting what happened in the first half to what happend in the second half, and where you began compared to where you are now. Your re-processing may feel complete, or it may feel ongoing. The Brainspotting engine will continue to run over the next few days and possibly weeks. We'll follow up in a few weeks with a telehealth call to check on your progress.
7. Dismiss (half-day) or enjoy lunch (full-day).
If you chose the full-day option, we'll take a 20 minute lunch break. Afterwards, you may opt for more brainspotting or may be ready to use art, walk-and-talk, nature, journaling, or your preferred integration toolbox to consolidate the work you've done so far. We'll reserve the last hour for reflection and summary.
Why choose the intensive experience?
Traditional therapy wasn't enough
It's not you. Most talk therapies access only the top front part of the brain where we learn, problem solve, think creatively, apply understanding, and...well...talk. An intensive offers expanded time to layer various clinical interventions known to make changes at a deeper level—beyond "mind over matter," past what you know but can't do—somewhere hiding in the midbrain where alarm bells ring, emotion surges, memory is filtered and stored, and where every basic human survival instinct is born.
To experience multiple modalities in one visit
Most clients come to us for expert-level Brainspotting experience, which we also offer our weekly/traditional therapy clients. Intensives offer the luxury of time so that we can combine Brainspotting with a variety of other approaches like parts-work, mindfulness, grounding, and integration techniques.
To get a lot done in less time
The traditional therapeutic process involves a lot of starts and stops, week by week. The half- or full-day intensive session builds momentum. While we don't know if you'll reach your entire goal in the first visit, we're certain you'll be closer than the weekly format allows.
To supplement great therapy
Some intensive clients have a great relationship with a therapist already. They're feeling seen and heard, learning a lot about themselves, and letting go of habits they no longer need, but they seek an intensive for something that their primary therapy hasn't changed.
Short on time
Many of our clients are busy parents and professionals who want to try therapy, but can't meet the weekly time-commitment.
An intensive allows you to do targeted work without a longterm commitment.
Speaking of commitment...
Commit to yourself, not the therapist
You may have other things you want to address in therapy. It's hard to find a therapist who can do it all on an expert level. When you come to an intensive, you commit to working on the target you set. You're free to set other targets with other therapists, maximizing your access to specialized care.
How many visits will I need?
We wish we knew the magic number
Single event traumas can resolve in as little as 1 visit. Prior years of prolonged stress or previous traumatic events tend to add to that time. The neural networks of individual traumas tend to link up. We can offer some guardrails to help your system focus on your target, but ultimately, the more we trust your system to know how to unlink and re-wire those neural networks, the more efficient your overall recovery will be.
Choosing the Target
Specific event
Most of our direct-to-Intensive clients come to us with a specific traumatic event or time period in mind:
an accident, community violence, medical procedure,
divorce, death of a loved one.
With a sub-specialty in perinatal mental health and reproductive trauma, many Intensive clients are parents who have experienced childbirth complications such as:
infertility, loss, traumatic birth, NICU stay,
emergency intervention, general anesthesia,
surgical complication
Persistent feeling or behavior
Other clients have wanted to stop repeating the same old patterns, often identified in traditional therapy, but stuck and unable to break free. These include:
A sense of guilt, worthlessness, grief, or fear
Fighting with your partner or children
Choosing the unhealthy friendships
Recurring dreams
People-pleasing
Over-functioning to take care of others while you suffer alone
An awful feeling you can't quite name
Something private or confidential
Sometimes an employer, legal proceding, ethical code, or governing authority prohibits clients from disclosing information that may also be incredibly troubling to them. Additionally, many survivors of life-threatening or prolonged traumatic experiences find that talking about the experience only makes them feel worse. Although you're welcome to share as much or as little about your target as you'd like, we don't need the details. Guided by your nervous system's natural ability to regulate and self-heal, we'll teach you how to trust it knows what to do.
Not sure?
It's common for clients to say they've known they needed help for a long time but didn't know where to start, didn't feel worthy of healing, or thought they were "too far gone" for therapy to help. There might not be a specific event that stands out to you. You don't need to know why you feel the way you do. We can target the feeling itself rather than a memory.
If you're already in therapy
Intensives enhance your overall outcome
Let's say you want to let go of trauma but your primary therapy focuses on a different goal (addiction, OCD, mood maintenance, self-confidence, relationships, or something else). We can work in tandem, with separate paths and purposes.
On the other hand, the intensive's goal can also mirror your primary therapy goal. You might try an intensive when something feels stuck: cravings haven't decreased, nightmares persist, you know how to spot a 🚩 relationship yet choose it anyway. You've done a TON of hard work, but a pesky something stands in the way of feeling resolved. Our process targets the roots where talk-therapy cannot reach.
What if you could give yourself ONE day to target ONE thing you've wanted to resolve for so long?
Afterward
Although your body may be somewhat still during a intensive, your brain is doing a lot of work. In fact, the most common report we hear is that our clients are tired! Intensive day is best reserved for rest, hydration, and minimal responsibilities.
“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through… But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in.”
- Haruki Murakami
Our primary intensive modality is Brainspotting, which many describe as starting an engine that continues running in the background after the session ends. That could feel like thinking about the intensive session itself, recalling what you experienced or learned, wondering about related topics or feelings, mood swings, vivid dreams, brain fog, short-term changes in sleep or eating habits, or fatigue. Try not to fret! Remind yourself these are signs of change.
In the days and weeks that follow, you may notice yourself recalling memories differently than before, interacting differently with others, experiencing dreams, and engaging in new behaviors. Sometimes the new behaviors aren't the ones you targeted, yet welcome changes nonetheless. Some clients notice the changes, while others don't realize it until someone else points it out (we've had clients stop drinking and compulsive behaviors without even realizing it, when those weren't the target).
We’ll meet online 1–2 weeks later to reflect on what unfolded in and after the Intensive, and to plan next steps.
Where To Begin
Like all therapy, Intensive work begins with an initial assessment to determine if this format is best for you.
When you call, we'll briefly discuss your interest in a half- or full-day therapy intensive. Once we've agreed to proceed, we'll:
1. Schedule your initial telehealth visit, the Intensive date, and our follow-up telehealth session.
2. Complete intake paperwork and set up payment.
3. Receive a confirmation email with your link for attending the initial session, and an Intensive Check List to help you prepare.