Trauma-Informed Therapy Intensives: Are they right for me?

Therapy Intensives are a beneficial and creative alternate to weekly therapy sessions. They are short term —lasting over the course of a few hours, half a day, or a full day— and allow for deeper, more focused work in a quicker timeframe.

How do I know if intensives are for me?

• Do you find your sessions feel too short and feel that you don’t really get past the surface of issues or struggles?

• Do you jump around from topic to topic each session, never truly resolving deeper issues?

• Are you slow to open up, finally get to the heart of the issue, only to be cut short at the 50 minute mark and have to start all over next week?

• Do you have time constraints, responsibilities, or changing schedules that make it difficult to commit to weekly sessions?

Trauma-focused therapy intensives are a more focused approach to healing. Unlike traditional talk therapy that can jump from the ‘topic of the week’, intensives stay centered around the target issue to resolve unhealed issues and generate lasting change in a shorter time period.

What are the benefits of intensives?

Trauma-focused therapy intensives offer:

• A more tailored approach to addressing trauma and unhealed issues

• Flexibility in your schedule for one day of therapy, versus committing to ongoing weekly sessions

• Accelerated healing due to the ability to drop into deeper processing and address concerns in one fluid session

• More cost-effective based on what’s achieved in one intensive session versus weeks (or even months or years!) of traditional talk therapy

  What can I expect from a trauma-focused therapy intensive session?

  The structure is similar to traditional therapy, simply condensed into one session:

  • Intake process

  • Trauma-informed intensive session

  • Processing/debriefing of session

  • What to expect moving forward

  What trauma-informed modalities are incorporated into the session?

  For trauma-informed intensives, I use The Comprehensive Resource Model (CRM). This approach is highly effective at decreasing the intensity of negative belief systems, changing negative thought and behavioral patterns, and increasing a sense of well being and attachment.

  CRM uses a blend of:

  • EMDR - Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing: Using eye movements to help the brain reprocess negative and traumatic events

  • SE - Somatic Experiencing: Body focused experiencing that helps the body reprocess negative and traumatic events

  • IFS - Internal Family Systems: Connecting with the parts of ourselves holding onto distressing and traumatic emotions and memories, and helping them to heal and release these emotions

I’m Celeste, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who specializes in trauma. In my practice, I offer trauma-informed therapy intensives for individuals looking to accelerate their healing with therapy that works for them within their schedule.