IFS Intensives
An intensive is an alternate approach to therapy that is unique, bespoke, and digs deeper.
Transformational psychotherapy is much more like surgery than it is like having a comforting conversation with a friend.
Imagine if a person had a cancerous tumor that they needed surgery to remove, and the entire surgical process, start to finish, would take 6 hours. The first 15 minutes would just be the surgeon sterilizing instruments, scrubbing in, administering anesthesia, etc. The last 15 minutes would be sewing the patient back up, sterilizing the wound, and checking to make sure they were ready to go back out into the world.
Imagine that a health insurance company told the surgeon that they could only operate on the patient in 45 minute increments, once per week. Each time they would scrub in, anesthetize the patient, actually operate for 15 minutes, then immediately sew them back up and send them home to wait 6 days until the next operation.
Working at that cadence, the absolute best surgeons in the world would take 6 months to complete an operation that could have been done in one afternoon.
Even worse, the patient would spend that entire 6 month period suffering not only from the cancer itself, but also from the constant disruption to their routine, the uncertainty of progress, and the trauma of being repeatedly cut open and sewed back up week after week.
Weekly therapy sessions can sometimes take on a similar cadence:
A few minutes at the beginning to catch up and exchange pleasantries, a few minutes at the end to wrap up and exchange pleasantries again, and a very brief window for deep work in the middle. This format cuts off the session at a predetermined time, even if the client is having a breakthrough, even if they have barely begun to get at the meat of the issue.
Over time, this inefficiency can stagnate progress.
An IFS intensive can accomplish in a few days what might take 6 months of weekly psychotherapy, with drastically less emotional distress and life disruption.
Because the process is planned in advance, like a surgery, it allows participants to clear their schedules, arrange childcare, get sufficient sleep, etc., so that they can devote all of their attention and energy to the psychological healing process for a few days without external disruptions. Then they can fully recover and apply their newfound perspective and capacity to the important work of their lives.
How does an IFS Intensive work?
An IFS Intensive is a highly concentrated period of IFS psychotherapy, typically a total of 15 hours over 4-5 days.
There is a 90-minute pre-session a few days before the intensive to set goals, orient me to your system, history, and needs, and make any necessary preparations for the intensive.
The intensive itself is 12 hours of psychotherapy spread out over 2-3 days, depending on your preferences and schedule.
There is a 90-minute post-session a few days after the intensive to help consolidate your progress and plan how to integrate your new insights and growth into your daily life.
People who are already engaged in regular psychotherapy can also benefit from intensives.
Very often, a person will make reasonable progress for some time in weekly psychotherapy and then run into some particular issue where they feel especially stuck, their progress stalls out, or they keep repeating cycles of behavior that they can’t seem to quite get out of. In such cases, an intensive can help the person do the deep, focused work necessary to overcome that particularly difficult issue, and then build on that progress in their regular psychotherapy.
Intensive IFS therapy calls for a great deal of courage and dedication from the client.
You are freely choosing to confront aspects of your own desires, fears, losses, and traumas that are often very painful, and that you likely have spent most of your life attempting to forget or ignore or cover up.
You would only make such a choice because you have a good enough reason. Because you love your family, your community, and even yourself too much to stay the way you are any longer.
I am honored to be here for the next phase of your journey.
