Therapy Intensives Explained: Brainspotting & Somatic Work

If you've been in therapy for a while, or you're thinking about starting, you may have come across the idea of an "intensive" and wondered what it actually means in practice. This post walks through what an intensive is, why it works differently than weekly sessions, what a session actually looks like, and what it costs.

What is a therapy intensive?

A brainspotting, somatic, or hypnosis intensive is a concentrated block of therapy time, anywhere from half a day to multiple days, built around one specific focus instead of spread across months of once-a-week sessions. Rather than fifty minutes at a time, you get several uninterrupted hours to actually move through what you're working on.

It's not a different kind of therapy so much as a different container for it. The same depth of work you'd do over weeks or months in a weekly format happens instead in one sustained sitting.

Why concentrated time works differently than weekly sessions

A typical fifty-minute session doesn't spend all fifty minutes in deep processing. Some of that time goes to checking in on the week, and some goes to closing the session down before you leave. What's left for the actual work is often closer to twenty or thirty minutes.

On top of that, life happens between sessions. Something comes up, the focus shifts, and it's common to spend months circling one issue without fully resolving it.

An intensive removes both of those limitations. Instead of losing time to weekly check-ins and interruptions, almost the entire block of time is spent in focused work. Nothing gets lost to picking up the thread again next week, because there is no next week, it's happening now, in one sustained stretch.

To put it in real terms: a standard fifty-minute session is $170. If it took eight sessions to move through something specific, that's $1,360 spread out over roughly two months, without any guarantee it's fully resolved by the end. A three-hour intensive is $750, almost entirely spent in direct processing work. For a lot of people, that ends up being both faster and, in total, less costly than the weekly version would have been.

Who tends to choose an intensive

People come to intensives from a few different places. Some have already done a lot of therapy and can describe their patterns clearly, they're just tired of describing them without anything actually shifting. Some have something urgent going on and don't have the bandwidth or time for an ongoing weekly commitment right now. We will always have a conversation about this first as its important we don't ever push your body or nervous system to a place it is not ready for.

There's no single "right" reason to choose this format. What matters more is whether you're ready to give real, uninterrupted time to the work, instead of an hour here and there.

What an intensive can help with

• Trauma from a specific event, or built up over years of experience

• Patterns you understand intellectually but haven't been able to shift

• A nervous system that stays on alert no matter how much insight you have

• Burnout, especially after a long stretch of carrying others

• Life transitions that have left you feeling disconnected from yourself

• Reconnecting with our inner world

• Rebuilding relationships with our inner self

  
  

What to expect during a session

An intensive starts with getting settled and naming what you want to focus on. From there, most of the time is spent in brainspotting, somatic work, hypnosis, or some combination, depending on what fits best for you and what we're working through. Breaks are built in along the way, and we close with time to help you feel grounded and steady before you leave.

It's worth planning for some downtime afterward. Many people feel tired or emotionally tender after an intensive, not unlike how you might feel after a long, hard workout or a really big cry. That's a normal part of processing a large amount of material in one sitting, not a sign anything went wrong.

What happens afterward

Everyone's different here. Some people feel complete after a single intensive and don't need anything further for that particular issue. Others come back for another round later on, and some choose to move into ongoing weekly sessions afterward to keep building on what came up. We'll talk about what feels right for you once the intensive wraps up, there's no set expectation either way.

Fees

Individual sessions are $170 for 50 minutes, or $305 for 90 minutes. A three-hour intensive is $750.

Intensives are priced as a premium service, and that's intentional. Offering this format means blocking out a significant, uninterrupted piece of my schedule for one person, which limits what else I can take on that day and asks more of me in terms of sustained energy and focus to hold the work well. The rate reflects that demand, not just the hours on the clock.

It also reflects the value of what you're getting. Instead of spreading deep work across months of once-a-week sessions, you get concentrated, uninterrupted time to actually move through what you came in for, which for many people ends up being a better use of both time and money than the traditional weekly model, even though the upfront cost is larger in one sitting.

Intensives are half-day to multi-day, and the length and structure are built around your specific goals rather than a fixed template.

How it works

Step 1: Book a free consultation. This is a short, no-pressure conversation to talk through what's going on and whether an intensive makes sense for you.

Step 2: Come in for a standard 50-minute session. This gives us time to build rapport and figure out, in more detail, what you actually want to focus on during your intensive.

Step 3: Choose your dates. We'll decide together on timing and how many days makes sense, whether that's a single focused day or a few in a row.

Step 4: Pay a deposit. Half of the total fee holds your booking.

Step 5: Show up for your intensive. This is where the real work happens, the sessions we've planned for, start to finish.

Step 6: A 30-minute check-in the following week. This gives us a chance to see how things have settled since the intensive and talk through what, if anything, comes next.

Getting started

The first step is a free consultation call, where we talk through what you're carrying and figure out together whether an intensive is the right fit, or whether ongoing weekly sessions make more sense for you right now. There's no pressure either way, it's just a conversation to help you figure out what you actually need.

If weekly sessions haven't gotten you where you want to be, a few concentrated days might be worth exploring.