Intensives are structured as a series of 7 long-form sessions in close succession totaling 20-hours, offering an efficient deep entry into your relational healing journey and blending integrative relational trauma modalities such as the STAIR Method, SE, RLT, IFS, and IPNB. One person, partnership or relationship system at a time.
The 20-hour intensive series allows us ample space to explore complex dynamics and cultivate a powerful transformation.
I’ll guide you towards listening to your own survival wisdom. We’ll grow understanding and build relationship with reactive parts/patterns that stick in the way of trusting you. You can’t think, read, or study your way into relational health, you have to embody it on a felt-sense level. Intensives get you out of your head and promote relational learning states.
Whether you come on your own or with your partner(s), we’ll make sense of the (often historical) stances you take that create distance and hurt in your life and relationships. You’ll better understand what keeps knocking you off course and begin mapping out the parts/patterns you replay on autopilot. All humans experience pain and fear. Yet most haven’t experienced turning toward the scared hurt parts within — leaving these parts alone and stuck in protective and reactive states.
I’ll help you to develop withnessing skills. These brain-savvy compassionate skills, put into practice over time, become new states of being that empower you to turn toward tending to the parts of you that hold unmet needs rather than foisting them on others to deal with when they act out/in.
Your work will continue to unfold long beyond these sessions. When parts/patterns you’ve begun to build relationship with show up (and they will), you’ll trust your growing withnessing skill to shift out of autopilot reactivity and align your next move in relationship with your integrity. You’ll expand your capacity to explore what big change may require of you and discern if it is something you are ready for.
We’ll explore your behaviors and emotions thru a historical survival lens rather than as abnormalities. My job is not to fix you.
There’s nothing wrong with you.
And you may already be aware of specific behavior patterns that fall outside your integrity, don’t feel okay, and hurt others/yourself. It’s around these patterns that we’ll develop deliberate practices to help you feel safe, stay connected, and trust your ability to respond moment by moment.
I’ll guide you towards new ways of being withness to your self in relationship. We’ll co-create space for you to embody new felt-sense experiences, update reactive parts and relational patterns you can't intellectualize your way out (the “whoosh” effect), and develop personalized brain-savvy practices to support you inside hard everyday relational moments.
Your intensive series will be focused on supporting the development of personalized relational care practices and embody new states of being.
I anticipate you’ll hit sticky spots integrating these practices — because you’re human and learning occurs experientially over time — so three follow up sessions are built into this intensive series to help integrate these learnings and practices inside of embodied real life moments (often including rupture and repair).
I’ve long been on a quest to help folks heal legacy burdens, increase trust in the wisdom of their protective systems, and develop relational practices that support generational wellness. I’d love to share this journey with you.
Practicing as a psychotherapist since 2003, my work blends modalities for relational trauma healing together in an integrative experiential relational practice I call Connectfulness®. I’m a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, Internal Family Systems therapist, certified Relational Life Therapist, and certified HOCII Therapist. I am also certified in the STAIR Method, developed by Juliane Taylor Shore. STAIR is a neurobiological framework that guides my work. Together we’ll explore intersectionality and invite shifts towards shared-power-with relationships.
Outside of work, I enjoy hiking the Gunks with my partner and our rescue lab, soaking up all the moments with our teens, listening to the wisdom of trees, sci-fi, and art-journaling. And I truly adore nerding out all things relationship with my cohosts, Jules and Vickey, on the Why Does My Partner podcast.
Just you, or you and those you are in relationship with, this is a focused space for your personalized relational healing.
It could be if you are: Seeking profound relational shifts. Enjoy self-exploration. Don’t have time available on a regular basis. And/or if the pain you want to heal from and the growth you are hoping for feels too urgent to slowly work through over months or years.
I work with people (18+) of all races, religions, cultures, abilities, genders, sexualities, and consensual relationship structures.
Our sessions can be held in my private New Paltz, NY office, online via zoom, or a hybrid of both.
Once we schedule dates, a $1000 deposit will hold your spot. The 20-hour intensive is $6,000 total. The deposit is part of this fee, so once the intensive begins you will be charged the $5,000 balance. Intensives are not billable to insurance.
20-hour intensives are scheduled over 7 days. Generally speaking intensive sessions are scheduled during daytime hours on Thursdays and Fridays.
Our first 14-hrs together consist of 4 sessions (3.5-hours each) spaced closely together within a two or three week period. The last 6-hours encompass 3 follow-up sessions (2-hours each) to support your integration of relational care practices.
Can we turn this into a retreat-style intensive?
Possibly. There are a handful of outstanding Hudson Valley, NY resorts (some of which I’ve partnered with in the past). I would be happy to help coordinate if this is what makes the most sense for you. Rates would be adjusted in accordance with the chosen space. You’d be fully responsible for your accommodations and other resort services. If you are interested in this option let me know. If you opt for this we’ll explore adjusting our schedule to fit the first 14-hours of our intensive into your stay at the resort facility, if possible.
The simple answer is I don't know. To really answer this question we'd have to explore what each of you want in regards to relational health. I can tell you that if you commit to practicing the skills you learn in our deep dive, you and your partner have a great chance at gaining relational health. You may also decide to stay together as you enjoy the benefits of a deeply connected life.
While it is true most couples seek help around communication, I find communication isn’t the work. You know how to communicate, except that all goes offline when you’re activated by stimuli. In these moments, communicating well depends more on your ability to track and understand the state of mind you are in. The skills and practices I teach focus on you understanding and embodying integrated brain states more of the time, or at least when you meet one another inside hard moments…and practicing how to care for yourselves (and thereby your relationship) when you are in less integrated brain states.
While it's true that many couples attend the intensive when they are in trouble, I also work with people who seek more depth and intimacy in their lives and relationship. No matter where you are on your journey towards relational health, the intensive experience is likely to help.
Yep. We’ll explore how your adaptive protective system affects you in relationship —your relationship with yourself and others— and work with your brain to understand what guides you toward deeper clarity, joy, coherence, trust and integrity.
Yes! I recommend reading Setting Boundaries That Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered by Juliane Taylor Shore. And/or you can attend the Integrating Mind + Heart Workshop Jules and I co-facilitate a few times a year with Vickey Easa. And/or listen to the Why Does My Partner podcast Jules, Vickey and I cohost together. The book, workshop, and podcast all support educational aspects this work. I find even a bit of this pre-work helps prepare for our adventure together into your relational healing.
No. My therapy practice is at capacity. If, when we are creating your plan to move the work forward, we all determine that ongoing therapy will be a good fit for you, I will help with referrals. If you would like to, you may schedule an additional intensive.
If you cancel more than 30-days prior to your intensive, you can receive a full refund of your deposit minus a $100 admin fee. If you need to cancel closer to your intensive date, you will not receive a refund of your deposit. A credit card must be kept on file beginning 3 weeks prior to your intensive. If you would like to shift from a couples intensive to an individual intensive that is welcome.
I am happy to schedule a 20 minute call with you to discuss and answer whatever I can.
