Psychotherapy Intensives in Whitefish Bay, WI
Sometimes you don't need more therapy—you need more time.
If you've been carrying the same trauma, anxiety, relationship patterns, or overwhelming life experiences for years, it can feel frustrating to spend 50 minutes a week barely getting into the hard stuff before it's time to stop.
Maybe you've been in therapy before and know exactly what you want to work on. Maybe your schedule makes weekly appointments nearly impossible. Or maybe you're ready to make meaningful progress now instead of stretching the process out over months.
A therapy intensive gives you the opportunity to do focused, intentional work over several hours instead of several months.
Rather than starting and stopping every week, we have the time to fully understand what's happening, get to the root of it, and begin processing it in a way that often isn't possible during traditional sessions.
Therapy Intensives for Trauma, Anxiety, Perinatal Mental Health, OCD, and More
Every intensive is customized to you. Before we meet, we'll spend time understanding your history, your goals, and what you want to accomplish so we can make the most of our time together.
Whether you're processing trauma with EMDR or Brainspotting, working through birth trauma, navigating anxiety or OCD, recovering from burnout, or trying to move through something that has felt impossible to shake, we'll create a plan that's focused, efficient, and grounded in evidence-based care.
Why choose a therapy intensive?
A plan that's built around you.
No two people come in with the same story, so no two intensives look exactly alike. We take the time to understand your history, identify your goals, and create a treatment plan that targets what matters most to you.
The time to actually do the work.
One of the biggest frustrations with traditional therapy is that it can feel like you're just getting started when the session ends. But healing doesn’t happen on a timer. In weekly therapy, it's common to spend part of each session checking in, reviewing the week, and then stopping just as you're reaching something important. An intensive removes those interruptions. We have the time to slow down when needed, go deeper when appropriate, and stay with the work instead of pressing pause every 50 minutes. For many clients, that continuity leads to insights (and progress) that are difficult to achieve in traditional therapy.
A catalyst for meaningful change.
Sometimes what's been missing isn't another coping skill or another therapy appointment; it's enough focused time to create real momentum. By dedicating several uninterrupted hours to one goal, we're often able to move beyond simply understanding the problem and begin creating meaningful change. While every person's experience is different, many clients leave feeling like they've finally broken through something that has kept them stuck for months or even years.
Specialized evidence-informed treatment.
Many intensives incorporate EMDR or Brainspotting—powerful, research-supported approaches that help the brain and body process experiences that continue to feel stuck. Rather than simply talking about what happened, these approaches help your nervous system do the work of healing, allowing trauma, anxiety, painful beliefs, and emotional patterns to become less overwhelming over time.
If you've been feeling stuck despite your best efforts, a therapy intensive may be the reset you've been looking for.
Brainspotting Intensives
Brainspotting is a brain-body-based therapeutic approach that helps individuals process and heal from emotional trauma, anxiety, performance blocks, and deeply rooted psychological distress.
Developed by Dr. David Grand, Brainspotting works by identifying, targeting, and releasing unprocessed trauma or negative beliefs stored in the subcortical brain—the part of the brain responsible for emotions, memory, and physical regulation. Using this method in an intensive format allows us to work on deeply held or long-standing beliefs or trauma.
Brainspotting Intensives are offered in 2 or 3 half day formats by Emily Aleksy, LCSW, PMH-C. Emily specializes in perinatal mental health, stress and burnout, neurodivergence, and trauma. She particularly enjoys working with parents, other therapists, and entrepreneurs.
Two Half Day Intensives
8 hours total
1 hour intake
Two - 3 hour processing sessions
1 hour follow up
Total Fee: $1975
Three Half Day Intensives
11 hours total
1 hour intake
Three - 3 hour processing sessions
1 hour follow up
Total Fee: $2725
Brainspotting intensives include a mandatory intake and assessment session in part to assess appropriateness of this modality. If during or following that session your therapist determines that other services are more appropriate, the intensive will not proceed and further sessions will be cancelled.
Fees and paperwork for intensives must be completed at least 48 hours (2 business days) in advance of the first session in order to allow adequate time for your therapist to fully prepare for your session. The full fee for each intensive session is billed 48 hours prior to the session.
If you’re ready to take the next step and learn more about intensives, click below to get started!
FAQs About Psychotherapy Intensives
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Psychotherapy intensives are most appropriate for clients who have a few specific issues that they would like to work through fairly rapidly. Clients should be overall stable, without active suicidal or homicidal ideation, substance abuse, or recent psychosis. Many clients have therapists they are currently seeing and continue to see. Therapy intensives are not meant as a long-term relationship, but as targeted intensive short term therapy.
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No. While intensives can be incredibly effective, they're not the best fit for every person or every situation. Part of our consultation process is determining whether an intensive is the most appropriate level of care for your goals. If we think you'd benefit more from weekly therapy or another treatment approach, we'll tell you. Our priority is helping you get the right care, not simply scheduling an intensive.
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That’s ok. Part of the assessment process is getting really specific with your goals. You don’t have to know it all before you start. One of the guiding principles of Brainspotting is uncertainty - we don’t have to know everything in order to heal.
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Yes. Many clients opt to do this to continue to work on other trauma, limiting beliefs, or self confidence. Additional sessions are intended to be spaced out as needed.
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Great! We don’t currently offer any intensives other than Brainspotting, but they are coming soon!
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Yep. These can be a great addition to other therapy work. We do ask for a Release of Information to be able to communicate with your therapist as needed about your treatment.
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Brainspotting is a brain-body-based therapy that helps individuals process trauma, emotional pain, and performance blocks. By identifying specific eye positions, called “brainspots,” therapists can guide the brain to release unresolved experiences and foster deep emotional healing.
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While both Brainspotting and EMDR target trauma processing, Brainspotting focuses on eye positions linked to subcortical brain activity and often involves a slower, more somatic approach. The methods are very similar, and Brainspotting was founded by someone extensively trained in EMDR and based in the same theories. Brainspotting tends to be thought of as more flexible, and EMDR more protocol based, but this depends a lot on the provider you see, as each will have their own style. Truly - they’re quite similar, some people prefer one or tolerate one better over the other.
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Brainspotting can help with trauma, PTSD, anxiety, depression, grief, emotional regulation, performance anxiety, limiting self beliefs, and psychosomatic symptoms such as chronic pain or tension.
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During a session, the therapist guides you to notice subtle eye positions (brainspots) associated with unresolved emotions. You remain present and supported while your brain processes and integrates these experiences. Sessions may also include mindfulness or bilateral sound techniques to facilitate healing. Each session looks different, as a guiding principle of Brainspotting is that it is client led.
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Absolutely. Brainspotting can release mental blocks, increase confidence, and improve focus for athletes, performers, professionals, and creatives.