A Therapy Intensive is an opportunity to devote three to five days to your healing or toward the transformation of your relationship. It requires a commitment, without distractions or excuses, and a willingness to do some hard emotional work.
We encourage you to aim for a Kintsugi Recovery. We build our customized intensives on the principle of “the act of embracing the flawed or the imperfect. When Kintsugi is used to mend together broken pottery, the cracks are highlighted, rather than hidden. The flaw is shown and celebrated. The imperfect can become its own kind of perfect.”
Kintsugi Recovery Story
The story of kintsugi illustrates how brokenness can be transformed into a work of art.
In 15th century Japan, the shogun warrior and ruler Ashikaga Yoshimasa had a tea bowl from China that he loved. It had become part of his daily routine to sip his tea from this bowl; he felt it gave him the strength to confront, engage, and ultimately overcome his enemies.
Then one day, the bowl was knocked to the ground. It cracked and several pieces broke away. Yoshimasa stared at the bowl, his talisman of good fortune, and thundered that it must be repaired.
It was sent away and when it returned, the once perfect tea bowl was held together by ugly metal staples. Yoshimasa was furious and he demanded that Japanese craftsmen find more aesthetic means of repair.
The craftsman’s quest to please their shogun led to kintsugi or golden joinery. Using molten lacquer resin that included genuine gold powder so that it looked like solid gold, the tea bowl was repaired. The beauty of the resin made the bowl more beautiful than before. Yoshimasa was pleased. It was not the bowl he had previously, but it was now even more valuable.
In the centuries following, after the reign of the shoguns melted into history, Japanese collectors continued to have broken ceramics repaired with gold. Many have come to cherish the imperfection of something broken only to be made stronger and more beautiful. Some believe that when something has suffered damage only to re-emerge, it becomes even more precious.
This is what can happen for your healing. This is also what can happen to your marriage. It can be repaired with a kind of relationship kintsugi so that it becomes something more beautiful and treasured.
3-Day, 4-Day and 5-Day Therapy Intensives
Intensive outpatient therapy is not a cure nor a replacement for ongoing psychotherapy or a recovery lifestyle. However, for many people, traditional weekly sessions alone are too brief and infrequent to tap into the deeper, underlying issues that prevent change. Nor do they allow you to build enough momentum to translate insights into a change after the session is over. If you are at an impasse, the sustained, dedicated time for intensive therapy can create the conditions to move beyond the gridlock in your life.
Jump Start or Deeper Dive?
In some cases, an intensive is designed to give you a jump-start on your recovery process or move you into a deeper level of work. In other cases, a multiple-day intensive helps you to identify and address the obstacles that have prevented you from forward progress. For some, this may involve getting to the root of addiction or addressing the damage of a sexual or emotional betrayal; for others, this may involve facing the impact of relational trauma or an intimacy-starved relationship.
Digging Deep
Although each intensive is customized to meet your unique needs, 3-day, 4-day, and 5-day Recovery Intensives often involve some combination of education and multiple, daily individual, couple, and/or group marathon sessions. Our intensives are active and require you to be active in working on your goals during your time with us, including in between sessions. With the coaching of your facilitator, you will supply plenty of time and effort during the intensive as well as develop a plan of action to follow after completing the program. It is called an intensive for good reason!
We offer a variety of three, four and five-day customized Kintsugi Recovery Intensives for individuals, couples and groups, including:
Partner Betrayal Trauma Intensive
Partner Betrayal Trauma Intensives
Your facilitator works exclusively with you in a customized intensive tailored to your specific needs.
We offer these Partner Betrayal Trauma Intensives:
Shattered – Individual intensive addressing shock trauma and establishing safety after the discovery of sexual betrayal.
Creating Safety Through Disclosure – Individual intensive preparing you for a Full Disclosure [online or in person].
Betrayal Trauma Healing – Individual intensive addressing the wounds of betrayal.
Renaissance – Individual intensive for creating new meaning, empowerment, and post-traumatic growth.
Impact Journey – Individual post-disclosure intensive for grieving your losses and cultivating empowerment as you create your Partner Impact Statement.
Couples Early Recovery – Couples intensive for incorporating partner healing as a part of recovery.
Couples Relational Healing – Couples intensive for incorporating relationship healing as a foundation for recovery.
Faith-based available
Problematic Sex or Pornography Intensive
Sex or Porn Addiction Recovery Intensives
Your facilitator works exclusively with you in a customized intensive tailored to your specific needs.
We offer these Sex or Porn Addiction Intensives:
Recovery Jump Start – Individual intensive that provides the understanding and necessary tools for establishing and maintaining sexual sobriety.
Creating Safety Through Disclosure – Individual intensive preparing you for a Full Disclosure [online or in person].
Recovery Roots – Individual intensive deep dive into the roots of problematic behavior to address the underlying wounds that led you on the addictive path.
Empathy Journey – Individual intensive designed to help you develop the empathy and compassion that your partner and relationship need from you to help both heal.
Couples Early Recovery – Couples intensive for establishing a framework for recovery.
Couples Relational Healing – Couples intensive for establishing a framework for relational healing.
Intimacy Anorexia Intensive
Intimacy Anorexia Intensives
Your facilitator works exclusively with you in a customized intensive tailored to your specific needs. [Individual intensives work best if the spouse can provide information about the impact of anorexic behaviors.]
We offer these Intimacy Anorexia Intensives:
Relationship Rehab – Individual intensive for marriages strangled by intimacy anorexia.
Married and Alone – Individual intensive for those experiencing intimacy deprivation.
Therapeutic Disclosure Intensive
Therapeutic Disclosure Intensive
Your facilitator works exclusively with you in a customized intensive tailored to your specific needs.
We offer these Disclosure Intensives:
Creating Safety in Disclosure – Couples intensive for creating safety in your future disclosure through disclosure preparation.
Creating Safety Through Disclosure – Couples intensive for creating safety by re-establishing truth through participating in a Full Disclosure.
Creating Safety After Disclosure – Couples intensive for those needing additional support following a complicated disclosure.
Grieving the Impact – Individual partner intensive for creating impact statement, processing the grief, and rising again.
Sharing the Impact – Couples intensive for partner sharing the impact of betrayal with spouse – moving from a focus on his story to her story.
Empathy Letter – Couples intensive for recovering addict to share empathy letter response to impact statement as means of emotional restitution for partner pain – each expressing shared grief and moving toward a new story of “we”.
Family of Origin Intensive
Family of Origin Intensives
Your facilitator works exclusively with you in a customized intensive tailored to your specific needs.
We offer these Family of Origin Intensives:
Family Roots – Individual intensive for facing family-of-origin wounds that impact current life.
Trauma Healing Intensive
Trauma Healing Intensives
Your facilitator works exclusively with you in a customized intensive tailored to your specific needs.
We offer these Trauma Healing Intensives:
Hero’s Journey – Individual intensive for Big T and little t trauma from a variety of sources, including shock, developmental, attachment-based, and relational trauma.
Last Chance – Couple intensive for those on the brink of divorce, one or both are uncertain about the best options, and want to decide whether to give it one last effort before pulling the plug. This is a guided process in examining the options, coming to clarity about choices, and establishing confidence about the next step.
Healing Together – Couple or family trauma intensive for those who have experienced a trauma but have been unable to grieve together and create a renewed sense of meaning.
EMDR/ART/Brainspotting Intensive
EMDR/ART/Brainspotting Intensives
Your facilitator works exclusively with you in a customized intensive tailored to your specific needs.
Your facilitator works exclusively with you in a customized intensive tailored to your specific needs.
We offer these Somatic Healing Intensives:
Awakening – Individual intensive that emphasizes connecting the mind, body, spirit, and soul to address life trauma. Incorporates a variety of techniques, including Somatic Experiencing, vagal toning, breath work, movement, experiential exercises, sound healing, art, and mindfulness meditation
Are 3, 4 and 5-Day Intensives Helpful to Everyone?
Just as there are no guarantees that medicine, counseling, or dealing with problems on your own will solve them, multi-day intensives are not the best method for everyone. If you are not ready or willing to roll up your sleeves and dig deep during your intensive, it is unlikely that you will reap the benefits.
Intensive Recovery Healing does not schedule intensives when active suicidal or homicidal thoughts, domestic violence, Dissociative Identity Disorder, or serious mental illness are present. If your medical doctor has advised you against an intensive due to being at a critical point of a serious medical disorder, we will not schedule an intensive until you have been medically cleared.
Our Location European Elegance in the Heart of Texas