Therapy Intensives Are a Partnership: Here's How We Work Together
Therapy intensives aren't about me doing the work while you sit back and wait for healing to happen. That's not how real transformation works.
The whole idea of an intensive is that we're in it together. You show up with your story, your pain, your readiness. I show up as a facilitator and guide, helping direct your brain to where it needs to go. And somewhere in that meeting point, healing becomes possible.
I think people sometimes imagine therapy intensives as a passive experience. As you'll come in, I'll wave some EMDR wand, and you'll leave feeling magically different. But here's what actually happens: we both bring something essential to the table, and neither of us can do this alone.
What a Partnership Means in Therapy Intensives
A therapy intensive is concentrated healing work. Instead of seeing each other for 50 minutes once a week, we spend several hours together over a few days or weeks. The format creates this unique container where we can go deeper faster.
But depth requires trust. And trust requires partnership.
When I offer EMDR intensives in Oakland, I'm creating space where real collaboration can happen. We're not following some rigid script. We're responding to what shows up in the moment, adjusting as we go, moving at your pace. That only works when both of us are actively engaged.
Think of it like learning to dance. I might know the steps, but you have to feel the music in your own body. I can guide, but you're the one moving.
What You Bring as the Client
You bring more than you probably realize.
First, there's your openness. The willingness to look at painful things, to sit with discomfort, to let old wounds breathe. That's not small. A lot of people spend years avoiding exactly what you're choosing to face.
You also bring curiosity. Not the forced kind, but genuine wondering about why you feel what you feel, why certain patterns keep showing up, what might be possible if things were different. Curiosity keeps us from getting stuck in shame.
And then there's your readiness. You've decided you're done carrying childhood trauma alone. You want something to shift. That decision matters more than you might think. It's the fuel that keeps us going when the work gets hard.
You're also bringing your survival skills. The same mechanisms that helped you get through difficult experiences as a kid are still with you. We don't throw those away during EMDR intensives. We work with them, honor what they've done for you, and help them relax when they're no longer needed.
What I Bring as the Therapist
I bring the container. That's my primary job.
I create a space safe enough for you to fall apart a little, knowing you won't actually break. I track what's happening in your nervous system while you're processing. I notice when you're hitting a wall and need to slow down, or when you're ready to push a little deeper.
I also bring my training in multiple modalities. Sometimes we use EMDR to process specific traumatic memories. Other times, parts work or internal family systems (IFS) can shift stuck emotions in the body. I don't marry myself to one approach because healing doesn't follow a single path.
What I've learned after years of doing this work is that my role isn't to fix you. You're not broken. My role is to be present while you do the brave work of integrating experiences your system couldn't handle alone when they first happened.
I bring steadiness when things feel overwhelming. I bring belief in your capacity to heal, even when you're doubting it. I bring knowledge about how trauma lives in the body and how to help it move through.
But I can't bring your healing. That's always been yours.
How Collaboration Leads to Transformation
Something shifts when two people commit to the same goal.
In EMDR intensives, that collaborative energy accelerates progress in ways that sometimes surprise even me. When you're actively participating instead of passively receiving, your brain processes differently. You start recognizing patterns faster. You begin trusting your own wisdom.
The partnership also strengthens resilience. You're not depending on me to make you feel better. You're discovering your own capacity to regulate, to soothe, to resource yourself when life gets hard. That's the difference between short-term relief and long-term transformation.
And there's this deepening of self-awareness that happens when someone really sees you. Not just the trauma you're carrying, but who you are beyond it. I witness your strength, your humor, your intelligence, and your heart. And gradually, you start seeing those things too.
That's what makes EMDR intensives in Oakland different from regular therapy. The concentrated time together creates intimacy and momentum. We're not starting from scratch every week. We build on what happened in the session before, sometimes the hour before.
But none of that happens without both of us showing up fully.
Ready to Explore This Partnership?
If you're reading this and something resonates, maybe you're ready to try a different approach to healing childhood trauma.
I work with adults who are tired of surface-level coping strategies and ready for deeper change. People who sense there's more available to them if they just had the right support and enough time to really process what they've been carrying.
EMDR intensives might be exactly what you need. Or maybe after we talk, we'll discover another path makes more sense. Either way, the conversation is worth having.
Schedule a consultation with me, and we'll explore whether this partnership approach feels right for where you are now. No pressure, no sales pitch. Just an honest conversation about what healing could look like for you.
Because you don't have to do this alone anymore. And you shouldn't have to.
About the Author
Mary Fleisch, LCSW, is a trauma therapist in Oakland specializing in EMDR Intensives and couples therapy for adults navigating childhood trauma and complex grief. She helps individuals and couples build healthy boundaries, calm their nervous systems, and reconnect with a sense of safety and self-trust.
