What is intensive counseling?
At RTS, intensive counseling is a powerful therapeutic model that allows for breakthrough and growth in a short period of time. You’ll work with trauma-informed licensed therapists—each with their own expertise—in daily sessions across 1-2 weeks.
This method allows us to approach your struggles with care, providing clinically accurate diagnoses to help you better understand yourself.
Our intensives are:
- Time limited: We provide a fixed endpoint to keep things focused and clear.
- Goal driven: We establish clear goals with you quickly.
- Depth oriented: We cover issues below the surface in a matter of days.
- Highly concentrated: We help you step away from everyday life so that you can bring your full self to each session.
What’s the difference between intensive counseling and weekly therapy or counseling?
While weekly therapy sessions can be a helpful tool for healing, it can take months or even years to really get to the heart of the matter. Just when you’ve discovered something new about yourself and your experiences, the session has come to an end! By the next week, new things come up to discuss and you can lose track of last week’s work.
Intensive counseling happens in a specific space and time. It takes you outside of the rhythms of daily life. While it can support or jumpstart the work you’re doing in weekly therapy sessions, it’s not ongoing. Daily sessions are typically longer than an hour (although don’t worry, there will be plenty of time for rest!) — at Restoring the Soul, each session is three hours long. Sessions also build on one another, with time in between sessions to process what came up.
Who usually attends an intensive?
All kinds of different people attend intensives at Restoring the Soul. Our intensives are designed for individuals and couples, and our therapists are experienced working in both settings. Whether participants are looking for a break or hoping to find immediate support to work through something urgent, intensive counseling is an excellent option for those looking to experience deep change.
Here are some common examples of RTS intensive attendees:
- Pastors and ministers, parachurch leaders, missionaries
- Retired and active-duty military personnel
- Physicians and healthcare workers
- First responders such as firefighters and police officers
- Executives, entrepreneurs, and business persons
- Christian leaders and care-givers
- Men and women of all walks of life who are seeking deep change
Should I attend a counseling intensive?
We know intensive counseling can be a big decision to make. If you’re feeling uncertain about attending an intensive, the following scenarios can help you further understand your situation and whether or not you might need intensive counseling.
Intensive counseling may be the next best step when:
1. I feel stuck and don’t know the actual root issue, so I can’t move forward.
Have you been attending weekly couples or individual counseling for months or years, and you still feel confused about what’s wrong? To heal, we have to understand what the real problem is. In our intensive counseling program, you’ll work with a therapist using a 360-degree assessment of your well-being and behaviors.
2. I want to jumpstart counseling or accelerate the work I’m already doing.
Do you want to explore more deeply and at a faster pace than weekly counseling allows? With intensive counseling, you can cover a lot of ground in a short time, supporting current or future regular counseling.
3. I need a higher level of care that weekly counseling can’t provide.
Sometimes the pain and difficulty of our circumstances is far greater than what can be addressed in weekly, hour-long counseling sessions. Just like when a primary care physician refers you to a specialist, sometimes our soul needs a specialist. Intensive counseling offers you a place to receive daily support, extended sessions, and time away in a safe environment.
4. The specialized help I need is not available locally.
Are you struggling to find a well-trained therapist in your area? For when you’re at a loss for resources or looking to take a break, intensive counseling offers you a space to work with an expert and rest.
5. I need freedom from the distractions and responsibilities of work and daily life.
Whether it’s a challenging work schedule, ministry commitments, parenting, or other relationships, the demands of life often make therapeutic work exhausting, if not impossible. Intensive counseling allows you to step away from those responsibilities to focus on your healing.
6. I need a level of privacy and distance from my leadership or public role.
Sometimes the role or position we serve in requires a high level of discretion. In this case, it may feel unsafe for leaders to get the care and support they need to live and lead effectively. Intensive counseling with RTS allows you to be off-duty while you experience soul care without shame or judgment.
Intensive counseling sounds like a great fit for me — now what?
If any of those situations sound like you, intensive counseling could be a helpful next step for reaching a breakthrough in your healing journey. Get in touch with our intake team and we’ll help you take the next step to healing.
Still evaluating? Download our free PDF “Is Intensive Counseling for Me?” to help you think through your decision.