The Deepening

Ongoing individual therapy is recommended but not required. The Deepening can work as a standalone experience for someone who is self-aware, psychologically stable, and ready to do focused work on something specific. That said, having your own therapist means you have somewhere to take what emerges between the prep session and the intensive, and after the integration session closes. We’ll explore what makes sense for you during the consultation.

Then we don’t move forward — and that is not a failure. The prep session exists precisely to explore this. Sometimes the most important thing that emerges is clarity about timing. You’re always welcome to return when the time feels right.

You’ll have a pre-session assessment to complete before the prep session. After the prep, you may receive gentle prompts or reflection questions to sit with — nothing demanding, just an invitation to notice what’s present. The space between sessions is part of the container.

This is therapy. I am a licensed psychotherapist (LCSW, New York State), and The Deepening is a clinical offering held with full therapeutic care, ethical standards, and clinical accountability. It is not coaching, education, or a wellness program.

Not at this time. The Deepening requires a stable enough foundation to go deep — it is not designed for acute stabilization or crisis support. If you are currently feeling unsafe or overwhelmed, please reach out to a crisis resource or your current therapist. I’m happy to help you find the right support if needed.

Weekly therapy moves in weekly increments — you arrive, open, begin, and stop. The intensive format removes that artificial interruption. We have enough time to move through a full arc — activation and settling, opening and integrating — without the clock cutting us off. Many people find they make more movement in a single intensive than in months of weekly sessions. Not because the intensive is better, but because some things need more time to unfold.

Mostly: show up. Beyond completing the pre-session assessment, the most important preparation is giving yourself permission to arrive fully — without an agenda for how it should go. Wear comfortable clothing. Have water nearby. If we’re working virtually, find a private space where you won’t be interrupted. If in-person, we’ll discuss logistics together.

Because The Deepening is a licensed psychotherapy offering, where we can work together depends on your location. If you’re able to travel to NYC for an in-person intensive, you’re welcome regardless of where you’re based — the session takes place in New York. For virtual work, I’m currently licensed to see clients located in New York State. If you’re based outside of New York and in-person travel isn’t possible, the somatic and experiential offerings at Osmanthus Moon — including breathwork and community containers — are open to everyone, wherever you are. It’s a different entry point, but rooted in the same practice.

No. The Deepening is a private pay offering — insurance does not apply. Because the intensive combines multiple session types into a single clinical container, it falls outside standard insurance billing codes. A Good Faith Estimate will be provided before we begin so you have a clear picture of costs upfront.

I don’t practice EMDR. The Deepening draws from Somatic Experiencing (SE), Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP), and Parts Work — body-based approaches that address trauma, emotional processing, and relational patterns at the same depth as EMDR, with a particular emphasis on the body’s role in healing. If you’ve been looking for an EMDR intensive and want to understand how this approach compares, I’m happy to talk through it in the consultation.

The integration session is the closing container — a 90-minute space to metabolize, make meaning, and tend to what emerged. After that, follow-up is available and encouraged. If you’re not currently in therapy, ongoing sessions can be arranged. The intensive opens something; what comes after matters too.

Somatic therapy is a body-based approach to healing that works with what lives in the nervous system, not just what can be put into words. Unlike traditional talk therapy, which focuses primarily on cognitive understanding and narrative, somatic therapy attends to the physical sensations, impulses, and patterns that trauma and stress leave in the body. The premise is that healing isn’t only a mental process. The body holds its own intelligence, and lasting change often requires working at that level. In an intensive container like The Deepening, somatic work can go somewhere it rarely reaches in a 45-minute session. The body follows its own timing: activation needs room to peak, discharge needs space to complete, and integration needs quiet to settle. The standard therapy hour often interrupts this cycle before it closes. Three hours doesn’t. We have enough time to follow a thread all the way through: to stay with what arises, let it move, and arrive somewhere before we close. That’s what makes the intensive format particularly well-suited to somatic work.