Despite weekly therapy, your parent-child dynamics are stagnant—Break Free: Parent Intensives can revitalize your parenting progress.
Therapy sessions can feel like a race against the clock; there’s so much to unpack, but really limited time to delve into the depths of your parenting experiences. You’re often grappling with where to begin—should you provide an update on recent events, or dive straight into a specific issue? The urgency to cover everything leaves you feeling scattered and anxious, knowing that not everything can be addressed in one session. As the session ends, you’re left with the sinking realization that another week is going to pass before you can continue tackling your persistent challenges, making the path to meaningful change seem endlessly prolonged.
If you’re seeing a therapist weekly, there’s a pretty good chance that you’re running out of time every session just when you feel like you might be digging into the stuff that’s getting in the way of a more connected relationship with your child (or children). By the time you get through the initial pleasantries and the overview of your last week and are feeling warmed up, you sometimes only have 20 minutes left! And if something really jarring has happened during the week you end up prioritizing that and you don’t get to the things you’ve been struggling with as a parent.
But what if it didn’t have to be this way? What if years of weekly therapy wasn’t the only way to get relief from your anxiety, issues from your past or your parent-child struggles? Imagine being able to meet with a therapist who has collaborated with you to create a personalized treatment plan tailored to your unique circumstances, needs and parenting goals – free from the constraints of standard weekly 45-minute sessions. What if you didn’t feel rushed to squeeze everything in during an appointment that seems to fly by? Picture walking into a 3-hour session feeling overwhelmed by a stressful parent-child experience and leaving feeling grounded, clearer and with a specific plan of action. It’s time to break free from the therapy rut and make meaningful, lasting progress.
This is where Parent Intensives come in. With Parent Intensives, there is more spaciousness for healing and support. But these comprehensive sessions aren’t for everyone which is why I’ll begin with an in-depth consultation to make sure an Intensive is the right fit for your needs.
With the groundwork laid during our consultation, we’ll design an Intensive experience that zeroes in on your most pressing parenting challenges. These sessions are tailored to provide the time, focus, and depth that weekly therapy often can’t accommodate, allowing you to move past surface-level discussions and into transformative work.
So, what does a Parent Intensive actually look like? Well, first it’s important to choose the right Parent Intensive for you. I offer three different types of Parent Intensives.
Parent Skills Intensive: This Intensive helps you learn practical, respectful parenting techniques tailored to your unique child’s needs.
Parent Coaching Intensive: This Intensive focuses on strategy and support for a specific parenting challenge.
Parent Therapy Intensive: This Intensive is geared toward exploring and healing the deeper emotional roots affecting your parenting.
Let’s explore the structure and process of an Intensive to give you a clearer picture of what to expect in a Parent Therapy Intensive, for example.
Before I dive in, it’s important to note that BPT Parent Therapy Intensives are available only to New York residents, or those who travel to New York for their Intensive. A Parent Therapy Intensive is also an adjunctive service to your ongoing individual therapy. That means you’ll need to already have an individual therapist that I can consult and collaborate with about your treatment.
What to Expect in a BPT Parent Therapy Intensive
A Parent Therapy Intensive is an immersive, focused opportunity for parents feeling stuck in patterns of behavior that weekly therapy hasn’t been able to shift. You’re able to dive deep into anything getting in the way of your parent-child connection, like understanding why you become overwhelmed during your child’s tantrums or their sibling conflicts, or perhaps exploring the roots of your difficulty in holding boundaries. In this example, we’ll look at a Reparenting-focused Parent Therapy Intensive, designed to help you nurture and accept yourself in ways that may have been missing in your own childhood.
Let’s say you’re a parent who finds yourself yelling at your kids or relying on guilt and shame to compel them to behave in ways you’d prefer. You even have a habit of using guilt and shame on yourself hoping it will lead you to stop yelling! But none of this works. Weekly therapy has brought some insight, but the pattern persists, leaving you frustrated and hopeless. A Parent Therapy Intensive offers a fresh approach by creating dedicated time and space to address these deep-seated challenges.
Here’s a breakdown of the process:
1. A Collaborative Start: The Consult
The first step is a 45-minute consultation to determine if a Parent Therapy Intensive is the right fit for you. We’ll explore your goals, challenges, and how an intensive experience might complement your ongoing work with your individual therapist. Since this service is adjunctive to your regular therapy, I’ll also collaborate with your therapist to ensure we’re aligned in supporting your care.
2. Personalized Preparation: The Workbook
Once we decide to move forward, you’ll receive your Personalized Parent Intensive Workbook. This isn’t just paperwork; it’s a thoughtfully designed resource to help you maximize the impact of your Intensive.
The workbook includes:
- Assessments to clarify your current challenges and establish baseline insights.
- Activities that prompt reflection and deepen your understanding of your patterns and goals.
- Guidance to prepare you emotionally and mentally for the Intensive itself.
You’ll use the workbook before, during, and after the Intensive to track your progress and continue building on the work we do together.
3. Comprehensive Assessment Session
Our next step is a 90-minute Comprehensive Assessment Session. This session is crucial for identifying the core issues underlying your struggles and setting clear, actionable goals for your Intensive.
For a Reparenting-focused Intensive, we might explore:
- The ways unmet needs from your childhood are showing up in your parenting.
- The emotional triggers that lead to yelling or using guilt/shame with your child.
- Specific changes you want to see in your responses and interactions.
This session ensures that when we enter the Intensive, we’re laser-focused on what kind of change matters most to you, and what your hoped-for change would look and feel like in your life.
4. The Intensive Sessions: Deep Work
The Intensive sessions themselves are where the transformation begins. Typically lasting 3 hours each, these sessions are scheduled about two weeks after the Comprehensive Assessment to give you time to prepare. You can choose to do one or more of these 3-hour sessions over a few days, depending on your needs and capacity.
For a Reparenting-focused Intensive, this is where we’ll dive deep into:
- Identifying the roots of self-criticism: We’ll explore how patterns of guilt and shame formed in your own childhood and how they’re impacting your parenting.
- Reparenting exercises: Through guided visualizations, somatic practices, and emotional processing, you’ll practice giving yourself the nurturing and validation you didn’t receive as a child.
- Building self-compassion: We’ll develop strategies to replace self-criticism with kindness and understanding, helping you break the cycle of guilt and shame for both yourself and your child.
These sessions are intense but supportive, designed to create breakthroughs and lay the foundation for lasting change. Don’t worry – we’ll take breaks throughout this deep work so that you can self-regulate. Sometimes this might look like me offering you some guided mindfulness or breath work or making time for a longer bio-break where you have time to have a cup of tea or take a walk.
5. Integration and Aftercare
About 2–4 weeks after your final Intensive session, we’ll meet for a 90-minute Aftercare Planning Session. This session is focused on integrating what you’ve learned and ensuring you have a clear plan to sustain the progress you’ve made.
During this session, we’ll:
- Reflect on the insights and skills you’ve gained.
- Identify potential challenges and strategies to address them.
- Develop a customized roadmap for continued growth, including collaboration with your regular therapist to maintain momentum.
A Parent Therapy Intensive isn’t just about addressing immediate struggles—it’s about equipping you with tools and insights to change patterns that have felt unchangeable. If you’re a parent stuck in cycles of reactivity and guilt, it offers a path toward healing, self-compassion, and a stronger, more connected relationship with your children.
Will an Intensive Program Solve All My Parenting Problems?
While Intensive Programs offer a powerful and focused approach to tackling parenting challenges, it’s important to approach them with realistic expectations. Intensives are not a “magic fix” for all your parenting struggles. Instead, they are designed to provide concentrated time for growth and learning, allowing you to address your most pressing concerns and develop practical tools for change.
The success of an Intensive depends on several factors, including your readiness for change, the specific issues you’re facing, and your active participation in the process. Rather than promising to resolve every parenting issue, the goal of an Intensive is to empower you with insights, skills, and a clear path forward. By the end of the program, you can expect to feel more grounded and equipped to navigate the complexities of parenting.
Lasting change, however, often requires ongoing effort and support. While an Intensive can serve as a significant turning point, it may be beneficial to continue with additional support, such as regular therapy, coaching, or self-reflection practices. Together, we’ll create a plan tailored to your needs, setting you up for continued growth and success in your parenting journey.
Breaking Free from the Therapy Rut
Are you ready to break free from the cycle of weekly therapy sessions that leave you feeling stuck and unsatisfied? Parent Intensives offer a transformative approach to parenting by providing focused, in-depth support tailored to your unique needs. By delving into the root causes of your challenges and equipping you with practical tools and strategies. This kind of deep work can help you create lasting change in your parent-child relationships. If you’re seeking a more effective and efficient way to address your parenting concerns, consider investing in yourself and your family with a Parent Intensive.
Ready to take the next step? Schedule a consultation today to explore how a Parent Intensive can help you achieve your parenting goals.
Check out more ways to shore up your relationship with your kids.
Looking for additional support?
Dr. Nanika Coor of Brooklyn Parent Therapy offers a variety of services to help you implement respectful parenting strategies and build strong, lasting relationships with your children. Consider individual or parent-dyad therapy sessions, or explore a customized Parent Intensive program designed to tackle specific parenting challenges. These tailored sessions can help you break intergenerational cycles of disconnection and build a more connected, respectful family dynamic.
Ready to work on your parenting with Dr. Coor? Click here to schedule your free consultation.