Kayla: Welcome back to The Designer Practice Podcast, and I'm your host, Kayla Das.
In today's episode, Steffeny Feld, licensed clinical social worker, an EMDR therapist will share how therapy intensives are changing private practices.
Hi Steffeny. Welcome to the show. I'm so glad to have you here today.
Steffeny: Hi Kayla. Thanks for having me.
Kayla: Steffeny, before we dive into today's episode, please introduce yourself, where you're from, and tell us a little bit about you and your practice journey.
Steffeny: Awesome. I would love to. So, I'm Steffeny Feld. I live and have my practice in St. Louis, Missouri, here in the Midwest. But I always like to say I am kind of an outlier 'because I'm California born and raised.
My journey kind of started. I'll give you a little backstory because I think it applies to the topic that we're talking about today. I started right out of grad school and I guess even right out of college in a really high stress environment. Just like so many of us, right? We're eager to help and do the work. And it really impacted me in my physical body. I don't know if you have had a similar experience, but it brought up chronic illness and chronic stress, and it was significant.
So, when it came time to think about, I want to do good in the world, I want to help people. I'm passionate about therapy, but I also need to keep myself healthy and well. When it came to my private practice that was like a huge motivator behind the scenes and that's kind of carried me through because we can't do good and serve others if we ourselves are suffering or sacrificing in the background.
So anyway, my practice started after the pandemic actually in 2021, and I had become a mom. I had wanted to be a mom for the longest time, so I finally had this like little human that I was trying to take care of. And realized, okay, I need a practice that matches up with my values and my health. So, I started part-time and went from there.
Eventually, I know we're going to talk about this, but I stumbled onto intensives and that was the game changer that brought me to where I am today. So that's a little bit of the origin story over here.
Kayla: That's absolutely inspiring. And I talk about all the time how important it is to diversify. Private practices and we were just talking off air how my daughter is in daycare, she's been in there for a little bit about a year now, but like is sick every other month for the most part. And then as a mom having to take time off switching your schedule, canceling appointments. And fortunately, in my private practice, I have seven passive income streams, but I still do one-to-one sessions. So how can we manage both the personal life and the professional life when life happens? And this is why I love talking about different types of income stream, such as therapy intensives.
Steffeny: Yeah. And I remember having that thought even when I was just part-time. Being like, oh my gosh, sometimes I feel so great and I'm totally in the zone as a therapist. And other times my health is flaring up or I'm tired or exhausted, like dealing with your own mental health or just personal life things.
And I remember thinking like, wouldn't it be great if I only could schedule things when I felt like I was at my best? And I was like, well Steffeny, that's not really how therapy works, so you're going to have to figure it out. Lo and behold, years later there are a different way to do therapy and I do get to choose when I see clients and when I don't. So, yay. I'm so excited to talk about it today.
Kayla: Well, let's get right to it. So, what are therapy intensives and how do they work exactly?
Steffeny: Yeah, so this is the question I get all the time because people are like, I've been a therapist for 20 years. What are you talking about? And honestly, therapy intensives are just a different format of delivering therapy. So what you're doing is still the same, it's just being delivered in a different way, in a different chunk of time.
So, if you picture like a cake or a pizza. It still is pizza, whether you cut it into six slices or quarters or halves. And so instead of seeing a client weekly for one hour, 50 minutes, whatever you tend to do, you see clients for longer period of time. And there are many different formats that you can choose from. My personal favorite being an EMDR therapist is three-hour sessions that we do three days in a row. And it is truly mind boggling to see the amount of progress and acceleration that clients can experience when you don't have to stop after an hour. I mean, EMDR lends itself really well to that, but it's not just that. So, it's to see. When you don't have to watch the clock so closely.
Kayla: Oh, I can imagine. I know there's probably some listeners thinking, well, how long should an intensive be and what do I charge and what are some of the benefits? What would you say to that?
Steffeny: Yeah, I mean for me, I'm kind of a funny case because I want to say that the exciting thing is you can customize it to what works for your clients and what works for you. Now, if you're a type A person, you might be like, oh my gosh, but like, could you just tell me the formula so I can do it?
But I think that's part of rewriting the story is that we have this clinical knowledge. And I'll say even intuition about how to show up for our clients, how to join with them and journey with them into whatever treatment goals that they have. However, they want to see their life change and transform. And so, you can decide the amount of time you want to do.
So usually, people will start with like three hours. Some people have dabbled and done 90 minutes before, and even that can make a bigger impact than the 50 minutes. Three hours is usually a good starting point. Some people who see couples or families will do all day, so six hours where you're having like an hour lunch break, you'd go your separate ways and kind of chill and decompress or eight hours.
And so, I think it just depends on what is okay for you, like what you want to do first and foremost. And then what is the client's goal and needs, because some things are pretty straightforward, you can do in a shorter period of time. And other things-- I’ll give you a more concrete example, a couple who's dealing with infidelity or they're deciding whether they want to have a divorce or continue on in the marriage. You might need more than three hours to really do justice and understand what's happening for both people and what is happening in the relationship. So that's kind of a very practical example of how you would use a longer period of time to address something in the moment, not having to open it up and then stop and come back.
I just think of couples. If you're getting into something that sensitive and then you're like, okay, well, have a great time living together and we'll talk about it again in a week. It's like, oh, oh man, that just seems rough.
Kayla: Oh yeah, and that's a really practical example. And really what I thought about as you were speaking; it's like therapy intensives almost sound like therapy retreats. And as therapists we often use the word retreats. And you don't even have to use the word intensive. You can say retreat. I'm thinking from my business hat, because I'm always thinking businessy, but like people pay premium for retreats, right? Especially if you call it a personal retreat or a couple retreat, right? Just for them. And as a result, how you word it and how you market it can also help with your price point as well.
Steffeny: Absolutely. I think the word immersive is one that gets used a lot with intensives, accelerated, and retreat. And I love that you honed in on the premium because it is not therapy as usual. You can create it to be a really premium, high-end experience. And then if you choose to charge a premium private pay rate, well that changes your business too, because you can move into-- I really like that you said like retreats, because I think that it's less intimidating for therapists and for clients because most of the time when clients pick an intensive, they're like, how's it going to be? Is it going to be too much? Or even therapists may think, can I handle that amount of time? What if I don't know what to do? Or how will we fill all the time?
But actually, I've had this experience and some other therapists who I've supported in the program say that actually intensives can feel a lot more gentle to your nervous system. There's so much more ease because you're just tuning in really deeply with that particular person as opposed to like. Keep in your mind, okay, I have this person at nine o'clock, then that person at 10 o'clock, okay, then I need to eat lunch and 12 o'clock and so on. It's like, ooh, that's a lot to handle.
Whereas when you're like, okay, my day today is that I'm going to be with Kayla, this is what we're focusing on, and I'm going to be present for whatever comes up in this time with her. It just feels so good. So, the words I hear a lot are like, it's an immersive experience. Maybe even staying away from the word intensive, if that does something for you. But like we can go a lot deeper than what we can in just a 50-minute chapter.
Kayla: I love how you honed in on the language. because yeah, sometimes the word intensive seems intense, right? Whereas you call it a retreat or even immersive, like being immersed in something. Those have very different connotations and again, it's the exact same experience. It's just the language or the discourse we use with that.
The other thing that you said that made me think about what if you have to cancel everybody right in your day because something happened in your home life. You're only canceling one person. You're not canceling a whole days of clients. And that is going to also be less time consuming because it's easier to send one email than it is to send eight.
Steffeny: Oh my gosh. Absolutely. And I think we've all been in those moments where you have to scramble and figure out how to contact all those people at one time when you're already going through something yourself that warrants canceling your day. And I had an experience recently, I'll say, I shifted to an intensives only practice, so this is the only way that I work now.
Many people will do a hybrid where they still see weekly clients and then they'll have maybe an intensive per month or something. But having that even just looking at my calendar, it doesn't feel as full or stacked with sessions. And having that space to just recover and have time for you and have time for, like you were saying, when life happens, that it's not a crisis upon a crisis is just such a game changer.
Kayla: Absolutely. So why did you begin to offer intensives into your practice, and what did you learn or may even have been surprised by when you did so?
Steffeny: Ooh. Yeah. So, I think it just made sense. Well, actually I had heard maybe 10 years before I had a therapist friend be like, I know someone who did this intensive retreat. They went and did EMDR for a week with specialized therapist. And it was this like really powerful thing. And my immediate reaction was total suspicion. Like, what is that? How could that be ethical? How could that work? And I'm a very trusting person, so that's kind of not on brand for me, but it was still kind of just in the back of my head that that exists, that somewhere someone's doing that.
And then when I started my practice, I kept just bumping in to other people in the EMDR community who were doing intensives, and I just thought, I think it makes sense that if we spent more time with clients, we'd be able to really, really get to those root things that they come to for therapy. I think I was feeling really tired of getting through the like small talk at the start and then just when you are getting to what you feel like you want to get to, maybe I'm just very impatient. But the time's over. And so, I was like, what would happen if we didn't have to stop? Just that feeling of opening and closing, and opening and closing was really hard for me.
Do you relate to that? Do you hear that from other therapists? Like feeling that kind of like dissatisfaction, like I started my practice to do this deep work and I feel like I'm just sort of checking boxes or hearing the gossip of the week or whatever.
Kayla: Yeah, I mean as a business coach we often focus more on like the business side, but I have heard that, and I've also experienced it myself when you really don't want to end a session because you're just like, oh, we just opened up something that's going to be so life changing or transformative. But guess what? I got another client in 10 minutes and we're going to have to wait till next week.
Steffeny: Exactly. And if you went to any other medical provider, they would never be like, well, we started your ankle surgery, but we're going to have to stop because it's been an hour. Or the next person's in the waiting room like that would just never, ever happen. And yet that's how we operate in this particular field. So, I think it's shocking.
But you asked me a question, what surprised me? I think I had a deep inner knowing that it would be a game changer for clients. It just made sense that they would get more for more time. But the surprising thing was the impact on me. Like I didn't know how hard it was for me to manage weekly appointments with whatever, 10, 20, some people have like 30 appointments a week. And when I got to slow down and experience a different schedule and I guess it's just a different format. I was like, whoa, this is way better for me.
And when you're seeing clients have these like significant breakthroughs. In the session, not only am I less tired, but like I'm more filled. So, getting both of those at the same time is just like the very best parts of therapy, like exactly what I wanted it to be, and I didn't realize that I was missing that, or just getting little like crumbs or glimpses of it in my week-to-week practice.
Kayla: That makes sense. And I want to bring us back to something you mentioned earlier that I see as a business coach and even just in a lot of the communities, like social media communities that I'm a part of, is the fear around ethics. And you mentioned that like when you first heard about EMDR intensives or just intensives in general, it's like, oh, is that even ethical?
So often I hear from therapists and I see it in, in the communities, it's, oh, anything to do with business is unethical, right? It's unethical to charge a client. It's unethical to do this, or at least the fear of it exists. But what's interesting, and myself as a business coach, and now I do want to give a disclaimer that every regulatory body has its own standards of practice and code of ethics. And, they aren't always the same. And there are some very black and white do's and don'ts.
But for the most part, when we use the word ethics, it actually isn't an ethical violation. It's this is what we think, this is our feeling that this doesn't feel right. Doesn't feel right for me to charge a client. But there's nowhere that says you can't charge a client, right? Like that's why there's a private practice.
One of the reasons that I started the Designer Practice Podcast was to highlight some of these myths or mistruths because it's okay to be in business. It's okay to have alternate passive income streams or just alternate income streams at all, whether they're passive or not, that doesn't follow the traditional model. But it's the one that we hear about the most, so it just feels the most comfortable.
So, I love that you highlighted that because just because something is different, just because something is new, it doesn't mean it's inherently unethical. I encourage you to go and look at your standards of practice to just ensure that that is the case. But 90% of the time there are no standards or ethical dialogue about any of this stuff.
So, I know we often hear of EMDR intensives, so is that the only therapeutic modality that can be used in an intensive model?
Steffeny: This is such a good question, and I think another one of those myths that people think you have to do EMDR, you have to do trauma work of some kind, but the reality is. We talked about, it's still therapy. It's still the cake, so it's taking the best of what you do, regardless of the modality. Regardless of the presenting concern, and just offering it to your clients in a different compartment or a different container.
So, it is really, really fun for me to sit down with therapists and say, what are the things that are working in your practice? What are the moments that you've had with clients where you're like, oh gosh, I just feel like that was beautiful or sacred, or we were on point. And how can we take those moments, gather them up together and put them into this intensive experience. And of course everybody's different, but I really like it. It's like the best hits I think of therapy. Like you're curating your playlist.
Then if someone comes to you and they're in your like niche or specialty area, then you can say, well, of course I can still meet with you weekly if you want to. There's also this other option, and you'd be really surprised some people, that's what they want. They don't want to be in appointments. Listen, we're in a busy time of life. Not everybody has time to commit to coming one hour a week ongoing. And so we may be missing, even from a business perspective, we may be missing potential clients if we're not offering different types of therapy or different ways to access therapy.
Kayla: I absolutely love that, and I agree with you because this is where it's important to understand the path of your ideal client. And I always talk about that even when we think about passive income streams, right? Usually therapy is a last resort, and there's so many options or resources that people reach out to first.
But even when they get to the therapy stage, it doesn't mean that the one traditional model of 50 minutes is going to work. I just know when I have seen therapists in the past. I'm usually that person that's like talking up to the last minute, and then my therapist is like, okay, I got to get you to go. Let's move on.
And we have many clients like that because we're so immersed in the process and we just getting those insights. And then again, the end happens. If I was offered a 90-minute session, maybe I would take it and I wouldn't be basically at the door still talking about some of the concerns that I had.
Going back to what you said, there's going to be different clients that might want the 50 minute or hour, but there are others that don't and they would prefer it to be longer.
Steffeny: That's one of the first things that we work on in the intensive design lab is when people reach out to you just to make them aware that an intensive is a choice because a lot of clients don't even know that it's an option. So, if all you do is just on your email response or in your consult call say, hey, I offer weekly and I also have this intensive, you would be shocked how many people just automatically say, well, tell me more about that. What is that?
Because some people, like you said, it's been a journey for them just to get to where they are, to show up to you, and they don't want to wait week after week to get into it. They worked up their readiness and they want to just be able to get in there and go. And so some people will just opt for intensives. Other people, like we said earlier, their schedule doesn't allow, they're too busy or they travel, they have kids, whatever, or they have a non-traditional work schedule, so committing to a weekly appointment just doesn't feel within reach.
Or maybe they're recovering from something that just happened. And so, they feel really eager to debrief it, work through it, or they're preparing for something. So, I'm thinking a lot of times like births and growing your family that's something to recover from. And also, it's something to prepare from.
So, life changes can be a big motivator and when there's like a natural thing that's coming up in life, people just feel ready. And how many of us are just looking for our dream client who feels ready to go all in.
That's the other fun thing about Intensive is nobody's going to schedule a three hour or a three-day immersive experience if they're not all the way in and they want to go deep. And that's all of us, that's exactly who we want to work with. So sometimes it makes more sense.
I'll add one more thing about that. It's just accessibility. So, a lot of times people are in a rural area or there's just nobody nearby or even in their state who works on their specific issue, whether that's like cultural competency or maybe identity affirming therapy, whatever it is. You can't travel weekly to see an expert or a specialized service. But you could travel for a weekend to do an intensive or a week. And so it really opens up doors for people to get exactly the type of therapy and care that they're looking for in their life.
Kayla: I love this, and as you were speaking, it made me think about, going back to the retreats versus intensive versus immersive. It sounds like that an intensive is an experience, whereas a weekly one-to-one session is an appointment, which is very different.
Steffeny: I love that. Oh my gosh, yes. An experience versus an appointment. That's great.
Kayla: So, if a therapist is interested in offering intensives in their practice, how can they get started?
Steffeny: Yay. Well, first of all, that's really exciting. I always tell people, don't overthink it. Just have your first experience, maybe with a client you're already familiar with, and just see how it feels. Because a lot of times we're like, okay, I have to have all my ducks in a row. And then you either run out of steam or stress yourself out. And so, I like to keep it really, really simple and really practical.
And then once you do it, and probably spoiler alert, you're probably going to really like it because it's awesome. Then you can take the time to kind of create systems and policies and structures to make it work really smooth for you.
But to get started, I mean, the only thing you truly need are three things. You have to have a time to be able to do it. You have to have space on your calendar and your schedule. You have to have a price. And you have to have paperwork. It could be your normal paperwork where someone is committing to pay you for that rate at that time. That's essentially the bare bones of what you need.
You already know how to do therapy. You already know how to show up. It does feel a little different. You're expanding into like a different container of time, but it's not that complicated. And once you get to experience that for yourself, then it's kind of like, okay, if this is something I want to offer as a regular services in my business, in my practice, what things do I want to put in place to make sure that it goes really well and is smooth sailing?
Kayla: I love that. So Steffeny, you have a free resource you'd like to share with listeners. Can you tell us what it is and how it could help them?
Steffeny: Yes. So we talked about those three things. The price. Most people already have a price. Most people already have paperwork. But your schedule can be really tricky, especially if you're an established therapist and you have a pretty full practice.
So this resource is called Scheduling Intensives for More Income, Energy, and Impact. It is a quick 28-minute masterclass where I share the strategies that I have used and that the students in my program have used to open up time in their schedule to be able to offer an intensive experience. So, it has a quick training, and then there's also a workbook that goes along with it where you can map out your strategy to create a little space so that you can have that first taste of what offering an intensive is like.
Kayla: So, to sign up for Steffeny's free masterclass, Scheduling Intensives for More Income, Energy, and Impact, check out intensivedesignlab.com/scheduling-intensives.
Or you can simply scroll down to the show notes and click on the link.
Steffeny, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today to discuss how therapy intensives are changing private practices.
Steffeny: Yay. Thank you so much.
Kayla: And thank you everyone for tuning into today's episode, and I hope you join me again soon on The Designer Practice Podcast.
Until next time, bye for now.
