Now accepting potential clients to a waitlist. Books open in January 2026 for intensives scheduled March 2026 through May 2026.
Beyond Survival:
A Chronic Illness Intensive for Women
A focused 3-session process to help you stop fighting the life you’ve lost and begin building the one you need now.
In-Person for Women on Bainbridge Island, WA ✧ Telehealth Available for Washington residents
When Chronic Illness Changes Everything
You’ve made it through the hardest part already.
The shock, the chaos, the endless search for answers. You’ve built your medical team. You’ve begun treatment. You’ve learned how your illness behaves — and how the world responds to it.
But now you’re here, at the point no one prepared you for:
You can’t go back to the life you had before.
You don’t recognize yourself anymore.
You want to move forward, but grief and disappointment pull you back.
Pretending you can still do everything you used to do is leaving you exhausted.
You’re ready to stop resisting. You want to create a new, sustainable, meaningful life — one that honors your illness and your wholeness.
That’s the work of this intensive.
What This Intensive Is
This is a three-session, deep-dive therapy experience designed specifically for women living with chronic or life-altering illness.
Over the course of three 3-hour meetings, we’ll focus on the transition you’re in now: not crisis, not cure-seeking — but the harder, quieter work of integrating illness into your identity and building a life that feels dignified, fulfilling, and authentic.
Weekly therapy helps over time. An intensive helps you reset fast.
Why Choose a Therapy Intensive for Chronic Illness?
Weekly therapy is powerful — but it unfolds slowly. You meet for 50 minutes, just as you’re diving deep the session ends, and then you spend days trying to pick the thread back up.
An intensive is different.
Focused time, fewer distractions. With three hours together, we don’t waste energy starting and stopping. We can move past surface-level coping into the deeper work that actually shifts patterns.
Clarity in weeks, not months. Instead of circling the same ground session after session, you leave the intensive with a clear blueprint for moving forward.
Momentum that lasts. By meeting weekly for three extended sessions, you build on progress without losing steam. You’ll leave with tools and practices to integrate immediately into daily life.
Tailored to a specific turning point. This isn’t for everyone — it’s designed for women who are no longer in crisis, but are ready to create a sustainable life beyond the fight.
Weekly therapy can support you over time, and many clients choose to continue after the intensive for skill-building or ongoing integration. But if you’re ready for concentrated, transformative work right now, an intensive gives you a powerful jumpstart.
How This 3-Session Chronic Illness Intensive Works
Understanding Your Inner World
We’ll begin with helping you understand how the mind works, and how your relationship with your body and your illness can shift from adversarial to cooperative. You’ll discover what it’s costing you to avoid your emotions or fight against your limits — and why learning new ways of relating to yourself is the foundation for real change.
Clarifying What Matters
Next, we’ll identify your core values — the things that matter most to you, even within illness. This becomes your blueprint. It will guide not only the big life choices but also the daily decisions: how you spend your energy, who you spend time with, what you say yes and no to.
Expanding Your Capacity
Finally, we’ll focus on tolerance and flexibility. You’ll practice skills for managing shame, grief, anxiety, uncertainty, and physical discomfort — without giving them power over your life. This is where mindfulness and emotion regulation tools come in, helping you stop running from suffering and start living fully, right where you are.
What You’ll Gain from a Chronic Illness Intensive
The ability to care about yourself and live with dignity, even in a body that has changed.
Relief from shame, self-loathing, and exhausting efforts to “pass” as your old self.
Confidence in making difficult medical, family, or work decisions.
A sense of pride and agency as you move forward.
A sustainable, values-based plan for living fully — even with illness.
A beginning point for integrating your illness into a whole and meaningful life story.
Practical Details
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This intensive is for women who:
Are living with a chronic or life-altering illness, injury, or disability
Are past the shock and crisis stage but feel lost about what comes next
Struggle with grief, shame, or exhaustion from trying to live like they used to
Are ready to stop fighting their illness and start creating a new, sustainable life
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This is three 3-hour therapy sessions sold as a fixed package.
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Intensives are health in-person at my office on Bainbridge Island. Telehealth is available for those who cannot travel or whose illness makes in-person sessions difficult.
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Sessions are typically scheduled weekly, on consecutive Mondays or Fridays. Accommodations can be made if your body requires more recovery time between sessions.
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You’ll receive exercises, worksheets, or journaling prompts to complete. These help you integrate insights and skills between meetings. No additional support between sessions is provided.
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$2400 covers all three 3-hour sessions, a personalized blueprint, and tailored exercises between sessions.
After the Intensive
Many women continue with therapy after the intensive, meeting weekly, biweekly, or monthly. Ongoing work might include:
Navigating shifting family roles and caregiving relationships
Handling difficult or unsupportive providers, friends, or relatives
Returning to work or redefining vocational goals
Managing money stress, body image, or special occasions
Dating, marriage, parenting, or menopause in the context of illness
Exploring creativity, spirituality, or purpose
Building a reliable network of support
And more…
These are the next layers of integration — but the intensive itself gives you the foundation.
Take the first step toward living well with illness
Before scheduling, I ask that you complete a brief questionnaire. This helps me understand where you are in your process and ensures this intensive is the right fit for you.
Once I receive your responses, we’ll schedule a consult call to discuss next steps. If it feels right, we’ll get your intensive on the calendar.
“As a therapist specializing in chronic illness, I’ve worked with many women who’ve discovered that life after diagnosis isn’t just about survival — it’s about creating something meaningful and whole, even with illness as part of the picture.”