FOR WOMEN |ONLINE ACROSS CA
IntensiveTherapy
Helping you get to the source — and make meaningful change.
You’ve been engaged in therapy over the years. You understand your patterns and are able to integrate both physically and emotionally what you receive in session, but the traditional schedule isn’t working. Often just when you get deep, your time is up and you have to start from the same place the following week—a double session with varied frequency might serve you better.
Intensives are built for people who are ready to process and in many cases resolve more deeply. In a longer focused session, you can expand in a new way.
Weekly therapy isn’t always the right answer.
You might be here because:
You’ve tried weekly therapy and the progress is too slow or too fragmented
A specific event, relationship breakdown, or pattern has finally hit a breaking point
Your schedule simply doesn’t accommodate a long-term weekly commitment
You want real change — lasting, meaningful, growth
Whether you’re a first-time entrepreneur whose stress and reactivity are bleeding into your closest relationships, an executive whose personal life is quietly draining the focus you need professionally, or someone who’s just done carrying something they’re ready to put down — intensive therapy was designed for you.
For driven women, the stakes of getting this wrong extend well beyond the personal. A relationship in crisis drains the focus, bandwidth, and decision-making capacity that everything else in your life depends on. The cost of staying stuck — in time, energy, and eventual financial exposure — is almost always higher than the cost of addressing it directly and now.
What is Intensive
Therapy?
Understanding the core principles and approach of intensive therapy.
Intensive therapy is exactly what it sounds like — concentrated, immersive, and built for people who are focused on expansion. Instead of spreading the work across months of weekly sessions, you dedicate a block of time to go deep, move quickly, and walk away feeling more capacity.
The difference is momentum. A standard session dedicates its first and last few minutes to check-in and wrap-up — leaving maybe 30 minutes of real depth work. Intensives remove that stop-start rhythm entirely. You go further in a day or two than most go in months.
I use Relational Cultural Therapy (A Social Justice Perspective), Brainspotting, and Attachment-Informed Therapy — chosen specifically because they go deep, and produce changes that last.
Stop managing symptoms. Get to the root — and change it.
Intensive therapy sessions get to the root of what’s troubling you.
HOW INTENSIVE THERAPY WORKS
Intensives are concentrated therapy sessions designed to deliver accelerated results.
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Therapy intensives help clients go deeper and get results faster. Rather than stopping and starting in 45 minute blocks every week, intensives allow you to set aside a larger chunk of time to do the deep work necessary to achieve real, long-lasting change. This is an evidence-based, approach to therapy. Our work together will be focused, in-depth, and personalized to you & your goals.
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Intensives encompass a number of different sessions and avenues for support. We’ll customize each of the following based on your needs:
Consult: We’ll start with a 15-minute consultation call. This isn’t a sales call — it’s a genuine conversation to determine whether this is the right fit for you and whether I’m the right person to support you. If it’s not, I’ll tell you.
Pre-Intake: You’ll complete a detailed intake packet sharing about your background, current challenges, and goals.
Intake Session: We’ll meet for an intake session to review additional information and create a detailed plan, including goals and outcome measures to ensure we can accurately track your progress.
Plan: I’ll craft a customized plan combining talk therapy, Relational Cultural Therapy , and Brainspotting to help you achieve deep healing.
Intensive Session(s): We’ll meet for the selected number of sessions. They can occur in-person in my office in Oakland and or Online.
Post-Intensive Session: To measure your progress, debrief, and ensure you feel well-equipped to integrate your new insights into daily life, we will meet for a post-intensive session.
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Completely private, one-on-one sessions — this is your time, your work, your space.
A detailed intake questionnaire
A customized plan incorporating Brainspotting, relational cultural therapy, and relational talk therapy suited to your goals and desired outcomes
Specialized support every step of the way
How Intensive Therapy Works
A closer look at the process for individuals.
From our first session, we’re working with purpose and direction. I’ll be direct with you about what I’m observing — the patterns, the stuck places, the things you might have been working around for years. It’s not harsh, it’s empathic and efficient. Clarity is the fastest path to change.
Using Relational Cultural Therapy, Brainspotting, and Attachment-Informed Therapy, we work at the source of what’s driving the patterns — not just the surface behavior. These approaches are specifically chosen because they access what talk therapy alone often can’t reach, and they work in a fraction of the time.
You’ll leave with more than just insight. Most clients describe a noticeable internal shift — a sense of things actually moving — that feels different from anything they’ve experienced in traditional therapy. That’s the point. Ly Franshaua Pipkins, Psy.D., offers intensives at her Oakland practice and online across California, providing an accelerated path to healing for people who want deep change without long-term weekly commitment.
A gentle note regarding intensives: We are always working within the context of your whole life. Your current balance of the basics matters. That means whatever your home, work, or school life entails has an impact on the work we do. Results can fluctuate based on how balanced the basics are—regular exercise, healthful eating, supportive relationships, and adequate rest.
Intensives are designed to settle and clear a level of what's been holding you back, but life and life's stressors are dynamic. There is no silver bullet to the influence of this work, but we do collaborate to build an internal capacity that supports meaningful integration. Thus, many of my clients come in for periodic intensives.
Deeper work.
Faster results.
Intensives aren't just a different format — they're often a smarter investment. A single 3-hour intensive covers ground that typically takes months of weekly sessions. When you factor in the time, the recurring commitment, and the cost of staying stuck longer than necessary, the math usually favors going deeper and getting there faster.
When you choose an intensive, you're not just compressing the timeline — you're getting more of the work that actually moves the needle, with less of the stopping and starting that slows traditional therapy down.
Investment
Custom packages for every client.
Every package is customized. The formats above are starting points — if your situation calls for something different, we'll build it.
Individuals
Every individual intensive package includes a 45 minute intake and post intensive session in addition to your 3 hour intensive day.
$1,970
What to Expect from an Intensive Therapy Session
Preparing for your intensive therapy experience.
Before we meet, I’ll ask you to complete a detailed intake questionnaire. This isn’t busywork — it’s how we make sure we’re not spending your intensive hours on background I could have had in advance. Come in knowing what you want to focus on and willing to go there.
During sessions, expect a balance of warmth and directness. I’ll tell you what I’m observing. I’ll challenge you when it serves you. I’ll also support you through the hard parts — because there will be hard parts, and that’s exactly where the change happens.
After an intensive, most people describe feeling lighter, clearer, and more grounded. Some things shift dramatically fast. Others need time to integrate. Either way, you’ll leave with something concrete — not just things to think about, but a different felt sense of yourself or your relationship that you carry into daily life.
ABOUT ME
I specialize in Brainspotting and body-based therapies because of the positive—and often more immediate—changes I saw in my clients.
When insight alone was not enough, deeper shifts began when we worked directly with the nervous system.
If this resonates with you, I invite you to reach out for a consultation.
Healing doesn’t have to stay stuck in insight alone.
Experience the shift that becomes possible when your nervous system finally feels safe enough to change.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Brainspotting sessions are often quieter and more internally focused than traditional talk therapy, though every session is different. We may spend time noticing body sensations, emotions, activation patterns, or subtle shifts in attention while staying connected to what your nervous system is experiencing in real time. Many people describe the process as focused, grounding, and less verbally demanding than expected. Sessions are collaborative and paced carefully — there is no pressure to force emotion or revisit painful experiences before your system feels ready.
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Both Brainspotting and EMDR are effective, brain-based therapies that support the processing of stress and trauma through the nervous system.
EMDR follows a more structured protocol, often using bilateral stimulation (such as eye movements) and a sequence of steps to guide processing.
Brainspotting is typically more flexible and less structured. It focuses on identifying specific eye positions connected to emotional or physical activation, then allowing the brain and body to process at their own pace—without needing to follow a set sequence or put everything into words.
Many people find Brainspotting especially helpful when they’ve already developed insight but are looking for a deeper, more felt shift in how their body responds.
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Absolutely. While Brainspotting is widely known for trauma work, many people also find it helpful for anxiety, chronic stress, perfectionism, burnout, emotional overwhelm, relationship patterns, and persistent nervous-system activation. Often these experiences are shaped by deeply learned physiological patterns that continue beneath conscious awareness. Brainspotting can help support greater regulation, flexibility, and recovery in the nervous system over time.
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Many clients who seek this work already have strong insight into their patterns.
Brain-body approaches focus on the nervous system responses that sometimes remain even after we intellectually understand our experiences. Rather than relying only on discussion, this work helps your system process experiences at a deeper level.
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For many people, yes. Many clients who are drawn to Brainspotting have already done meaningful therapy and understand their patterns intellectually. They may know where certain responses come from and still feel emotionally or physiologically stuck in moments that matter. Brainspotting works differently by engaging the nervous system more directly, helping access patterns held beneath conscious thought rather than relying only on analysis or verbal insight.
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No. In many cases, the work can move forward without revisiting or describing every detail of a difficult experience.
We move at a pace that feels safe and manageable
You always have control over what you share
The goal is not to relive experiences, but to help your system process them differently
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Many people who come to this work wouldn’t initially describe their experiences as trauma. Sometimes what shows up first is anxiety, burnout, or a sense that something in your reactions, relationships, or stress responses doesn’t fully make sense.
Trauma doesn’t always come from a single dramatic event, nor is it always from the past. For some people it develops through repeated experiences—such as social injustices or discrimination, emotionally difficult work environments, or professions where exposure to crisis and tragedy is simply part of the job. First responders, helping professionals, and others working in high-stress systems often carry experiences that accumulate over time.
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The consultation is simply a chance to explore fit.
During that brief call we can:
talk about what you’re looking for
answer any questions you may have
decide whether this approach feels like the right next step
If it feels helpful, you’re welcome to request a consultation and we can take that next step together.
“Dr. Ly Franshaua Pipkins is one of the kindest, most authentic and caring professionals you might have the pleasure to work with. I learned a great deal from her during my time at Mills College. She is warm and empathetic, while also helping clients to remain at their growing edge. I recommend her wholeheartedly.”
-Dr. Zoey Rogers