Doorknob Confessions

Imagine this: you’ve been with your therapist for approximately 47 minutes. It has been a decent session, you have discussed your week and some of your more manageable struggles, and even discussed strategies to practice addressing them this week. You finally feel comfortable. That comfort emboldens you to disclose something deeper, more personal. You can’t hold it in any longer, so you share this deeply meaningful, perhaps wounded part of yourself with your therapist. For approximately six minutes, your therapist holds space for that disclosure, explores it, asks questions about it, even offers support, then says, “I want to discuss that more next week.”

This is what we 'in the biz' call a “doorknob confession”. It is a common phenomenon in therapy for the exact reasons described above: it takes time to get comfortable and in a state of flow before those disclosures are possible, so they often happen on the way out the door. However, if this situation is familiar to you, you might also recall feeling frustrated, invalidated, or unheard when the session had to abruptly end before you could fully hold something so delicate.

I consider this a primary drawback of standard 53 to 60-minute therapy sessions. We get so focused on learning to manage the stressors and content of the week that we (as clients and as therapists) end up losing time to work on our long-term treatment goals. And often, by the time we're mustered up the courage to bring up those goals, the session is close to over.

Intensives are one answer to this struggle. 

An Intensive is, basically, a marathon session lasting several hours and can even span multiple days. By increasing the length of the session, we allow momentum to develop after the initial rapport-building stage to dig into deeper work. It helps maintain focus on your ultimate treatment goal(s) and supports accelerated progress by more directly addressing your more extensive wounds.

Not all intensives are outdoors like mine; every clinician conducts their intensives differently. They may be online, in an office, or at a destination. Sometimes they are even combined with broader wellness experiences. Often, therapists use a specific therapeutic approach or have a particular content area they are passionate about working with. An important thing to remember is that not every intensive is the best fit for you, so it is important to reflect on your specific needs before committing to the investment that intensives inevitably entail. However, most therapists offer free consultations- like me!- so I highly encourage you to reach out to find out more about any intensive that you are interested in to find out if it is compatible with your needs.

Let’s end (or at least reduce) the days of doorknob confessions so that you can find more profound healing.

Do you have questions about intensives? Reach out, I’m happy to answer them!

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And always remember: You’ve got this.

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