RLM’s therapy intensives represent a significant but valuable investment in your mental health and culturally rooted identity development. Consider this not just as therapy, but as a transformative experience with lasting benefits.

RLM’s Unique Approach

RLM’s therapy intensives are built upon the transformative power of memory work—a practice inspired by Lucille Clifton’s profound words in “why some people be mad at me sometimes”:

“they ask me to remember

but they want me to remember

their memories

and I keep on remembering

mine.”

This distinction captures the essence of our approach with Black women navigating identity challenges in a world that often imposes external narratives.

Sequoya has witnessed firsthand how memory work serves as a powerful intervention when facing relational trauma. Our external mirrors—relationships, community, family, workplaces—aren’t always accurate reflections of who we are. Through carefully designed practices including political education, guided reflection, somatic awareness, and expressive arts, we create pathways to resist and heal from experiences of betrayal, scapegoating, erasure, and alienation.

One client’s journey illustrates this approach beautifully. As we explored memories surrounding her grandmother’s jewelry, she reconnected with how adornment formed a foundational expression of her authentic self. Through creative activities, guided visualizations, and restorative yoga, she reclaimed not just memories, but her right to self-definition.

RLM’s intensive format provides the dedicated space this work requires. Using interactive tools like virtual whiteboards for narrative timelines and reflection prompts, alongside our comprehensive 20-page workbook, we guide you through remembering—not as others would have you be, but as you truly are. This journey becomes both personal healing and collective resistance, allowing you to build relationships from a place of wholeness rather than fragmentation.

The Challenge: Identity Issues Black Women Face

Black womxn seek RLM’s services because of her deep understanding of the long-term impacts of socialization patterns like “staying in a child’s place” and “being seen and not heard.”

These narratives and containers impact Black womxn in profoundly different ways, manifesting as self-doubt, people-pleasing behaviors, and cyclical relational dynamics that span the spectrum of emotional abuse. Many experience overextension, boundary struggles, and carry an overwhelming sense of responsibility for other people, places, and things. These internalized patterns lead to self-sacrifice, difficulty expressing or even naming feelings, resistance to pleasure, creative suppression, and often the muting of queerness. RLM’s approach to addressing these deeply embedded socialization patterns is multifaceted, focusing on identifying and processing relationships to capitalism, unpacking experiences with colorism, and developing strategies to navigate antiblackness in work spaces—creating pathways toward authentic self-reclamation and healing.

What is a therapy intensive?

This interactive and immersive therapeutic experience provides concentrated healing in a condensed timeframe, allowing for deeper exploration of identity challenges than traditional weekly sessions. Our therapy intensives specifically address the unique experiences of Black womxn navigating complex identity issues shaped by societal expectations, family dynamics, and cultural pressures.

Benefits of Therapy Intensive Approach

RLM’s intensive format offers distinct advantages for Black womxn working through identity challenges:

• Deeper Exploration: Concentrated time allows for thorough examination of patterns and beliefs that weekly sessions might take months to uncover

• Reduced Fragmentation: Continuous work prevents the start-stop nature of weekly therapy

• Community Context: Understanding personal challenges within broader sociopolitical frameworks

• Practical Integration: Comprehensive tools and resources for implementing insights into daily life

• Customized Support: Tailored approach to your specific identity concerns and goals

Why Do Intensives Cost More Than a Regular Session?

Therapy intensives aren’t just longer sessions. They’re designed to help you move through, build skills, and have the time to process what’s weighing on you, keeping you stuck, or holding you back. This isn’t about checking in once a week and hoping for gradual progress. It’s about creating the space, time, and support to go deep and create concrete shifts.

Instead of spreading things out over months of 50-minute sessions, we carve out focused time to work through a core issue—so you walk away with more clarity, more resolution, and a real sense of progress. You’re not just paying for the hours—we’re co-creating a contrainer that can create real change in your life. If you’re ready for that kind of focused, transformative support, an intensive might be exactly what you’ve been needing.

What to Expect

Each intensive incorporates evidence-based therapeutic approaches specifically selected to address identity work for Black women:

Somatic Awareness Practices

• Opening and closing breathwork sessions

• Regular body scans to monitor somatic experiences

• Techniques for releasing stored tension and trauma

Creative Expression and Visualization

• Narrative timeline development to map identity formation

• Storage space for bibliotherapy resources including podcasts, videos, and articles

• Virtual therapy room creation using whiteboard technology

Political Education and Context

• Accessible readings on theme agreed upon during consultation/intake i.e. - antiblackness in the workplace, interrupting Black excellence, religious trauma and Black queerness

• Exploration of historical and social contexts shaping Black womxn’s mental health

• Discussion of readings and their personal relevance

Integration and Maintenance

• Comprehensive 20-page workbook with pre and post-work activities

• Interactive prompts including narrative timelines, mind maps, and journaling

• Customized maintenance plan for continued growth

Therapeutic Techniques and Tools

• Yoga/Movement/Breathwork opening and closing rituals

• Body scan techniques

• Virtual therapy room with whiteboard

• Narrative timeline creation

• Political education through readings

• Creative expression activities

Snapshot of Reading List and Tools

Timeline

Pre-Intensive Preparation (2 weeks prior)

• Initial consultation to establish goals

• Pre-work packet with 10 interactive prompts

• Preliminary readings and resources

The Intensive Experience

• Opening ritual and intention setting

• Core therapeutic work with varied modalities

• Integration periods between deep work

• Closing integration (savasana) and next steps planning

Post-Intensive Support (4 weeks)

• 10 post-work integration activities

• Optional follow-up session

• Resources for continued growth

Timeframe

8 hours total

2 days (4 hours/day)

*Virtual only*