Expections During Your Intensive Therapy Retreat

Our Mental Health Retreat is All About Healing

A retreat is not a vacation. Your time at our mental health retreat will be filled with activities designed to help you go deeper into your emotions to learn how your unconscious thoughts and habits negatively affect your ability to live a life that is healthy and peaceful.

During deep emotional work, challenging and uncomfortable feelings may come up. A trained mental health professional will gently guide you through the process of working with them, helping you to discover the valuable insight they have to offer you.

The primary purpose of our intensive retreats and mental health counseling services is to help you process past trauma. Our individual therapy treatment program is focused on improving your behavioral health so you can move forward in your life.

“The past affects the present even without our being aware of it.” – Francine Shapiro, Ph.D.

So much has changed in my life! I feel free from so much trauma. I have more time In the day as I’m not bogged down with negative, self destructive thoughts. I am so grateful!

The best part of my 5-day retreat with Dr. Bambi Rattner is that she was able to reach my trauma in such a gentle way. Bambi is compassionate, healing, gracious, sensitive, honest and funny. My retreat went by so quickly, even while spending 7+ hours with Bambi every day. I loved how kindly she brings

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Judy G

When your ego is breaking apart you can feel stuck with trauma and a lot of blocked emotions you collect through your life. You need to let all those emotions go to become your new self. Bambi with her kindness, love and knowledge was the person that helped me to become my new version of

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Pablo G.

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At the very beginning of my intensive retreat with Bambi she told me that the process would open up my life to all the universe had to offer. That was a very nice thought but I had no idea that it would completely change my life. After struggling with chronic Lyme disease for 13 years and struggling to care for my disabled adult son I had lost my career, profession, and family. I believed that I would never be able to work again or be able to contribute to the world in any way. I had completely given up on my childhood dreams even before I reached adolescence.
After the first session I experienced a strange tingling sensation running from my brain all the way down through my legs to my feet. It felt as if my brain was reconnecting to parts of my body that had been disconnected all my life. I then had a series of quite severe Lyme die-offs and I lost a great deal of my anxiety and depression and I thought this is what she meant by “opening up my life”. It was wonderful but the best was yet to come. Just after the beginning of Covid and before our last retreat I received a phone call from the sister of a woman that I had worked for over twenty years ago which resulted in me acquiring my absolute dream job, the one I had abandoned in childhood.
I believe that the therapy removed the trauma-induced blockages in my brain so that its immune system could deal with the Lyme and I now have more energy than I have ever had in my life. I am not as anxious as I was and the depression has gone completely. My ADD is very much better and I regained my ability to count! Changes are still occurring as I deal with life’s usual challenges in different and more productive ways. Most importantly I am present in my own body, in my life and in my son’s life. Bambi is a highly skilled therapist and a warm, caring, sensitive and empathic person who has brought such incredible joy into my life. I highly recommend this process to anyone who has experienced trauma and especially to people who are struggling with chronic Lyme disease.

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Josephine Burnett, PhD

Dr Bambi Rattner worked with me doing intensive EMDR after my mother had passed. I was experiencing a reactivation of my PTSD from the sudden death of my father when I was a kid, that got reactivated from my mother’s recent death. It would have been a much longer road of healing without Dr Bambi’s

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Dr Kate Klemer, DC, RCST

It seems impossible to describe the extent of the positive impact that Bambi’s intensive therapy brought to me. The first night after about 5-6 hours of her intensive trauma therapy, I experienced a new sense of serenity that I had not felt for close to 15 years. Physically and mentally, it felt similar to when

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C.T.

As someone who has struggled with suicidal depression since childhood, I have done important work with many therapists, counselors, and healers. But Bambi Rattner is the first to help me recognize, name, and face my deepest wounds, and to compassionately embrace the parts into which I broke myself to survive. Bambi has not only shown

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Joy Ladin

I have participated in intensive therapy with Dr. Bambi Rattner on three different occasions. I had not done a therapy intensive before and was hesitant, but Bambi made me feel comfortable right from the start. She is warm, accepting, non-judgmental, and deeply kind. As a trauma survivor, it is hard for me to feel safe with people and

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Jessica B.

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My life had become like ashes in my mouth. I felt nothing but fear, and maybe shame, but not even much of those because I was so shut down by a lifetime of “sucking it up” and “pulling myself up by my bootstraps” until, one day, those bootstraps ripped off in my hands. I was irritable, underemployed, joyless, easily startled, didn’t sleep much (and had nightmares when I did), deeply unsatisfied, lonely (despite work, family, and friends), and more often than not looking forward to the end of my miserable life. All this came to pass despite 22 years of continuous sobriety as an active member of a 12-step program, plus years of talk therapy. And then a trusted person suggested I contact someone who could help me make the changes I needed to make. Bambi Rattner, Psy. D., engaged me in six solid days of a memory reconsolidation therapy called Progressive Counting (same principles as EMDR, but a different method, which she also knows well) and I put a past behind me that I barely knew I had. I slept a lot the next two weeks, then woke up a different person. At 56, I was finally myself. Late, yes, but so much better than never. I was free of my intrusive memories from childhood and those gleaned from the dubious adventures that those awful childhood experiences caused me to seek as an adult. That’s what trauma really is: memories that won’t leave you in peace. In the years following treatment my marriage rekindled, my career changed (starting with a master’s degree at age 60!), my children forgave me for being so checked out for so many years, and I finally got to be a full participant in my life. I know joy now. And love. And sorrow—even anger and a useful amount of fear. I can’t guarantee the same for you because this is my story. But I have since witnessed many people come through this treatment in far better shape than they went in. That much I can promise you. And Bambi knows how to get it done quickly, professionally, and discretely. I’d pick her again in a heartbeat for myself or anyone else I love.

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Don Cuerdon

I sought out Bambi’s help for my son when he was 5 years old and suffering from behavioral outbursts and PTSD from early childhood trauma. I was impressed with Bambi’s abilities. She was always very calming and engaging. She was able to guide him through past traumatic memories in a way that allowed him to

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G. O.

Bambi was an integral part to overcoming issues I was still dealing with from my past. She is very kind, open, listens, and provides positive direction to her clients. I felt extremely comfortable working with her and had no trouble opening up and talking. She really helped improve my depression and anxiety in a short

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Heather Clifford Moros

I knew I was in good hands… Bambi demonstrated just the right balance of abiding kindness and exceptional knowledge in her craft as a trauma therapist. She brought me through a week-long intensive EMDR retreat in a way that felt safe and productive. She genuinely cared and responded with attunement and warmth to the varied

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Traccie Hilton, LMHC

Daily Agenda

Preparation

It is important to note that an intensive retreat and mental health counseling services can be a challenging and emotionally exhausting experience. Please plan on providing yourself with as much self-care as you need to support yourself while working through the retreat. The work we do in session will continue to integrate for days and months after the retreat is over, but may feel most acute within the space of the retreat itself.

Some self-care ideas to use during your retreat:

• Plan on eating healthy, nourishing meals that give your body and brain the fuel needed to do this deep work (there are several healthy options in downtown Northampton... please ask for recommendations!)

• Plan on spending time in a non-stimulating environment as you may have a heightened sensitivity to external stimuli

• Consider getting extra sleep so that your brain has all the time it needs to craft new, healthier neural pathways

• Inform a trusted family member, friend or partner of your plans so that you can call them if you need support

• Refrain from intense physical exercise, although walking and light hiking in nature may be very grounding

• Do not use any drugs or alcohol, as it will affect your ability to process and integrate the experience

Intake (Day 1)

You will be your therapist's only client for the entire duration of your mental health retreat. They will be focused on your work only, allowing you to make significantly more progress together.

You'll start with a brief orientation that includes a variety of questions about your personal history as well as your current life situation, including your strengths, resources, problems, and what types of therapeutic techniques you have tried so far. You will also be asked about your short-term and long-term goals for the retreat and in your life.

The intake process takes place on the morning of the first day. By midday, your therapist will provide a variety of suggestions about where to go next to begin deepening the work and focusing on your core traumas.

Establishing Resources & Worst Things List (Day 1)

Before you get into trauma processing, you will be guided through a variety of visualizations, helping you to create resources that you can return to after moving through uncomfortable and disturbing memories. For example, the "safe place" exercise can enable you to feel more grounded in a safe and peaceful environment and imagining a "secure attachment" relationship with a trusted mentor or caretaker can allow you to experience love, acceptance and approval (even if this person did not exist in your own life). Other techniques may include focusing on emotional coping skills that you can use during and after the retreat.

Your therapist will help you create a chronological "worst things list" of the major adverse memories in your history, including rating each memory based on the Subject Units of Disturbance scale, or SUD, from 0 to 10. The goal of trauma processing is to reduce the SUD of your traumatic memories down to or as close to 0 as possible.

Trauma Processing (Day 2-6)

When you both agree that you're ready, you'll start working through your trauma and loss memories using a combination of EMDR and IFS. You will work chronologically from your earliest memories to the most recent.

We find that by the time clients get to their more recent memories after processing earlier wounds that the SUD of the recent memories are significantly reduced. We believe this has to do with the snowball effect of trauma and the way that negative experiences from earlier in life inform the intensity of things that happen later on. By processing the earliest things that hurt us, recent negative experiences may feel less traumatic or important. Working in this order, we find that progress accelerates as your recent traumas are processed and integrated much more quickly.

This step usually takes between 3-5 days, depending on your trauma history and how much processing needs to be done to integrate all of your experiences. It is important to reiterate that each person is unique and that the actual time needed to process your worst memories may be shorter or longer than this estimate. Working with our intake team will provide a more accurate estimate of the time you will need.

Wrapping Up (Final Day)

Healthy emotional coping techniques are integrated so that you have tools to rely on when future negative experiences occur. Another run through your trauma list will ensure that the SUD of all memories have been significantly reduced or completely eliminated.

Next Steps

If you are interested in attending a retreat, please schedule a call with our intake specialist. During the call, you will:

• Briefly discuss your situation to see if you can benefit from an intensive retreat and mental health counseling services

• Determine an estimate of the number of treatment days needed

• Have an opportunity to ask any questions you may have

Schedule a Call

What to Expect During Your Intensive Therapy Retreat

Our Mental Health Retreat is All About Healing

“The past affects the present even without our being aware of it.” – Francine Shapiro, Ph.D.

Daily Agenda

Have Questions? We're Here For You.