When you need a stronger vessel for change

Intensive Depth Psychotherapy in San Francisco

What is Intensive Psychotherapy?

Most therapy takes place once a week. For some, that rhythm is enough. But for others — especially when struggles feel deeply rooted or keep repeating — a more immersive process offers something different.

At Amphora Psychotherapy, we offer intensive psychotherapy: meeting multiple times a week in a sustained, ongoing process. This creates a stronger vessel — a place that can hold more, contain more, and allow what is usually hidden to come into view.

Sometimes called contemporary relational psychoanalysis, this work goes beyond symptom management. It is about transforming the underlying patterns that generate suffering — opening the possibility for more freedom, intimacy, and vitality in your life.

How is it Different from Weekly Therapy?

  • Frequency and immersion
    Meeting multiple times a week allows therapy to gather momentum. The continuity deepens trust and makes space for the unconscious to emerge more fully.

  • Focus on the therapeutic relationship
    The relationship between you and your therapist is not just a backdrop — it is part of the work. What unfolds between you often mirrors how you relate in the world, providing a live, safe place to notice and shift those dynamics.

  • Attention to the unconscious
    Many of our struggles are shaped by feelings, fantasies, and memories outside awareness. Intensive therapy creates the time and depth to explore these layers.

  • A sturdier container
    The increased frequency helps us to hold intense emotions, deeper reflection, and to generate lasting transformation.

Who Chooses Intensive Psychotherapy?

This approach may be right for you if:

  • You feel caught in repetitive cycles you can’t break, even after prior therapy.

  • You long for deeper intimacy and freedom in relationships.

  • Your symptoms (anxiety, depression, compulsions, emptiness) feel tied to deeper layers of experience.

  • You are curious and motivated to understand yourself more fully.

  • You sense that weekly therapy touches something real, but not deeply enough.

Our Approach

At Amphora, intensive psychotherapy is:

  • Relational: Healing happens between people. We pay close attention to how you and your therapist experience one another, and what it reveals.

  • Contemporary: Rooted in psychoanalytic traditions, practiced in a way that is attuned, collaborative, and alive.

  • Inclusive: We honor the ways identity, culture, gender, and history shape your experience.

  • Respectful of pace: Intensive therapy does not mean rushing. It means making room to go slowly enough, often enough, to discover what lies beneath the surface.

 I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.

Adrienne Rich “Diving into the Wreck”

Common Questions

Is this the same as psychoanalysis?
Yes — intensive psychotherapy is a way of describing a contemporary, relational form of psychoanalysis. We use client-friendly language because the word “psychoanalysis” is often associated with an outdated, caricatured form of treatment that doesn’t capture where the lineage stands today. Both traditional and contemporary forms of psychoanalysis typically involve multiple sessions each week, a focus on unconscious life, and a commitment to depth and lasting change.

Do I have to come four or five times a week?
Not necessarily. Intensive work means multiple sessions per week — often two or three. After an initial assessment, you and your therapist can decide together whether intensive therapy is the right modality for you.

Isn’t this a big investment?
It is. Intensive therapy requires more time, energy, and financial commitment than weekly therapy. We see that as part of its power: by dedicating yourself in this way, you create the conditions for change that is more profound, more enduring, and often not possible in lighter-touch approaches.

Clinicians Offering Intensive Depth Psychotherapy

Stéphanie Gay Moss, PsyD

Jonathan Moss, MFT

Intensive Depth Psychotherapy at Amphora

Choosing intensive therapy is choosing to take yourself seriously at the deepest level. It is a commitment — but for many, it opens the possibility of transformation that weekly therapy alone cannot reach.

If you are interested in learning more, we invite you to schedule a consultation. Together we can explore whether intensive psychotherapy may be right for you.

Ready to Begin?
Contact us today to schedule a consultation and learn more about intensive psychotherapy in San Francisco.