The Restore Experience
You have survived being recruited into another person's distorted reality, defenses, and toxicity. Together we will confront reality because insight restores choice.
You understand what happened. That has not changed what is still happening inside you.
Maybe it was a marriage. Maybe it is a parent, a stepparent, a sibling, a boss, a co-parent. Someone psychologically confusing who is still in your life, or someone you cannot stop replaying even years later.
You may already know the language: narcissism, borderline personality, coercive control, gaslighting, attachment, boundaries. You have read the books and done therapy.
Yet alas...
Why am I still explaining myself? Why do I know better and keep getting pulled back in? Why can't I trust what I know?
RESTORE begins there.
What remains hidden shapes what is lived.
This isn't another program about the narcissist.
We will study personality pathology, seriously and precisely, understanding from a psychoanalytic lens why they do what they do. The more useful, harder question is what happens inside you in relation to them.
Why does hope survive the evidence? Why do you keep trying to explain yourself when experience has already told you it will not land? What has shame, fear, dependency, or the need to be loved asked you to tolerate? What adaptation once kept you safe, and is now the thing standing in your way?
Somewhere in this work, we stop organizing the whole story around what he did, or what she did, and get curious about you. To understand what happened inside you because of it, and what is still happening now.
Insight restores choice.
Who this is for.
RESTORE is for people whose sense of self, relationships, or direction has been disrupted by a psychologically confusing relationship. Often, though not always, this involves a parent, partner, ex-spouse, or boss who carries narcissistic, borderline, or other personality-disordered traits. Sometimes there has been coercive control, betrayal, high-conflict divorce, or a major life transition that cracked something open.
The person may still be in your life. A parent you cannot cut off. A boss you are not ready to leave. You do not have to leave someone to do this work.
You do need enough psychological stability to reflect rather than just survive. RESTORE is not for acute crisis, and it is not for someone still deciding whether to leave a relationship. That decision deserves its own support. This program is for people who have generally already done individual work.
Not sure if that is you? That is exactly what the exploratory call is for.
Reorient. Realign. Redesign.
Reorient
"Where the hell am I?"
There is a particular bewilderment that follows a psychologically confusing relationship. How did I not see this? What was real? We start by making sense of what happened: the personality pathology, the defenses, the dynamics that made it so disorienting. Then the harder question: why did this dynamic have so much power over you specifically?
Realign
"What's actually right for me now?"
The storm quiets. Different questions become possible. Is this relationship, this job, this new person in alignment with the life I say I want? Where am I still arguing in my head with someone who is not in the room? We start recognizing defenses as they are happening, examining your own patterns without collapsing into self-blame, and building the capacity to feel something hard without being ruled by it.
Redesign
"What does restoration look like for me?"
There is no single template. You will write your own RESTORE manifesto, a clear-eyed look at the life you are building: love, motherhood, career, faith, retirement, solitude, whatever it is for you. Can you own that you are less anxious? Less of a wallflower? Twelve weeks does not finish this work. It starts it, and restoration takes as long as it takes.
Let's confront reality together.
This is live psychological work, not a course you consume.
I teach. I also hold. In the spirit of Rollo May, I bring my will and intention into the room, not just my expertise. I empathize. Sometimes I get angry on someone's behalf before she can get angry for herself. I notice a defense, or a piece of character structure, and I name it, even when it is hard to hear.
And then something happens that I cannot manufacture: the women start doing it for each other.
I have watched a woman say, week after week, "I don't belong here. I'm too old, too different from the rest of you, I should quit." And the group did not let her. They confronted the distortion. They got protective of her before she could get protective of herself. They stayed with her until she could feel the feeling underneath it instead of fleeing the group, which, not incidentally, is often the same pattern that kept her stuck with the person who hurt her.
We also laugh. Once you can name a manipulation tactic and see how transparent, even absurd, it actually is, it tends to lose its grip on you.
Everything you need to do the work.
10 Live Small-Group Sessions
Live small-group psychotherapy sessions with Dr. Danback.
~15 Hours of Seminar Content
Psychoanalytic seminar content, yours to work through.
Guest Experts
Specialists brought in across the three months.
Two Individual Coaching Sessions
One to one, applying the work to your own life.
Gypsy Poppy Warriors
Access to the community within Real Talk.
Limited to 12 participants. The group stays small because the work depends on being known.
Dr. Kristine Danback, Ph.D.
I am a clinical psychologist, psychoanalytically trained through Columbia and the Derner Institute, with advanced work in personality pathology, narcissistic abuse, coercive control, and high-conflict family systems. I trained in divorce mediation at Yale and have worked as a psychologist, mediator, divorce coach, and expert witness, including advocacy work with Tina Swithin's One Mom's Battle.
However, my understanding of this did not start in a classroom.
I grew up and later lived in close relationships shaped by narcissistic and borderline personality dynamics. I have swum in these waters longer than I have studied them.
So when I tell a woman that I understand how intelligent, accomplished people can become disoriented inside these relationships, I am not speaking only as a psychologist.
I know.
Why I built RESTORE.
What women say after RESTORE.
The community does not end when the program does.
RESTORE participants become part of Gypsy Poppy Warriors, inside Real Talk, the larger community I am building. Women enter at different points and leave at different points, deliberately. The woman five years past her divorce reality-tests with the one still in the fog. Eventually, the woman who once needed someone ahead of her becomes that person for someone else, sometimes becoming an educator to the women behind her.
This is not dependence on a program. It is a relational community built on a shared psychological language.
Growth doesn't happen only through insight. It also happens in relationship.
What this asks of you.
Show up. Be curious about yourself, not only about the person who hurt you. Expect resistance and emotional discomfort. Hold two things at once: what happened to you was real, and there are things about yourself now yours to understand.
I will only go as fast as your defenses, and your courage, allow. We will not strip a defense away simply because we can see it. Defenses exist for reasons. But when you are ready, we will get curious together about whether you still need it.
The RESTORE Retreat.
April 22-25, 2027 · Within driving distance of NYC · Location TBA
Open exclusively to women currently enrolled in or who have completed RESTORE. This is not sold as a stand-alone retreat.
Zoom lets us understand a great deal. Being physically together asks something different of you: more immediacy, more chance to practice holding a boundary while staying in relationship, more resolve built in real time, alongside women doing the same work. Nature, movement, food, rest, guest facilitators, time alone and together. Not a vacation attached to the program, an extension of it.
Three nights, four days. Lodging, meals, sessions, and core activities included. Double occupancy; single occupancy and optional excursions may cost more. Travel not included.
Choose your path.
RESTORE
10 live groups, seminar content, guest experts, two coaching sessions, and the Gypsy Poppy Warriors community.
The Complete RESTORE Experience
Everything in RESTORE, ending with the in-person retreat experience.
Retreat Add-On
Add the three-night, four-day retreat to the program you are already enrolled in.
Enrollment closes 30 days before each cohort begins. Payment plans available on request. Ask on your exploratory call.
Flexible payment. Out-of-network friendly.
A portion of Restore consists of psychotherapy services provided by a licensed psychologist and may be eligible for out-of-network reimbursement, depending on your insurance plan. Upon request, participants receive the documentation needed to submit eligible psychotherapy services to their insurance carrier. Reimbursement amounts vary by plan and are not guaranteed.
Restore Program
Deposit at registration $3,000
Balance billed as psychotherapy, up to this may qualify for out-of-network reimbursement $4,500
Retreat Only
Deposit at registration $3,450
Balance billed as psychotherapy, up to this may qualify for out-of-network reimbursement $1,800
Restore + Retreat
Deposit at registration $5,950
Balance billed as psychotherapy, up to this may qualify for out-of-network reimbursement $6,300
Reimbursement is determined by your individual insurance plan and is never guaranteed. We provide the documentation. Your carrier determines eligibility.
Questions before you begin.
What kind of program is RESTORE?
RESTORE intentionally combines several forms of work. The live groups and clinical work during the retreat are psychotherapy. Seminar content is psychoanalytic education. Individual sessions are coaching focused on applying the work to your life. Real Talk and Gypsy Poppy Warriors provide ongoing community. We will explain these distinctions clearly before enrollment.
What if I'm not ready?
That is what the free exploratory call is for. We will talk it through together before you enroll.
What if it doesn't work for me?
There is no single outcome RESTORE promises. People enter with different histories, defenses, relationships, and capacities for change. The work is individualized even within the group. For one person, change may mean recognizing manipulation sooner. For another, tolerating anger. For another, choosing differently in relationships. RESTORE creates the conditions for deeper understanding and change. What unfolds from that work will be individual.
What's your refund or cancellation policy?
There are no refunds or cancellations. If you are unable to complete a cohort, your investment carries forward and is applied to a future RESTORE cohort.
Who is Gypsy Poppy Warriors / Real Talk?
Gypsy Poppy Warriors are part of the larger Real Talk community Dr. Danback is building: a psychologist-led, psychologically minded community intended to bridge the work and everyday life.
RESTORE participants enter a community that includes women at different points in their development. Alumni can remain connected. New women encounter women further ahead. That creates something unusual: the person who once needed someone ahead of her may eventually become the woman who helps someone coming behind her.
The community can provide reality-testing, challenge, humor, accountability, belonging, and continued use of a shared psychological language. The larger vision is a corrective relational experience, a place to be known, challenged, supported and connected. For some women, these relationships may become something close to a chosen family, a healthier relational community than the one they once knew.
Understanding the difficult person can explain what happened. Understanding yourself changes what becomes possible.
Limited to 12 participants per cohort.
Reserve Your SpotNot sure RESTORE is right for you?
Book a Free 10-Minute Exploratory Call
Let's Confront Reality Together.
Insight Restores Choice.