EMDR Intensives

EMDR Intensives provide larger blocks of dedicated therapeutic time for clients who want to work in a more concentrated way.

Rather than repeatedly opening and closing deeper therapeutic work within shorter sessions, an intensive allows us to remain connected to the process for a longer period of time. This can create more space to explore a particular experience, pattern, or area where you may be feeling stuck while also allowing time for preparation, resourcing, reflection, and integration.

Despite the name, intensive does not mean pushing harder, moving faster, or processing continuously for hours.

The work remains collaborative and responsive to your nervous system. We can slow down, pause, work with protective parts, regulate, reflect, take breaks, or shift direction based on what your system needs.

Each intensive is individually tailored to your history, goals, readiness, resources, and current circumstances.

Traditional weekly therapy can be an effective way to engage in trauma work, but there are times when having a larger therapeutic container may be helpful.

An EMDR Intensive may be worth considering if you:

Want dedicated time to focus on a particular experience, theme, or longstanding pattern
Find that shorter sessions end just as you begin to access deeper material
Would benefit from greater continuity rather than repeatedly opening and closing the work
Have already done significant therapy and feel ready to focus more intentionally on unresolved experiences
Prefer concentrated periods of therapeutic work rather than relying exclusively on a weekly format
Are currently working with another therapist and want to incorporate focused EMDR work alongside your ongoing therapy

An intensive is not necessarily a faster version of therapy, and it is not intended to compress an entire healing process into a few hours or days. For complex or developmental trauma especially, meaningful work often involves pacing, relationship, preparation, and integration over time.

An EMDR Intensive is more than several hours of continuous EMDR reprocessing.

Depending on your needs and where we are in the therapeutic process, our time together may include:

Clarifying the experiences, patterns, or themes you would like to address
Preparation and resourcing
Exploring protective responses and parts of the internal system
Nervous system awareness and regulation
EMDR reprocessing
Breaks and opportunities to slow down when needed
Reflection on what is emerging or shifting
Integration and planning for continued support after the intensive

We follow the therapeutic process rather than trying to fill every available minute with trauma processing.

More time does not automatically mean more processing.

When working with complex trauma, attachment wounds, or dissociation, protective responses often developed for important reasons. I do not view those responses as obstacles that need to be pushed through in order to reach the “real” work.

They are part of the work.

If a part of you becomes hesitant, overwhelmed, disconnected, highly analytical, or wants to stop, we can become curious about what is happening rather than forcing the process forward.

The goal is to create enough safety, capacity, and connection for meaningful therapeutic work to occur.

EMDR Intensive work can take different forms depending on your goals, clinical needs, and readiness.

Some clients choose a single concentrated session focused on a particular area of treatment. Others choose a series of intensive sessions scheduled across multiple days, creating greater continuity around the work.

For existing clients, concentrated work may also be incorporated into ongoing therapy when additional time or continuity would be helpful.

Together, we determine the structure that makes the most sense rather than assuming that more time or faster processing is always better.

A guided EMDR Intensive Workbook is included as part of the intensive process to support preparation, reflection, and integration. The workbook can provide space to begin identifying what you would like to focus on, notice themes or patterns that may be important to the work, and reflect on what emerges before, during, and after the intensive.

The workbook is not intended to determine exactly where the therapy will go. It provides another way to support the process while allowing room for what naturally emerges during our work together.

You do not need to leave your current therapist in order to participate in an EMDR Intensive.

Adjunct EMDR Intensive work is available for clients who have an established primary therapist and would like to incorporate focused EMDR work alongside their ongoing therapy.

In this arrangement, your primary therapist remains your primary provider. My role is focused specifically on the agreed-upon EMDR Intensive work.

With your permission and appropriate releases in place, collaboration with your therapist can help us clarify treatment goals, understand relevant history and current resources, and support continuity before and after the intensive.

Adjunct work is considered individually based on your current treatment, stability, resources, goals, and whether an intensive format is clinically appropriate.

Not necessarily.

A longer session is not automatically better, and readiness for an intensive is different for every person.

Before beginning, we consider your history, current symptoms and stressors, existing resources and supports, previous therapy experience, capacity to remain connected during difficult material, and the goals you hope to address.

For some clients, additional preparation or ongoing therapy may be more appropriate before beginning intensive trauma processing. For others, a concentrated format may provide the continuity and space they have been looking for.

Determining readiness is part of the process.

If you are interested in an EMDR Intensive, the first step is a complimentary 15-minute consultation.

This gives us an opportunity to briefly discuss what is bringing you to intensive work, what you are hoping to address, whether you are currently working with another therapist, and whether an EMDR Intensive may be an appropriate option.

If we decide to move forward, we will begin with an intake and preparation process before scheduling intensive trauma-processing work.

You do not need to know exactly what the intensive should look like before reaching out. We determine the structure together based on you, your goals, and what will best support the work.

Why Choose an EMDR Intensive?

What Happens During an Intensive?

Pacing Matters

How Intensives Can Be Structured

The EMDR Intensive Workbook

Adjunct EMDR Intensives