EMDR intensives

Absolutely. If you've been in weekly therapy for months (or years) and still feel stuck, an EMDR intensive can help you accomplish in days what traditional sessions stretch across months. For driven, high-achieving women who value their time and want real results, the intensive format is designed to get to the root of the issue — fast. You're not sitting in a waiting room week after week wondering when things will finally shift. You're doing the deep work now.

EMDR is the therapeutic modality — Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing — that helps your brain reprocess stuck traumatic memories. An EMDR intensive is the delivery format. Instead of squeezing processing into 50-minute weekly sessions, an intensive gives you extended, uninterrupted time — typically 3 to 6 hours per day, for 1 to 5 days. The modality is the same. The difference is that you finally get enough time to go deep without hitting pause every week.

A standard processing day in my practice runs from 9am to 3pm, with an hour for lunch. Within that time, we complete 3 sets of 90-minute processing sessions with breaks built in whenever you need them. Depending on your goals, your intensive may span 1 to 5 days. I'll provide an estimated timeline during your free 45-minute consultation so you know exactly what to expect.

We start by identifying your key goals, core limiting beliefs, and the target memories driving your current struggles. Then, using EMDR's bilateral stimulation — along with IFS (Internal Family Systems) and Somatic Experiencing as needed — we process those stuck experiences so they lose their emotional charge. The intensive format means your nervous system gets the uninterrupted time it needs to move through difficult material without the constant stop-and-start of weekly therapy.

very intensive is personalized to your specific needs. A single-focus Targeted Approach may take one session of a few hours, while a Comprehensive Approach — designed to tackle every significant category of unresolved pain — may span 1 to 5 full days. During your free consultation, I'll ask about your goals and provide an estimated number of days so you can plan accordingly.

Here's what surprises most of my clients: the word "intensive" refers to the amount of time, not the emotional intensity. Most people leave the office at the end of each day feeling tired, but deeply accomplished and lighter. With built-in breaks, a lunch hour, and my multi-modality approach (EMDR, IFS, Somatic Experiencing), I have a vast toolkit to help regulate your nervous system throughout the process. It's deep work — but it's held work.

Your brain is doing a lot of heavy lifting during EMDR processing. When traumatic memories are being reprocessed, your nervous system is actively reorganizing and integrating those experiences. Feeling tired afterward is completely normal — it's a sign that your system is working. I build in breaks throughout the day and use the last 30 minutes of each session to help you calm, regulate, and plan for what comes next. Think of it like a hard workout: the fatigue means something is shifting.

Yes, and it's completely welcome. Tears are one of the many ways your body releases stored pain. Some clients cry, some feel anger, some feel a wave of relief — and some feel surprisingly calm through the whole process. There's no "right" way to experience EMDR. Whatever parts of you want to show up are invited. With 18+ years of clinical experience, there's not much I haven't seen. I can hang with whatever comes up.

EMDR is one of the most extensively researched therapeutic modalities for trauma, and it's recognized by the World Health Organization and the American Psychological Association as an effective treatment. Many of my clients begin to notice a shift within the first few hours of processing. When delivered in the intensive format, results can be even more pronounced because your nervous system gets the sustained, uninterrupted time it needs to fully process and integrate the work.

After your intensive, I provide a comprehensive treatment summary that includes the targets we worked on, what processing was completed, any significant parts-work we did, and remaining areas of focus. If you're working with an individual or couples therapist, I'll coordinate a debriefing call to connect your intensive experience with your ongoing therapy goals. Most clients walk out feeling a sense of relief and freedom they haven't felt in years — and that feeling continues to deepen in the weeks that follow.