Can EMDR Intensives Help with Anxiety, Trauma, or Burnout?
If you’ve been in therapy for a while and still feel like you’re stuck in survival mode…
If your anxiety keeps looping despite all the insight you’ve gained…
If burnout feels like your baseline and not a season…
You’re not doing it wrong. You might just need a different kind of support.
For many sensitive, high-achieving women — especially those navigating trauma, ADHD, or deeply wired patterns of fawning, perfectionism, or people-pleasing — traditional therapy can feel slow, fragmented, or hard to drop into.
This is where EMDR/Brainspotting intensives come in.
What Is an EMDR Intensive?
An EMDR/Brainspotting intensive is a concentrated block of trauma therapy — often a 3-4 hour session (with breaks), 1 to 2 days in a row — designed to help you process experiences more deeply and efficiently than weekly sessions allow.
It’s not just “more therapy.” It’s therapy that meets the depth and complexity of your nervous system’s story — and gives it enough time to unfold, integrate, and shift.
Photo by Bruno Cervera via Unsplash
How Do EMDR Intensives Work?
Intensives allow us to bypass the weekly drop-in-drop-out cycle that often limits trauma work. Instead of spending time catching up each week or regulating just enough to return to your day, intensives create a sacred container for real movement.
In an intensive, we:
Begin with gentle nervous system prep using somatic and resourcing practices
Identify and target key experiences or themes stored in the body (often unconscious)
Use EMDR to support reprocessing and integration
Close with restorative practices to help your system settle and feel safe again
It’s not a rush job. It’s right-sized depth — with built-in time for your body to speak and your system to respond.
Real-Life Examples (Anonymized)
🔹 Jess, a therapist herself, came in feeling stuck in grief after a difficult breakup and family trauma. In her intensive, she uncovered a younger part of herself who had learned to shut down to survive. Through EMDR and somatic support, she was able to reprocess the memory and leave feeling clear, present, and reconnected to her own agency.
🔹 Maria, a sensitive business owner with ADHD, had been caught in chronic burnout and panic attacks. Weekly sessions weren’t moving the needle. In her intensive, we traced her anxiety back to early experiences of not being allowed to rest or fail. She left with a restored sense of nervous system safety — and an embodied plan for moving forward differently.
🔹 Taylor felt haunted by medical trauma and had trouble sleeping, even after years of trying different therapies. During the intensive, she finally gave her body space to process the fear, freeze, and helplessness. She said afterward, “I feel like I got a piece of myself back.”
What Can EMDR Intensives Help With?
EMDR intensives are especially effective for:
Anxiety that feels stuck in the body
Burnout and chronic stress that won’t budge
Medical or birth trauma
Childhood neglect or emotional abuse
Relational trauma, fawning, and codependency
Perfectionism or chronic self-doubt
ADHD-related overwhelm and nervous system shutdown
They’re also ideal if:
You’ve plateaued in therapy
You want to move through something faster than weekly therapy allows
You’re preparing for a major transition or decision
You’re a therapist or healer and want space to heal your nervous system
The Somatic Difference
What makes my approach different is that we work with the body — not just the mind.
As a trauma therapist, yoga therapist, and somatic practitioner, I may weave in gentle body based practices, breath, grounding rituals, and guided somatic meditation so that your nervous system doesn’t just understand safety — it feels it.
That’s where real change lives.
What to Expect in an EMDR Intensive
You’ll begin with a personalized intake and prep session to map your needs, strengths, and goals. From there, we’ll co-create a plan for your intensive, whether it’s a one time 3 hour session, or two 4 hour sessions.
You’ll have breaks, support before and after, and follow-up integration care. This is deep work — but it’s not about pushing. It’s about permission, pacing, and precision.
✨ You’re invited to book a session, subscribe at the bottom of this page to stay up to date on other offerings, or join the Sacred Becoming community on Substack for reflections, resources, and ritual support.
ways to work with me:
Online counseling and EMDR/Brainspotting for clients located in Bend, Oregon and the state of Oregon. Click here to schedule a free consultation.
Read more about therapy intensives here and my approach to working with cycle breakers here.
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