EMDR Intensives: Focused, Deep Trauma Work at Your Pace

Trauma healing often requires more time, spaciousness, and continuity than weekly sessions can offer. EMDR intensives create an immersive environment where you can move through stuck memories, experiences, and nervous system patterns with the consistent support of a trained EMDR therapist.
Instead of pausing every 50 minutes and reopening emotional material week after week, intensives allow 3-6 hours of uninterrupted EMDR work, giving your mind and body the momentum they need to reprocess trauma in a grounded, supported way.

EMDR intensives are especially helpful for people navigating trauma, neurodivergence, chronic overwhelm, or long-term patterns that feel difficult to shift in traditional therapy formats.

Who are EMDR Intensives for?

EMDR intensives can be supportive if you are:

• Feeling stuck in trauma symptoms that haven’t shifted with weekly therapy

• Navigating PTSD, C-PTSD, or trauma responses rooted in childhood, identity-based harm, or past relationships

• Wanting to process a specific traumatic event or cluster of memories

• Neurodivergent and needing pacing, structure, and sensory accommodations that work better in longer sessions

• Feeling overwhelmed by emotional or sensory reactivation between weekly therapy sessions

• Wanting faster relief from intrusive memories, hypervigilance, avoidance, or emotional numbing

• Seeking clarity, safety, and stabilization after a recent incident

• Interested in completing targeted trauma work before life transitions, surgeries, travel, or high-stress periods
  
  

People often choose intensives when they need significant movement in a shorter time frame—or when weekly therapy feels too slow, fragmented, or destabilizing.

What happens in an EMDR Intensive?

Each intensive is tailored to your nervous system and your goals. The general structure includes:

1. Comprehensive Assessment & Preparation

We begin with a thorough history, treatment planning, and nervous system mapping. This helps us identify the memories, themes, or experiences we’ll target and ensures you have the grounding, stabilization skills, and sensory supports needed for safe EMDR work.

2. Extended EMDR Reprocessing

You’ll have 60–120 minute EMDR reprocessing blocks (with breaks as needed). Extended time allows your brain to remain in adaptive processing mode without interruption, leading to deeper and more efficient healing.

3. Integration & Aftercare Planning

We close with integration work—supporting your nervous system to settle, reflect, and make meaning. Clients receive individualized aftercare suggestions, regulating practices, and guidance for what to expect in the hours and days following the intensive.

Throughout the process, we prioritize pacing, consent, sensory regulation, neurodivergent-friendly communication, and accessible structure. You can take breaks, slow down, or pause at any time.

Our Therapeutic Approach

EMDR intensives at Mahina Therapy PLLC are grounded in:

• Trauma-informed practice

• Neurodiversity-affirming care for autistic, ADHD, AuDHD, and otherwise neurodivergent clients

• LGBTQIA+ and gender-affirming support

• Culturally responsive, anti-oppressive frameworks

• Attachment-aware and somatically informed EMDR
  
  

Our goal is not to push you through trauma content—it’s to support your system in completing the healing process at a pace that feels safe, respectful, and sustainable. Intensives are always collaborative and built around what your body, brain, and lived experience need.

After the Intensive

Clients typically leave with:

• A clearer understanding of their trauma responses

• Noticeable reductions in distress, triggers, and intrusive symptoms

• Increased access to regulation and grounding

• A sense of completion or closure around specific memories or patterns

• A personalized aftercare plan with tools for continued stabilization

• Optional follow-up sessions for additional support or continued EMDR
  
  

Some people book a single intensive for a focused goal; others integrate intensives as part of their long-term healing plan.

Our Therapists who Specialize in EMDR: