What happens in an EMDR intensive when you still can't talk about your birth without falling apart
Someone in your family brings it up at dinner and you shut the conversation down before it starts. Or you try to tell a friend and get two sentences in before your chest goes tight and you change the subject, and then you feel ridiculous about it, because it has been eighteen months, or three years, or ten. If you have been searching what happens in an EMDR intensive, you have probably already worked out that fifty minutes a week is not going to be enough room for this. You spend the first ten minutes settling in, something real cracks open around minute forty, and then you are back in your car with all of it stirred up and nowhere to put it. I am going to walk you through what an intensive actually is, what the day looks like from the first phone call to the follow-up a few weeks later, and what it feels like while it is happening.
Key takeaways
An EMDR intensive is a planned block of trauma reprocessing, usually three hours, sometimes two of those days in a row, with breaks built into it. You do not walk in cold, because there is a consultation call and a full two-hour preparation session before we ever start reprocessing. You are not required to narrate your trauma out loud in detail, since most of the work happens internally while you hold the buzzers. Every intensive ends deliberately, with time set aside to get you settled before you drive home. The processing keeps going for several days afterward, which is normal and something we plan around.
What is an EMDR intensive?
An EMDR intensive is trauma reprocessing scheduled as one long block of time instead of fifty minutes a week. In my practice that usually means three hours, and sometimes two three-hour days back to back. It includes a consultation call first, a two-hour preparation session, the intensive itself, and a follow-up session a few weeks later.
Weekly therapy is good work and I do plenty of it. The problem is the shape of the hour. You come in, you catch up on your week, something starts to open around minute forty, and we have to close it down because your next thing starts at three. Then a week goes by, you miss a session, and you spend the first part of the next one finding your way back to where you left off. For some people that rhythm is fine. For trauma still sitting in your body, it often means you never get past the opening.
Trauma work is slow and it takes patience. An intensive does not speed up your nervous system. It gives the slow work enough room to finish a thought.
What happens before an EMDR intensive?
Before the intensive we have a consultation call that runs twenty to thirty minutes, and you fill out paperwork and questionnaires so I have your history. Then we meet for a two-hour preparation session where we get to know each other, build a clear plan for the intensive, and set up the EMDR coping strategies you will use during it.
The consultation is a conversation and nothing more. You tell me what you want to work on and I tell you whether an intensive is the right format for it and roughly how much time I think it would take. Sometimes what someone describes is better served by regular weekly sessions and I will say so. Sometimes it comes down to what you have available in time or money, and we shape the work around that, because more time means we get further and less time still gets somewhere real.
People ask whether the preparation session is necessary if they have been in therapy for years and already know how to ground themselves. It is. Part of that is the coping work, which is specific to EMDR and different from what you may have learned elsewhere. The bigger part is that I want you walking into the intensive knowing what we are working on and why, instead of hoping it goes okay.
What does the day of an EMDR intensive actually look like?
A three-hour intensive is focused EMDR reprocessing of one experience or one stuck point, with short breaks whenever you need them to eat something, step outside, or use the grounding tools from your preparation session. If we go longer than three hours, we take a full hour off in the middle and come back for two more.
You will see six-hour intensives advertised elsewhere. I do not do six hours in one day. I do not think the work stays good for either of us by hour five, so when someone needs more than three hours we schedule two three-hour days in a row instead. Clients coming from out of state often make a weekend of it, which works well because you are already stepping out of your regular life to be there.
What EMDR looks like in practice is bilateral stimulation, which is a technical way of saying we alternate a signal from one side of your body to the other while you hold a memory in mind. I use buzzers, small devices you hold one in each hand that pulse back and forth. You do not have to describe everything out loud while that is happening, because most of the processing is internal and you tell me what you notice.
Intensives here tend to take one of two shapes. Sometimes it is focused reprocessing of a single event, a traumatic birth or a car accident or an assault, where the goal is bringing down the PTSD symptoms attached to that specific memory. Sometimes it is that you need to tell the whole thing start to finish and there has never been enough time to do it. I have sat with someone for hours while she told me an entire medical story in order, not tangential and not distracted, just a story that took that long to say. When we work that way you hold the buzzers while you talk, so your distress comes down while you are telling it instead of climbing.
What does EMDR feel like when something is actually shifting?
When EMDR is working, the memory usually starts losing its charge. Images get less sharp. The physical response, the tight chest and the racing heart and the feeling of being right back inside it, tends to settle. Things you had not consciously connected to the memory often surface, and the work sometimes goes somewhere neither of us predicted.
By the third hour, when the work has had room to move, most people notice something feels different than it did that morning. It is not finished and I would not tell you it was, because reprocessing keeps going after the day ends, but the memory usually stops taking up the entire front of your mind.
There are also intensives where you are tired and spent and it feels hard the whole way through. That is not a sign it failed. Hard days are part of what this is, and the closure at the end of the day exists for exactly that reason. Clients have told me they got further in six months of this work than in twenty years of talking about it somewhere else, and I think a lot of that is what happens when reprocessing finally gets uninterrupted time.
How does an EMDR intensive end and what should I expect afterward?
Every intensive ends with deliberate closure. Before you leave we bring whatever we have been working on to a stable stopping point and practice the coping strategies from your preparation session so your nervous system settles. Then you rest. A few weeks later we meet for an hour to look at what shifted and what is still there.
I schedule intensives on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays on purpose, because I want you to have the rest of that day and the next one. Take a nap. Go for a slow walk with no destination. Journal if that is your thing, or be around people who are easy to be around. Do not put anything demanding on the calendar for that evening, because your brain has done significant work and it needs the recovery.
The processing continues after you go home, which is how EMDR works rather than a warning about it. Some people have vivid dreams for a few nights. Some notice things settling over the following week. Some feel lighter almost immediately. At the follow-up we look at what changed, what surfaced that we did not expect, and whether you want to keep going or whether this feels complete.
Is an EMDR intensive a good fit for birth trauma or pregnancy loss?
Perinatal trauma is one of the most common reasons women book an intensive with me. Pregnancy loss, stillbirth, a traumatic birth, a NICU stay, infertility, and medical care that dismissed you all tend to leave symptoms that talking about them repeatedly does not resolve. EMDR works with how the experience is stored rather than what you think about it.
Most of the women who come to me for this are not confused about what happened. They can give you the facts in order. What they cannot do is get through the anniversary, or a routine appointment, or a friend's baby shower, without their whole body responding like it is happening again. They shut down when family brings it up. They have a reaction that surprises them and then spend the rest of the day feeling unsteady and embarrassed about it. I use EMDR alongside parts work for this, because there is usually a part of you still standing at the moment everything went wrong, doing its job, unaware the moment has passed.
I will also tell you where I am not the right fit. If you are not interested in looking inward, or in getting a little weird with me about where you feel something in your body and how old you feel when it shows up, three hours is going to be a long time. And if what you are carrying is primarily depression, there are clinicians who do that work better than I do, and I would rather point you toward them.
What intensive formats do you offer?
Extended 90-minute sessions. For clients who feel like they are just getting somewhere when a regular session ends, or who want to do more depth work on an ongoing basis.
Half-day intensive, three hours. Focused reprocessing of a single experience or stuck point, or the space to tell a long story all the way through with the buzzers in your hands.
Two-day intensive, two three-hour days in a row. For work that needs more than one day. Often used for complicated stories with several threads, or when the first day opens something that deserves its own day.
Every format includes the consultation call, the two-hour preparation session beforehand, and the follow-up session a few weeks later. Intensives are scheduled Friday through Sunday, in person in my St. Paul office and virtually for clients in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Oregon.
FAQ
Do you have to be a current client to do an EMDR intensive?
No. Intensives are open to new clients. The consultation and the two-hour preparation session are built specifically to establish what we need before reprocessing starts, so you do not need existing history with me.
Can you do an EMDR intensive online?
Yes. I offer intensives virtually for clients located in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Oregon, and in person at my office in St. Paul. Virtual intensives use the same structure, and we sort out the bilateral stimulation setup during your preparation session.
How long does an EMDR intensive take?
Most run three hours in a single day. When more time is needed we schedule two three-hour days back to back rather than one very long day. That is in addition to the two-hour preparation session and the follow-up hour a few weeks later.
Is an EMDR intensive safe?
Yes, with a trained EMDR therapist and with the preparation session in place. The preparation exists so you have stabilization tools before we go anywhere difficult, and every intensive ends with deliberate closure. We do not skip either of those steps.
What should I do the day of my EMDR intensive?
Eat beforehand, dress comfortably, and bring water and a snack. Keep the rest of the day open and do not schedule anything demanding for that evening. If you are traveling in, plan to stay somewhere restful that night instead of driving home right after.
Hi, I’m Jennie,
I’m here to help you feel better.
Jennie Hardman, MSW, LICSW, is a trauma therapist licensed in Minnesota and Wisconsin (MN #23915) with advanced EMDR training in perinatal and infant mental health. She is an EMDR consultant in training, a Minnesota Social Work Board-approved supervisor, adjunct faculty at UWRF, and is currently completing a ten-month intensive, Perinatal Crisis and Beyond, for EMDR practitioners. She spent a decade as a sexual assault advocate before entering private practice.
Ready to find out if this is the right format for you
If you have read this far you have probably been sitting with the idea of an intensive for a while, wondering whether it would be too much or whether what happened to you counts. It does, and the consultation exists so you can ask that question out loud without committing to anything.
Reach out to schedule a consultation call, and we will talk through what you are carrying, what you want to be different, and whether an intensive is the right fit. In person in St. Paul, Minnesota, and virtually for clients in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Oregon.