EMDR Intensives in Atlanta: Trauma Therapy in a Different Format
Three to six hours of focused work, structured to move what's been stuck for years.
For adults and couples who don't have a year to spread their healing across, and who don't want another weekly session that doesn't quite reach. In-person in Atlanta or virtual in Georgia, Florida, and Virginia.
When weekly therapy isn't the pace that fits
You've been doing the work. You show up to your sessions. You take notes. You leave feeling like you understand yourself a little better, and you walk back into the rest of your life carrying the same weight you walked in with.
Some of what you're carrying has been there a long time. It was there before you knew the words for it. It's been shaping your reactions, your sleep, your relationships, the way you move through your day. You've named it. You've journaled about it. You've made progress in ways you can measure.
And the part of it that's stored underneath the words is still where it's always been.
Working at a fifty-minute weekly pace can feel like trying to drain a reservoir with a teaspoon. Some material genuinely benefits from that pace. Some doesn't. The work that needs concentrated time to move can stall indefinitely when it's stretched across months of one-hour sessions you have to keep returning to from scratch.
The slow pace was never the problem. The match between the pace and the work was.
Why some work doesn't move at a weekly cadence
Weekly therapy is built for ongoing support, pattern recognition, and gradual processing. It works well for those things. It works less well for trauma that lives in the nervous system and needs concentrated processing to actually shift.
Here's why: every weekly session starts with settling in and recapping the week. The deeper work happens in the middle. The last few minutes go to closing down so you can drive home and re-enter your life. That leaves a narrow window of actual processing per session, interrupted weekly.
For some clinical material, that's exactly right. For other material, the constant restart costs more than the spread gains.
Intensives compress the work. You spend three to six hours in a single session, which means the settling-in still happens at the start, but everything after that is uninterrupted depth. You finish work in a single afternoon that would have taken months of weekly sessions.
This isn't about doing more therapy faster. It's about doing the right amount of therapy at the pace it actually needs.
Is this the right format for you?
EMDR intensives tend to be the right fit for a specific kind of client. Here's who.
Best fit for
Adults who have done previous therapy and feel they've plateaued
High-functioning professionals whose schedules don't accommodate weekly sessions
Clients working on a specific identifiable experience or pattern
Clients traveling from outside Atlanta who want concentrated work in a few days
Couples ready to focus on a specific dynamic (infidelity recovery, communication breakdown, recurring conflict)
Clients who want measurable change in a defined window
Probably not the right fit, at least not yet
Clients currently in acute crisis or experiencing active suicidal ideation
Clients who haven't done any stabilization work and may need that first
Clients looking primarily for emotional support rather than active processing
Clients who would benefit from longer-term relational therapy
A note on cost. EMDR intensives are private-pay. Most insurance plans don't cover extended sessions because they don't fit standard billing codes. We're transparent about pricing during your free consultation. For many clients, an intensive that produces real movement is more economical than months of weekly sessions that don't quite reach.
What changes after an EMDR Intensive
These aren't promises. They're the changes clients tend to report after intensives that worked.
The memory that used to play on repeat stops carrying the same emotional charge.
The body response you couldn't think your way out of (the tight chest, the racing heart, the freeze) lessens or stops in situations that used to trigger it.
The pattern you've been intellectually aware of for years starts to actually shift in your behavior.
The conversation, place, or person you've been avoiding becomes approachable again.
The thing you've spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours trying to process in weekly therapy finally moves.
If any of those would change your life, an intensive may be worth the investment.
How EMDR Intensives work at this practice
Each intensive is built around your specific clinical material. The format is the same; the content is matched to you.
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Before the intensive
A pre-intensive consultation to identify what we're working on, assess fit, and confirm intensives are the right format for you. Not everyone benefits from this pace. We tell you honestly if a different cadence would serve you better.
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The intensive session
Three, four, or six hours, depending on what the work calls for. The session combines EMDR processing, somatic work, and integration. You stay in control throughout. We move at a pace that respects what your nervous system is actually doing.
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After the intensive
A follow-up session within 7–14 days to integrate what shifted and identify whether additional work would be useful. Some clients do one intensive and don't need more. Some do a series of two or three. Some integrate intensives into ongoing weekly work.
EMDR intensives at this practice are led by Westly Francois, LCSW, an EMDRIA-Approved Certified EMDR Therapist and EMDR Basic Training Facilitator. The work you'd be doing is the work he teaches other clinicians.
If Intensives aren't the right fit, we have other ways forward
The intensive format doesn't work for everyone. If something else on this list fits better, here's where to go.
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Trauma Therapy for What Talk Hasn't Reached
If you want to do EMDR work but at a weekly pace, our trauma therapy page walks through what ongoing EMDR looks like here. Many clients start with weekly work and add an intensive later when there's a specific piece of material to focus on.
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Couples Therapy When Talking Stopped Working
The intensive format is also available for couples. If you're navigating something specific in your relationship that hasn't moved through ongoing therapy, our couples page is where to start.
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Therapy for the Burnout No One Around You Sees
If what you're carrying is exhaustion, anxiety, and the weight of holding everything together rather than a specific trauma, our burnout page may fit better. EMDR isn't always the first step. Sometimes the work that comes before EMDR is what matters most.
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Teen Therapy for the Daughter Who's Pulled Back
If you're here looking for support for your daughter rather than for yourself, our teen therapy page is built for the parent watching their teen go quiet.
You've already done the work that got you here. The next step is a fifteen-minute phone consultation to see if an intensive is the right format for what you're carrying. No intake form. No commitment. Just a conversation about what's bringing you here and whether the way we work makes sense for what you need.
Book a consultation to see if Intensives fit your work
The questions people actually ask about EMDR Intensives
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For the right client, yes. The honest answer depends on whether the intensive accomplishes what weekly therapy hasn't. Clients who benefit most have already done previous therapy and feel plateaued, can identify a specific experience or pattern they want to work on, and are stable enough clinically to do concentrated processing. For those clients, a single intensive that produces real movement is often more economical than another six months of weekly therapy that doesn't quite reach.
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Properly delivered EMDR is structured to avoid retraumatization. The protocol includes resourcing, pacing, and stabilization steps designed to keep you within your window of tolerance during processing. That said, EMDR is doing real work on material that's emotionally loaded, and clients do feel intense emotions during sessions. The difference between productive intensity and retraumatization is whether the clinician can titrate the work in real time.
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Dissociation during EMDR is something the protocol is built to handle. Mild dissociative responses (going quiet, feeling foggy, brief detachment) are common during deep processing. Significant dissociation is a signal to slow down, stabilize, and resource the client back to a regulated state before continuing. We assess your dissociation profile during the pre-intensive session and structure the intensive accordingly.
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In weekly EMDR, each 50-minute session includes settling in, brief check-in, processing, and closing down. The actual processing window per session is narrow, with material that gets paused and restarted across sessions. In an intensive, the settling-in still happens at the start, but everything after that is uninterrupted processing. The result is meaningfully more depth and continuity.
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Intensives are structurally different from weekly sessions stacked together. In an intensive, the EMDR protocol moves through phases continuously rather than restarting each session. The nervous system stays activated in the working window for an extended period, which is what allows deeper processing. Doing two or three weekly sessions in a single week gets you more therapy hours but not the same depth.
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Often yes, but with adjustments. Complex trauma typically benefits from phased treatment that includes stabilization and resourcing before active processing. Some clients with complex trauma do EMDR successfully in intensive format; others benefit more from longer-term weekly work that builds capacity gradually. The pre-intensive consultation is where we assess whether intensives are the right format for you specifically.
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EMDR intensives are private-pay and typically range from $1,500 to $4,000 per intensive, depending on length (3, 4, or 6 hours) and whether it's an individual or couples intensive. Most insurance plans don't reimburse extended sessions because they don't fit standard CPT codes. We can provide a superbill for out-of-network reimbursement if your plan supports it.
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Yes. Out-of-town intensives are one of the most common reasons clients book this format. The pre-intensive consultation and follow-up session can happen virtually before and after your trip. Many clients fly in for the intensive itself, stay overnight, and travel home the next day. Virtual intensives are also an option for clients in Georgia, Florida, and Virginia.
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That's fine. Crying during EMDR is one of the most common nervous-system responses during processing and is often a sign that the work is moving. We don't stop the processing because you're crying. We stop if you become genuinely dysregulated or unable to continue, and we always close the session in a stable, resourced state.
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You're probably ready if you've done some previous therapy, you can identify what specifically you want to work on, you're not currently in crisis, and the thought of doing concentrated work feels more clarifying than overwhelming. You're probably not ready if you're currently in active crisis, you haven't done any prior therapy work, or the idea of three hours of focused processing feels destabilizing rather than promising.