Nature & Arts Based EMDR Intensive Therapy

Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychotherapy approach that aims to reprocess traumatic memories and alleviate emotional distress through the use of bilateral stimulation. Learn more about EMDR here.

A Nature & Arts Based EMDR Intensive is an alternative to the traditional weekly therapy session, allowing clients to schedule longer, uninterrupted session times lasting anywhere from 3 hrs to several days.

These intensives can also include a variety of experiential activities--such as Nature Based Therapy and Expressive Arts Therapy -- to help you process and heal trauma from your past in a matter of days instead of having to attend therapy on a weekly basis for many years.

PLEASE NOTE: If you are not feeling ready to commit to a half day, full day, or multi-day experience, but would like to get a taste of what an intensive retreat might be like, I also have limited times available for 90 min weekly sessions. This can offer you the opportunity to experience working intensively before committing to a full intensive.

This is a great choice for you if:

Your daily schedule has made it difficult for you to commit to traditional weekly therapy sessions. For example, you might be the primary caregiver of a child or other dependent, you might do contract work, or are employed in the Healthcare, Travel, or Food/Beverage/Hospitality industries. Your time off doesn’t occur during typical business hours, or doesn’t always occur on the same days/times each week. Intensives are typically scheduled weeks or months in advance, which allows you more time to secure child or other dependent care coverage and/or time off from work.

You feel like one hour a week is never enough time for getting what you want out of your therapy sessions. Perhaps you have attended therapy sessions for years, or even engaged in EMDR therapy on a weekly basis, but the process felt like it was taking too long to get the results you were hoping for, or the process felt interrupted due to having to end the session on time at the end of the hour.

You know how to cope, but want to heal beyond simply coping and are unsure about how to do this. You have met with a lot of different therapists in the past but never seem to be able to get to the “root” of what is troubling you due to lack of time in session to slow down and ease into the process.

You are realizing it might be time for you to switch things up and try something other than weekly talk therapy. You have engaged in talk therapy for months or even years, and are realizing that talking about what is bothering you is not actually solving your issues, and that the same problems keep coming up again and again throughout your life.

You have difficulty finding a trained and experienced EMDR therapist in your area. You might live in an area where there are not a lot of trained EMDR therapists and no one who offers outdoor EMDR sessions, but you have the ability to engage in “retreat style” therapy sessions over several days with me here in Colorado.

You’ll see results more quickly: Significant improvements are seen in a matter of days vs months or years of therapy. During a traditional weekly 50-60 minute session, once we begin to get into the flow of working through a particular issue, we very often have to stop and interrupt that flow in order to adhere to the session time and ensure that you are feeling emotionally ready to move on with the rest of your day. With an intensive, we can continue to stay in this flow, uninterrupted, and therefore we get more accomplished together. Additionally, because we are also engaging in nature and arts based activities (both of which require more uninterrupted time in order to get into and stay in a creative and playful flow state) an intensive also gives you more time and space to enhance your therapeutic experience with these activities. 

More cost effective financial investment: Intensives are more cost effective than traditional weekly therapy because of the ways in which sessions are structured and focused to allow a concentrated amount of time to work through problems. Less time is spent “catching up” on the events of the past week between sessions, and more time is devoted to processing and healing the effects of past distress and trauma. During an intensive, we are no longer spending time during each hour:

+checking in at the beginning of each session about what happened since last session

+addressing current crises and concerns that arose between weekly sessions

+focusing on stabilizing and coping skills that need to be used between weekly sessions

+assisting you with regaining composure at the end of each hourly session so that you can still engage in your typical daily activities after the session is over

Learn more from the research here.

Free up your time that you’d usually spend in weekly sessions: You’ll no longer need to commit to a weekly therapy appointment, leaving you more free time to do the things you’ve always longed to do, such as spending time with loved ones, taking quiet time for yourself, or signing up for a fun weekly class or activity.

You don’t have to live in Colorado in order to work with me!

My practice is physically located at the Foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Golden, Colorado. This is just a 35-40 min drive from Denver International Airport. So if you have the ability to travel to Colorado, you can still meet with me and design your intensive experience as part of a destination retreat!

Further scientific research on the benefits of EMDR Intenives:

Intensive application of trauma-focused therapy seems to be well tolerated in patients with PTSD, enabling faster symptom reduction with similar (or even better) results, while reducing the risk that clients will drop out prematurely. Learn more here and here.

Intensive EMDR treatment is feasible and is indicative of reliable improvement in PTSD symptoms in a very short time frame. Learn more here.

An intensive program using EMDR therapy is a potentially safe and effective treatment alternative for complex PTSD. Learn more here.

Your intensive will include:

90 minute Pre-Intensive online sessions to prepare for the retreat intensive by assessing your individual needs and identifying unpleasant beliefs, body sensations, emotions, or images from which you are seeking relief.

Personalized EMDR intensive treatment workbook, which allows you to work on your treatment goals before, during, and after our intensive sessions.

A customized intensive treatment program scheduled to meet your needs with targeted treatment goals.

90 Minute Post-Intensive integration session to assess and support your ability to apply positive changes from treatment to your life after the retreat intensive.

I am not in-network with any health insurance companies and therefore I cannot bill insurance directly for my services.

I also do not currently offer any sliding scale rates for intensives.

I accept credit card and FSA/HSA debit card for payment through a billing service called IVY Pay. We will discuss payment options in more detail during your free 20 minute consultation call. A deposit will be required in order to secure the dates and times for scheduling your intensive.

At your request, we can provide you with a receipt (called a “Superbill”) for the intensive that includes all of the information you will need to submit a claim to your insurance company for out-of-network reimbursement if this is part of your insurance plan. Please note that most insurance companies require a diagnosis to be included in the superbill. Please also note that reimbursement for psychotherapy, including intensives, is not ever guaranteed and may only cover a small portion of an intensive.

You are responsible for all communication with your insurance company and for identifying if and what type of out-of-network benefits you have within your plan. You are also responsible for submitting any out-of-network reimbursement requests and claims.

If you have out-of-network benefits for behavioral/mental health, and you have any other questions about how to use these benefits to help reduce the cost of therapy retreat intensives, please contact your insurance company before our consultation call to determine what your benefits are and if your insurance company has the ability to apply these benefits toward the cost of an intensive.

We can also discuss any other questions you have about this process during your free consultation call.