Intensive Work
I’ve added EMDR Intensives as an additional offering this year. The Intensives are a great way to work on a specific situation or negative belief that is causing difficulty in your life. I’m finding that they are also a very good way to complement work that people are doing with other therapists. I’ve worked with clients who do regular therapy with their primary therapist and then come to an intensive in order to work through something specific, or to get more extensive work via EMDR in a more concise period of time.
Most insurance paneled therapists don’t have the ability to see a client more than once a week, so the intensive option allows clients to work with me for 8-14 hours over a period of 1-2 weeks and move forward with new insights. Another great opportunity from the intensive is that clients who live out of California or Idaho can physically come to Idaho and receive the intensive work at my office, whereas if they lived in a state I wasn’t licensed in, I wouldn’t be permitted to even do Telehealth.
Expectations
It’s important to remember that while intensives will absolutely move clients forward in their progress, it’s not always the end of their therapy journey. Very few people have what we call “specific phobias” such as fear of something like a snake, spider, claustrophobia, flying, etc. However, an intensive that is focused directly on this type of fear can be very productive in reducing fear and allowing individuals to move forward in living their life.
Intensives can also be great for people who recently experienced some type of trauma from a car accident, injury, etc. However, the greater majority of people tend to have a much more complicated presentation of negative beliefs. It’s hard to know exactly what you are dealing with until we get started. Once we start processing in one specific pathway, it’s entirely possible that additional pathways and/or information will surface that contribute to the physical and emotional distress.
After the Intensive – Follow Up
After an intensive, there is follow-up and further treatment planning that takes place. For some, they will take the work done in an intensive back to their own therapist who may continue with EMDR or other modalities to assist the client and further exploration of what was uncovered. Others may choose to continue to work with me for more EMDR sessions. Regardless of the follow-up plan, clients who work with me in an intensive have an interactive workbook with many insights and discoveries that they reflect on. They take away a good sense of their family of origin issues that contributed to some of their negative beliefs, and have learned great coping skills and mood regulation tactics prior to processing. During and after processing, they are desensitizing both their somatic and emotional responses to situations that cause them distress. The hope is that we get their stressor down to a manageable level, if not clear out the distress altogether.
Who is a Good Candidate For an Intensive?
Clients or non-clients who are interested in gaining increased awareness of their negative beliefs and behaviors that result from these beliefs are perfect candidates for this type of work. It’s important to understand that there are no guarantees of all that can be accomplished, yet clients can expect there will be significant gains and movement forward. Individuals need to be able to tolerate the vagueness of what the intensive can offer, as some clients may require extensive grounding and resourcing while others may get through multiple negative belief pathways during the same time frame.
For more information on Intensives or to set up a call to determine if this is something that might be beneficial for you or someone you know, please click here and schedule a free consultation.
