EMDR Intensives
Sometimes, once a week just isn’t enough.
Weekly therapy has its place. But for some people, and some kinds of healing, the rhythm of a 50-minute session, followed by a week of waiting, followed by another 50 minutes, can make the work feel slow, fragmented, or hard to sustain. You build momentum, and then the week interrupts it. You open something up, and then have to hold it alone until the next session.
EMDR Intensives offer a different way in.
What is an EMDR Intensive?
An EMDR Intensive is an extended, concentrated format of EMDR therapy, longer sessions, over fewer days, structured around your specific needs and goals. Rather than working in weekly increments over many months, an intensive allows us to go deeper and move further within a contained period of time.
At Clear Stream Counselling, intensives are offered in person in Hanover, Ontario, and are tailored individually to each client. Sessions typically run between 2 and 5 hours per day, over 1 to 3 days, depending on what you are working on and what feels right for you. The format is discussed and designed together before we begin.
Intensives follow the same evidence-based EMDR protocol, all eight phases, with the same careful attention to preparation, resourcing, and pacing that any good EMDR work requires. The difference is depth, continuity, and time.
Who is an EMDR Intensive for?
An intensive may be a good fit if you are ready to move through EMDR processing more quickly:
You’ve been in therapy for a while, or you understand yourself well, and you’re ready to do focused, sustained work rather than gradually building over many months.
Looking to complete the healing process sooner:
You don’t want to be in therapy indefinitely. You want to get to a place where you feel genuinely done, and then get on with your life.
Finding that weekly sessions lose momentum:
Between-session gaps can interrupt the work. An intensive removes that stop-start rhythm and creates space for deeper, more continuous processing.
Navigating a specific experience or event:
A particular memory, loss, trauma, or period of your life that you want to work through in a focused, purposeful way.
Any EMDR-related work offered at Clear Stream Counselling is available in an intensive format, including EMDR for trauma and PTSD, perinatal mental health, chronic pain, or persistent symptoms.
Is it safe to do this much processing at once?
This is one of the most common questions people ask — and it’s a good one.
The research says yes. A growing body of peer-reviewed evidence supports intensive EMDR as a safe and effective alternative to weekly therapy for PTSD and complex PTSD. Studies published in peer-reviewed journals, including the European Journal of Psychotraumatology and the Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, have consistently found that intensive formats produce significant reductions in PTSD symptoms, with higher completion rates and no increase in adverse effects compared to standard weekly treatment.
What makes intensive work safe is not just the format, it’s the preparation. Thorough screening and assessment happen before we begin. Resourcing and stabilisation are built into the process. Sessions are paced to your capacity, not a predetermined agenda. And the in-person setting of intensive work provides the kind of grounded, relational container that this depth of work deserves.
Make a retreat of it.
Stepping away from daily life to focus on healing can be powerful in its own right. Hanover is a small, welcoming town in Bruce County, surrounded by the natural beauty of Grey-Bruce, and if you are travelling from out of town, there are good accommodation options nearby to make your intensive days comfortable and restorative.
In Hanover: Grey Rose Suites · In Walkerton (approx. 15 min): Best Western Plus Hotel & Conference Centre · Silver Creek Bed & Breakfast
Clearstream Counselling has no affiliation with these properties.
Intensive EMDR is offered in-person, in Hanover, Ontario.
To find out whether the intensive format might be the right fit for you, the best first step is a conversation. I offer a free 30-minute consultation where we can talk through what you’re looking for and whether an intensive, or another format, makes the most sense for you.