EMDR Intensives Chicago
Have you been doing the work in weekly therapy and still feel like you're circling the same thing?
You can know exactly what the pattern is and still not be able to move past it. You can walk out of session with real insight and still feel stuck in your body a week later. You can be doing everything right in therapy and still feel like progress is happening in inches when you need feet.
Fifty minutes isn't always enough time. Just as something starts to open up, the session ends, and you carry it home unfinished. Some concerns need more room than a weekly hour can give them.
An EMDR intensive gives you that room. Instead of an hour a week, you get extended, focused time built around what you actually need to work through. Meg blends EMDR with Internal Family Systems (IFS), so the work isn't only about processing the memory itself. It's also about understanding the parts of you that have been protecting it, the part that's scared to go there, the part that's tired of carrying it. That combination tends to make deep work feel more grounded, not more overwhelming.
There's no one size fits all. Sessions typically run 3 to 6 hours, and Meg builds the structure around your history and your goals. Some people need one focused session. Others spread the work across multiple days. You and Meg decide that together, before the work begins.
If you're already in weekly therapy and it's helping, an intensive doesn't have to replace that. It can work alongside it, giving you a concentrated space to move through something specific while you continue the ongoing work with your regular therapist.
EMDR Intensives with Meg Doster, LMFT
Meg Doster, LMFT, walks through how EMDR intensives work and who tends to benefit most from this format. EMDR intensives combine extended, focused sessions with the same evidence-based approach used in weekly EMDR therapy, giving you more room to work through trauma, anxiety, and memories that still feel present years later. If you are considering an EMDR intensive in Chicago, schedule a free intro call to talk through whether it might be a good fit for you.
What are EMDR Intensives?
An EMDR intensive is EMDR therapy delivered in extended, concentrated sessions instead of a weekly hour. The same evidence-based process is used, bilateral stimulation to help your brain process memories and experiences that still carry a charge, but the pacing changes. Instead of spreading the work across months of 50-minute sessions, you dedicate a longer block of time to go deeper in fewer sittings.
With Meg, sessions typically run 3 to 6 hours, depending on what you're working through and how much you can hold at once. Some people do one focused session. Others spread the work across a few days. That structure is something you decide together before beginning the intensive.
The format also makes room for more than EMDR alone. Because there's more time in each session, Meg can draw on Internal Family Systems alongside EMDR when it's useful, working with the parts of you that hold or protect what you're processing, not just the memory itself.
This format is built for speed as much as depth. A big part of what slows weekly therapy down is the time spent each session catching up on the week and re-entering the material before you can go anywhere new. An intensive skips that. You're already in the work from the first minute, and you stay there for hours instead of minutes. That's what makes an intensive move faster than the same work spread out over weeks or months, less time getting back to where you left off, more time actually moving forward.
Who benefits from EMDR Intensives
You make progress faster. An intensive condenses months of incremental weekly work into a shorter, more concentrated timeframe. You spend less time re-entering the material each session and more time actually moving through it.
You get uninterrupted, focused time. There's no catching up on the week or wrapping up just as something starts to open. You stay in the work for hours instead of minutes, which allows for deeper processing than a standard session structure allows.
It's easier to schedule one block of time than an ongoing weekly hour. Between a demanding job, travel, or a schedule that shifts week to week, clearing a single day or weekend can be simpler than committing to the same hour every week for months.
It can work alongside therapy you're already doing. An intensive doesn't have to replace your weekly therapist. Many clients use it to move through one specific thing in more depth while continuing their regular sessions.
EMDR Intensives for Trauma, Anxiety, and Burnout in Chicago
Does this sound like you?
This is a good fit if you've experienced trauma or complex trauma and want more room to work through it than a weekly hour allows. Whether it's a single event or layers of experiences built up over time, an intensive gives you the concentrated space to go deeper into what happened without spreading the work across months.
It's also a good fit if you've done talk therapy, it helped, and you've still hit a plateau. You understand your patterns. You can talk about them clearly. But something in your body or your reactions hasn't caught up with what your mind already knows.
This works well if you're in weekly therapy right now and want something that moves alongside it, not something that replaces it. Some clients keep their regular therapist for ongoing support and use an intensive to work through one specific thing in more depth than a weekly hour allows.
You might be a fit if you have a specific memory or experience you want to work through with more room than a 50-minute session gives you. A wedding, a birth, an accident, a loss, something that keeps surfacing and hasn't fully settled.
And you might be drawn to this if a combined EMDR and IFS approach makes sense to you. Not just processing what happened, but understanding the parts of you still holding onto it.
What to Expect in an EMDR Therapy Intensive in Chicago
A 90-minute intake session
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Before your intensive, you and Meg meet for a 90-minute intake. This gives her a clear sense of your history, what you're working through, and what to focus on during your intensive. Nothing is assumed going in, the plan gets built around you.
Your intensive
2
Depending on what you and Meg decide together, your intensive runs 3 or 6 hours, with breaks built in as needed. This is the concentrated work itself, using EMDR and, when it fits, Internal Family Systems, to move through what you came in to address.
A 90-minute follow-up session
3
After your intensive, you and Meg meet again for a 90-minute follow-up. This gives you space to integrate what came up, check in on how you're feeling, and talk through next steps, whether that's returning to weekly therapy, scheduling another intensive, or feeling complete for now.
Most clients notice real shifts by the end of their intensive, though the depth of what surfaces and how it's processed depends on your history and what you're working through. EMDR can be uncomfortable at times, but it should never feel like you are being retraumatized. Even in a longer session, Meg paces the work to your nervous system, not a fixed schedule, taking breaks when you need them and never pushing further than you're ready to go.
How EMDR and IFS Work Together in an Intensive
Meg doesn't treat EMDR and IFS as two separate tools. She weaves them into a single process. The work often starts with identifying the parts of you involved in what you're processing, the part protecting a memory, the part still carrying fear or shame, the part that's been managing everything on its own for years. Once a part is identified, Meg can bring EMDR directly to that part, using bilateral stimulation to help it process and unburden what it's been holding.
This means the work isn't just about the memory itself. It's about the part of you attached to it. A part that's been guarding a painful experience might need to feel understood before it will let the memory be processed at all. Once that trust is there, EMDR helps that specific part move through what it's carrying, so the unburdening happens part by part, not as one broad pass over the whole memory.
The two modalities build on each other throughout the session. IFS gives Meg a map of what's present and what each part needs. EMDR gives her a way to actually help each part process and release what it's been holding. Together, they let the work go deeper than either approach tends to on its own, addressing not just what happened, but how different parts of you have been carrying it since.
Meet Your Chicago EMDR Intensive Therapist
Meg Doster, LMFT
Hi, I'm Meg. I know what it's like to work hard at keeping everything together on the outside while something underneath stays stuck. I spent years avoiding conflict, swallowing my truth to keep the peace, and telling myself that was just who I was. It wasn't. It was a pattern, and patterns can change.
That experience is part of why I love offering EMDR intensives. Weekly sessions can move a pattern slowly, over months. An intensive gets underneath it faster, with the concentrated time to actually process what's been driving it instead of circling it an hour at a time. I love watching a client walk in carrying something they've held for years and walk out having actually moved through it, not just talked about it again.
My approach is direct and warm. I take your nervous system seriously and I believe in your capacity to move through hard things, especially when we give that work the room it needs. Sessions with me are not a place to be managed or nodded at. We go somewhere, and in an intensive, we go there faster.
FAQs about EMDR Intensives
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An EMDR intensive is EMDR therapy delivered in an extended, concentrated format instead of a weekly hour. Instead of spreading the work across months of 50-minute sessions, you dedicate a longer block of time to process more in fewer sittings. Meg also weaves in Internal Family Systems alongside EMDR, working with the parts of you that hold onto what you're processing, not just the memory itself.
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A 3-hour intensive with Meg is $2,000. This includes a 90-minute intake session before the intensive, the 3-hour intensive itself, and a 90-minute follow-up session after, six total hours of therapy. A 6-hour intensive is $3,000 and includes the same structure, a 90-minute intake, the 6-hour intensive, and a 90-minute follow-up, nine total hours of therapy.
The upfront cost is more than a single weekly session, but many clients find it saves time and money overall. Instead of paying for months of weekly sessions to work through one specific issue, you invest in a single, concentrated block of time built to get you there faster.
At this time, insurance does not cover EMDR intensives. Payment is private pay, and we provide a superbill you can submit for possible out-of-network reimbursement.
Book a free consultation before scheduling your intensive to talk through pricing and whether this format is the right fit for you.
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Preparation starts with your 90-minute intake session. Meg uses this time to understand your history, what you want to focus on, and how much you're able to hold in one sitting. You don't need to arrive with a polished summary of what happened. You just need to show up and talk through it with her. From there, she builds the plan for your intensive around what you actually need.
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EMDR isn't the right starting point for everyone. If you're currently in crisis, managing active substance use, or don't yet have basic coping tools in place, Meg may recommend starting with weekly therapy first and building those tools before an intensive. That's a normal part of doing this work safely, not a rejection.
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Yes. EMDR intensives work for both. A single, clearly defined event, like an accident or a specific loss, often processes efficiently in one intensive. Complex trauma, built from repeated or ongoing experiences over time, usually involves more layers to work through. Meg accounts for this during your intake, and may recommend a longer intensive, a different pacing, or more than one intensive scheduled over time, depending on what you're carrying.
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Weekly EMDR therapy happens in 50-minute sessions spread across months. An intensive concentrates that same evidence-based process into a single extended block of time, either 3 or 6 hours, so you spend less time each session getting re-oriented to where you left off and more time actually processing.
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Yes. Many clients keep their current therapist for ongoing weekly support and use an intensive to work through one specific memory or experience in more depth than a weekly session allows. An intensive can complement your existing therapy rather than replace it.
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Yes. Research supports virtual EMDR as safe and effective, including for intensive formats, and Meg's intensives are currently offered virtually. Bilateral stimulation adapts well to video sessions, and many clients find it just as effective as in-person work.
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Most clients notice real shifts by the end of their intensive, though the depth of what surfaces and how it's processed depends on your history and what you're working through. EMDR can be uncomfortable at times, but it should never feel like you are being retraumatized. Meg paces the work to your nervous system, not a fixed schedule, taking breaks when you need them.
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This depends on what you're working through. Some clients find that a single intensive addresses what they came in for. Others return for an additional intensive later, or move into ongoing weekly therapy after. Meg will talk through what makes sense for you during your intake session.
Start Your EMDR Intensive Today
Resources
Research on EMDR intensives and effectiveness
The EMDR International Association keeps an up to date collection of the research behind EMDR, including randomized controlled trials and reviews from major health organizations. EMDRIA: Recent Research on EMDR Therapy
One of the earliest studies on the intensive format found that concentrated EMDR sessions led to real, measurable improvement in PTSD symptoms in a short period of time. A five-day inpatient EMDR treatment programme for PTSD
Research comparing daily, intensive EMDR to weekly EMDR found the intensive format to be an effective, efficient option, not just a faster one. Comparison Between Intensive Daily and Weekly EMDR Approaches
A case series published in the Journal of EMDR Practice and Research looked specifically at intensive EMDR for complex PTSD and found it a safe, effective option even for clients carrying more than one traumatic experience. Intensive EMDR for Complex PTSD: A Case Series