Why 90-Minute and Two-Hour EMDR Intensives Bring Relief Faster

When an hour is not quite enough

Standard hour-long EMDR sessions work well. Even so, intensives are the foundation of our practice: most of our clients prefer them and choose them once they understand the difference. The reason is simple: deep work takes time. In an hour, the memory is open and the hard feelings are just starting to ease when the clock says it is time to close up and come back next week. You close well, go about your week, and pick the thread back up when you return. An intensive gives you more of that time in one sitting, so each session carries you further.

For memories that need more room, EMDR Center of Denver offers the EMDR intensive: a 90-minute or two-hour session built to give the work the time it needs.

What a 90-minute or two-hour intensive looks like

An intensive is not a different therapy. It is the same EMDR that the World Health Organization and international treatment guidelines recommend for PTSD, with enough time in one sitting to move much more fully through a painful memory. If you are new to this work, start with what EMDR is, what a course of EMDR looks like, and how it rewires the brain. We offer two formats:

• 90-minute session. Room to go further with a memory instead of stopping at the hour. A good fit for existing clients who feel like they are just getting somewhere when time runs out.
• Two-hour intensive. Focused work on one memory or one theme, such as a loss, a relationship, or a belief about yourself, with breaks whenever you ask for them. A two-hour block does roughly what two weekly sessions do, in one appointment. It also allows plenty of time for talk therapy and being able to check-in regarding other things going on in your life.

Three- and four-hour sessions are available occasionally when clinically appropriate. Current fees are on our Rates page. Every session is online over a secure, HIPAA-compliant platform for adults anywhere in Colorado, from Boulder and Colorado Springs to Fort Collins and the mountain towns. Research shows virtual EMDR works as well as in-office care for most people.

What the research says about doing more in one sitting

Researchers call this question massed versus spaced treatment: hold the total hours constant, compress them into less calendar time, and see what changes. The answer, across several randomized trials, is that relief arrives sooner and nothing is lost.

Ehlers and colleagues (2014), in the American Journal of Psychiatry, randomly assigned 121 people with PTSD to trauma-focused therapy delivered in one intensive week or in weekly sessions over three months. Recovery rates were 73% and 77%, a difference too small to matter, but the intensive group got there in a week and the authors noted symptoms dropped faster.

Foa and colleagues (2018) tested the same idea in JAMA with 370 service members: ten sessions over two weeks worked as well as ten sessions over eight weeks, and dropout fell from 24.8% to 13.6%. An Australian military trial by Dell and colleagues (2022) found the same: equal results, dropout of 4.8% versus 16.9%.

For EMDR specifically, Hurley (2018) compared veterans who received 75-minute EMDR sessions twice a day with veterans who received the same number of sessions once a week. Both groups improved significantly and held their gains at one year. Nobody in the intensive group dropped out. A case series by Bongaerts, Van Minnen, and De Jongh (2017) in the Journal of EMDR Practice and Research found the same pattern with twice-daily 90-minute EMDR sessions for complex PTSD: very large improvements that held at three months. Extended sessions, delivered close together, did not shortchange anyone.

Why momentum matters

The most consistent finding in this research is about who completes treatment. Hoppen, Kip, and Morina (2023) pooled 160 randomized trials with more than 10,000 participants. Delivering trauma therapy in a higher weekly dose did not change how well it worked, but it cut dropout from about 19% to about 12%. A separate review by Sciarrino, Warnecke, and Teng (2020) in the Journal of Traumatic Stress pooled 11 intensive-treatment studies and found a combined dropout rate of 5.5%. Momentum is easier to keep when the work is closer together, and people who stay with treatment are the people who get better.

The far end of this principle is the Dutch 8-day program studied by Van Woudenberg and colleagues (2018), where 347 people with severe PTSD received daily EMDR and exposure sessions. After eight days, 83% showed a meaningful response, 55% no longer met criteria for PTSD, and only 2.3% dropped out. A later study of 308 patients by Voorendonk and colleagues (2020) found 87.7% of those with complex PTSD lost that diagnosis. Zoet and colleagues (2018) showed people with the dissociative subtype of PTSD improved just as much as everyone else, and a Norwegian team led by Klaeth (2024) found gains from an 8-day EMDR program still in place a full year later.

The principle they illustrate is the one our intensives are built on: the work continues while the memory is still open, instead of pausing and picking up again later.

Who a 90-minute or two-hour session fits

Intensives suit adults who want to make real progress quickly. That includes people with demanding schedules who would rather block a morning than commit to months of weekly appointments, people who travel, and people preparing for a wedding, a deployment, a birth, or another date that is not moving.

They also fit specific kinds of work. A single car accident, birth trauma, or other trauma with a clear starting point often moves faster when the work has room to unfold. Grief and loss work often moves more gently when it has more room to breathe. Religious trauma, narcissistic abuse, and childhood emotional neglect, which usually involve layered beliefs rather than one event, often need the longer runway a two-hour block provides. The same is true of the stuck memories and stressors underneath anxiety, addiction, and OCD. And existing clients who keep running out of time on one memory can use a 90-minute session to go deeper, as well as not feeling pressured or rushed with the session ending within the standard hour.

See our post on the seven benefits of EMDR intensives for more on what a session feels like.

How to get started

Schedule a free 15-minute consultation with Jeanne or Gessica Cross. We will answer your questions, learn what you are looking for, and decide together whether a 90-minute session, a two-hour intensive, or one hour session is the right starting point. Answers to common questions are on our FAQ page, and fees are on the Rates page.

If you are ready to do focused work and want relief sooner rather than later, the research says more EMDR in one sitting gets you there faster without giving anything up. Contact us or book your free consultation today.

References

• Bongaerts, H., Van Minnen, A., & De Jongh, A. (2017). Intensive EMDR to treat patients with complex posttraumatic stress disorder: A case series. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, 11(2), 84–95. doi.org/10.1891/1933-3196.11.2.84
• Dell, L., et al. (2022). Effect of massed v. standard prolonged exposure therapy on PTSD in military personnel and veterans: A non-inferiority randomised controlled trial. Psychological Medicine. cambridge.org
• Ehlers, A., et al. (2014). A randomized controlled trial of 7-day intensive and standard weekly cognitive therapy for PTSD and emotion-focused supportive therapy. American Journal of Psychiatry, 171(3), 294–304. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24480899
• EMDR Institute. International treatment guidelines recognizing EMDR for PTSD (WHO, ISTSS, VA/DoD, APA). emdr.com/research-overview
• Foa, E. B., et al. (2018). Effect of prolonged exposure therapy delivered over 2 weeks vs 8 weeks vs present-centered therapy on PTSD symptom severity in military personnel: A randomized clinical trial. JAMA, 319(4), 354–364. jamanetwork.com
• Hoppen, T. H., Kip, A., & Morina, N. (2023). Are psychological interventions for adult PTSD more efficacious and acceptable when treatment is delivered in higher frequency? A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 95, 102684. sciencedirect.com
• Hurley, E. C. (2018). Effective treatment of veterans with PTSD: Comparison between intensive daily and weekly EMDR approaches. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1458. frontiersin.org
• Klaeth, J. R., Jensen, A. G., Auren, T. J. B., & Solem, S. (2024). 12-month follow-up of intensive outpatient treatment for PTSD combining prolonged exposure therapy, EMDR and physical activity. BMC Psychiatry, 24, 225. doi.org/10.1186/s12888-024-05656-9
• Sciarrino, N. A., Warnecke, A. J., & Teng, E. J. (2020). A systematic review of intensive empirically supported treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 33(4), 443–454. onlinelibrary.wiley.com
• Van Woudenberg, C., et al. (2018). Effectiveness of an intensive treatment programme combining prolonged exposure and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing for severe post-traumatic stress disorder. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 9(1), 1487225. tandfonline.com
• Voorendonk, E. M., De Jongh, A., Rozendaal, L., & Van Minnen, A. (2020). Trauma-focused treatment outcome for complex PTSD patients: Results of an intensive treatment programme. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 11(1), 1783955. doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2020.1783955
• World Health Organization (2013). WHO releases guidance on mental health care after trauma. who.int
• Zoet, H. A., Wagenmans, A., van Minnen, A., & de Jongh, A. (2018). Presence of the dissociative subtype of PTSD does not moderate the outcome of intensive trauma-focused treatment for PTSD. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 9(1), 1468707. doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2018.1468707

Education and Crisis Disclaimer

This article is for education and is not a substitute for therapy, medical advice, or emergency care. If you are in crisis or thinking about suicide, call or text 988, call 911, or go to the nearest emergency room. EMDR Center of Denver does not provide emergency services.