The Therapy Intensive: A Soulful, Private Retreat for Profound Change
Because your deepest work deserves more than a fifty-minute hour.
Sara Anderson, LPC provides therapy intensives and Decision in a Day sessions for midlife women in Atlanta and throughout Georgia — using EMDR, Havening Techniques®, somatic depth work, and expressive approaches via telehealth.
You’ve reached the limit of “talking through it.”
You’re a woman who handles a lot, and you’ve been through a lot. You may have read the recommended books, tried retreats to get relief, or even been in good therapy for years.
But some things—the weight of a traumatic loss, the burnout of a high-stakes career, or the loop of a life-altering decision—require more than a weekly check-in.
They require immersion, space, and depth.
The Second Act Intensive is a premium, virtual therapy retreat designed to accomplish in one or two days what typically takes six months or longer of weekly therapy.
Bridging the gap with soulful care.
While our work happens virtually, the experience is designed to be deeply felt. Healing is a sensory experience.
To begin our intensive work together, I provide the digital “Sanctuary Blueprint”—a curated guide to help you transform your personal space into a high-end sanctuary for the duration of our work.
The Sanctuary Blueprint (Prepared with You):
Space Curation: Step-by-step instructions on optimizing your lighting, privacy, and comfort (blankets, pillows, and a “Do Not Disturb” protocol.
Mindful Nourishment: Simple suggestions for staying hydrated and fed so your breaks are genuinely restorative.
Curated Soundscapes: Access to private Spotify playlists featuring bilateral music and ambient sounds for your integration periods.
Meaning-Making Materials: A suggested list of art materials for the projective work we will do together.
Restorative Practices: A guide to restorative yoga poses for your integration breaks.
The “Digital Detox” Protocol: A template to help you set firm boundaries with your household, work, and ensuring your intensive remains a private, uninterrupted retreat.
The Digital Intensive Workbook: A beautifully designed, interactive workbook to guide your reflections before, during, and after our session.
I host only two private intensives per month to ensure every client receives this level of soulful, intentional, concierge attention.
Reclaiming Your Time
| Feature | Weekly Therapy | The Second Act Intensive |
|---|---|---|
| Pacing | 50 minutes, once a week | 3–6 hours of uninterrupted, focused immersion |
| Momentum | Often lost between sessions as the nervous system resets | Continuous — the nervous system stays open and receptive throughout |
| Time to meaningful shift | 6–9 months for significant movement | One or two days of deep, focused work |
| Schedule impact | Weekly re-opening of difficult material | One dedicated block — months of your calendar returned to you |
| Integration support | One week between sessions to process alone | 72-hour debrief session plus personalized integration guide |
| Depth of work | Valuable — and limited by the container | EMDR, Havening, somatic depth, and expressive approaches in one held experience |
Three Types of Therapy Intensives
Trauma Intensives
For the stories that have left a mark.
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The faith community that shaped you — and then harmed you. The beliefs that were used to control, shame, or silence you. The grief of losing a community, an identity, and sometimes an entire framework for meaning. Religious trauma lives in the body and the psyche in ways that talk therapy alone often can't reach. It lives in the symbolic too — in the meaning structures that were built around it and have now collapsed. This work reaches all of that.
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The election. The policy. The acts on rights. The cruelty. The violence that played out publicly while the people around you told you it wasn't that bad. Political trauma is real, it is physiological, and it is often dismissed — including by therapists. It won't be dismissed here. Political trauma lands differently in women's bodies, women's safety, and women's sense of what the world will allow them to be. That dimension matters and gets addressed.
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What happened in that room — or what was done to your body without your full understanding or consent — may still be living in you years later. Birth trauma is one of the most under-treated and under-supported traumas women carry. EMDR and Havening Techniques® reach it at the level where it lives.
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The loss that didn't follow the expected order. The child who died. The spouse who was there and then wasn't. The grief that doesn't fit any of the frameworks people have handed you. Some losses require more than talk and time.
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Your body was invaded, cut open, or nearly taken from you. You survived — and survival came with its own weight. The fear that lives in your body now. The way certain sounds or smells take you back. The relationship with your body that changed and hasn't fully returned. This is trauma. It deserves to be treated as such.
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The harassment, the hostile environment, the sudden termination that came out of nowhere. The colleagues who watched and said nothing. The career that was derailed by something that was done to you, not by you. Professional trauma is minimized constantly - especially for high-achieving women who are expected to simply move on.
Performance & Burnout Intensive
For the woman who has given everything.
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You’ve rested, cut your obligations, changed your scheduled, stepped away, and yet the burnout remains. The root lives deeper than circumstances — in the nervous system, in the patterns of a lifetime, in the way the body learned to keep going past every signal that said stop. We can change that.
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Nurses, physicians, therapists, social workers, attorneys — the people who hold everyone else’s pain as a professional obligation, often without anyone asking how they’re doing. The moral injury of being asked to do things that violate your values. The compassion fatigue of absorbing suffering without adequate support. The burnout that comes from putting on the facade of complete competence while quietly falling apart. Many therapists, doctors, attorneys, and caregiving professionals don’t seek therapy, and continue to suffer silently. Those who are ready to find someone who can meet them at the level of their clinical sophistication — this is that place.
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When the stakes are real and the timeline is specific — whether in the boardroom, on the stage, in the courtroom, or on the field. The yips (the sudden, inexplicable loss of a skill you’ve had for years) respond to somatic and EMDR work in ways that cognitive approaches simply don’t reach. We work the nervous system directly.
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The dynamic that keeps repeating in relationships, work, financially, or somewhere else in your life. The voice that says not yet, not you. Sometimes what keeps a pattern in place isn’t a lack of understanding; it’s an archetypal structure, a family myth, a role assigned so early and so deeply that it requires depth psychology and somatic practices to shift. Cognitive reframing alone won’t reach it. This work does.
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The kids leaving. The marriage changing or ending. The career that no longer fits. The woman you were and the woman you’re becoming… and the terrifying, necessary space between them. This is where we begin.
Decision in a Day
For high-stakes choices where analysis has reached its limit.
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The restructuring, the partnership, the offer that defines the next decade. The leadership decision that keeps you up at night. When the analytical mind has done everything it can and the answer still won't come.
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Settlement timing, next steps, what you can actually live with. Whether to stay or go. What the rest of your life looks like on the other side of this decision.
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The move you keep almost making. The opportunity you can't evaluate clearly. The career you've built carefully and correctly that no longer fits who you are.
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The conversation you've been avoiding for too long. The relationship you keep almost leaving. The one you're not sure whether to fight for or finally let go.
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The care decision nobody wants to make. The conversation that keeps getting postponed. What you owe them versus what you can actually give without losing yourself in the process.
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For physicians, therapists, and healthcare professionals navigating decisions about their practice, their career direction, or the clinical and ethical dilemmas that don't have clean answers. Sometimes you need a space that isn't supervision and isn't therapy — just focused, supported thinking with someone who understands the terrain.
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Where the analytical mind has reached its limit and the body knows something you haven’t heard yet.
What the experience looks like.
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The Preparation
A 60-minute deep-dive session and your exploratory workbook to set our trajectory.
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The Intensive
A focused 3 or 6-hour immersion using EMDR, Havening Techniques®, and somatic depth work.
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The Integration
A dedicated session within 72 hours to anchor your shifts, plus a personalized Integration Guide—a living document for your continued growth.
Is this right for you?
You have something specific you want to move through — not just explore.
You're ready to go deep and stay focused for an extended period.
You’re a woman who wants work that meets the level of your self-awareness.
You’re a clinician, a physician, or a healthcare professional ready to do your own work with someone who understands your world from the inside out.
You have a specific event, decision, or transition that has a timeline.
You've been circling something long enough.
An intensive may not be the right fit if you are in active psychiatric crisis or require crisis-level support, or if you have been hospitalized for any psychiatric reason in the last 12 months, are actively using substances that require medical detox, are managing psychosis or bipolar disorder. If you're not sure, the consultation conversation will help us figure that out together.
A note on virtual intensives: your own space, your own objects, your own ground beneath your feet… these are part of the container. For somatic depth work, being home is often an advantage.
All intensives are available via telehealth throughout Georgia. For clients who prefer in-person work, limited in-person intensives are available at a premium rate — contact us to discuss.
Fees.
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Half-Day
THERAPY INTENSIVE
$1450
60-minute Preparation session | 3-hour focused session | 60-minute Integration Session
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Full-Day
THERAPY INTENSIVE
$2350
60-minute Preparation Session | Two 3-hour focused sessions | 60-minute Integration Session
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Half-Day
DECISION IN A DAY
$1450
60-minute Preparation Session | 3-hour focused session | 60-minute Integration Session
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Full-Day
DECISION IN A DAY
$2350
60-minute Preparation Session | Two 3-hour focused sessions | 60-minute Integration Session
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Multi-Day Intensive
Beginning at $3,000
For complex presentations requiring more than a single day. Two or three consecutive half-day sessions, each with structured processing and integration built in. Preparation and Integration included.
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Intensive scheduling terms — including deposit, cancellation policy, and rescheduling — are discussed at the time of booking.
Available to existing and new clients.
I’m Sara Anderson
For over 25 years, I’ve sat with women carrying the weight of trauma, burnout, and experiences that — despite trying everything — remain stuck. I provide specialized EMDR, Havening Techniques®, and Somatic Intensives virtually to women across Georgia.
Because some things deserve more than an hour a week.
Ready to talk about whether an intensive is right for you?
FAQs
Will I be exhausted?Intensives are deep work, but they are carefully paced. We weave in restorative practices, meaningful breaks, and hydration to ensure you stay within your “window of tolerance.” Intensives are carefully paced with structured breaks.
Is it worth the investment?When you calculate the cost of 25+ weekly sessions, or 6 months in therapy, the time spent away from work, away from family—and the cost of continuing to circle the same issues week after week without real relief or change—the Therapy Intensive is often the most efficient path to healing.
How do I handle my family / work during the day?Your Sanctuary Blueprint includes a “boundary Template” to help you communicate your needs to your household, ensuring your retreat remains private and uninterrupted.
Your Second Act begins with a single, dedicated day.
I host only two private intensives per month to ensure every client receives this level of soulful, intentional, concierge attention.