Trauma Intensive
Experience focused trauma healing through personalized EMDR intensives, attachment-focused therapy, and experiential work for individuals in Atlanta, Georgia.
You Have Survived. Now You Are Ready to Heal.
Trauma Intensives for Deeper HealingYou may look capable, successful, and composed on the outside while carrying pain that no one else can see.
You keep working. You care for everyone around you. You meet deadlines, show up for your family, serve at church, and handle what needs to be handled. Yet beneath the surface, your body may still be responding to experiences that happened years ago, or to something painful that happened more recently.
You may feel anxious even when nothing is obviously wrong. You may overthink conversations, struggle to trust others, shut down during conflict, or become overwhelmed by situations that seem small. You may understand where these reactions come from, but insight alone has not helped you feel free.
A Trauma Intensive offers dedicated time and space to move beyond simply talking about what happened. Through an individualized combination of EMDR, attachment-focused therapy, and experiential interventions, we help you address the emotional wounds, beliefs, and survival responses that continue to shape your life today.
You do not have to keep organizing your life around what happened to you.
Healing is possible.
What Is a Trauma Intensive?
A Trauma Intensive is an extended, highly focused therapy experience designed to address specific traumatic memories, emotional wounds, or patterns in a concentrated period of time.
Instead of meeting for only 50 to 60 minutes and stopping just as meaningful work begins, an intensive provides more uninterrupted time to identify the roots of your distress, process difficult experiences, and support emotional integration.
Depending on your needs, your intensive may be scheduled as:
A half-day session
A full-day session
Multiple extended sessions
A personalized multi-day experience
Your intensive will not be a rushed attempt to “fix” years of pain in one day. It is a structured and intentional opportunity to make meaningful progress on a clearly defined therapeutic goal.
Before the intensive, we will assess your history, current symptoms, support system, coping resources, and readiness for deeper trauma work. Together, we will identify the experiences and beliefs that need attention and create a plan that honors your emotional capacity.
Trauma Does Not Always Look Like Trauma
Many people assume trauma only refers to one catastrophic event. However, trauma can also develop through repeated experiences that made you feel unsafe, unseen, rejected, powerless, or alone.
Your trauma may be connected to:
Childhood abuse, neglect, or instability
Growing up with an emotionally unavailable or unpredictable caregiver
Abandonment, rejection, or betrayal
Church hurt or spiritual wounds
Racism, discrimination, or cultural isolation
A painful breakup, divorce, or affair
Pregnancy loss, infertility, or a difficult birth experience
Medical trauma or a serious diagnosis
Grief and unexpected loss
Workplace mistreatment or professional burnout
Sexual trauma
Family conflict or estrangement
An accident, assault, or other frightening event
Years of carrying responsibilities without adequate support
You May Benefit From a Trauma Intensive If…
You have participated in trauma therapy before but feel that you keep circling the same issues.
You understand your patterns intellectually, but your emotional reactions have not changed.
You feel triggered by rejection, criticism, conflict, abandonment, or feeling misunderstood.
You frequently shut down, withdraw, people-please, over-function, or become emotionally overwhelmed.
You are tired of your past affecting your friendships, romantic relationships, parenting, faith, work, or sense of identity.
You are preparing for a major life transition and want to address unresolved trauma before moving forward.
You want focused time to work on a particular memory, relationship wound, or negative belief.
You have a demanding schedule and find it difficult to maintain weekly therapy appointments.
You are functioning, but you know you are not fully living.
Why Choose an Intensive Instead of Weekly Therapy?
Weekly therapy can be deeply beneficial. However, the traditional one-hour format is not always the best fit for every person or every season.
You may spend the first part of your appointment reconnecting and providing updates. Just as you begin accessing the deeper emotions beneath the issue, the session is almost over. You then have to pause the work, return to your responsibilities, and wait another week to continue.
A Trauma Intensive offers:
More Time to Go Deeper
Extended sessions allow us to move beyond surface-level updates and give sustained attention to the experiences affecting you.
Fewer Interruptions
We can maintain therapeutic momentum without repeatedly stopping and restarting the process.
A Clear Area of Focus
Your intensive is organized around a specific goal, memory, trigger, relationship pattern, or negative belief.
Personalized Preparation
We will identify the resources and coping tools you need before beginning intensive trauma processing.
Greater Flexibility
An intensive may be helpful for professionals, caregivers, business owners, parents, or others who cannot easily attend weekly appointments.
Intensive therapy does not necessarily mean more emotionally aggressive therapy. The goal is not to force you to disclose everything or relive every detail. The work is paced carefully, collaboratively, and according to your readiness.
What to expect
Step 1: The Initial Consultation or Assessment
Before scheduling the intensive, we will meet to discuss your concerns, treatment history, current functioning, and goals.
We will determine whether an intensive is clinically appropriate and identify any preparation that may be needed.
Step 2: Personalized Preparation:
You may complete assessments, reflection exercises, or a trauma timeline before the intensive.
We will identify emotional regulation strategies and establish resources you can use if difficult feelings arise.
Step 3: The Intensive Experience
Your intensive will include structured periods of assessment, processing, reflection, breaks, and integration.
You will not be expected to talk continuously for several hours. The day will be paced intentionally and may include different therapeutic methods depending on your needs.
Step 4: Integration and Follow-Up:
Trauma processing can continue emotionally after an intensive ends. We will discuss what you noticed, what support you may need afterward, and the next steps in your healing.
Follow-up therapy may be recommended to reinforce your progress, address additional concerns, or continue working through other experiences.
our approachOur Integrative Approach to Trauma Healing
Every person’s trauma story is different. Your treatment should be different, too.
Your intensive may include a combination of the following approaches:
EMDR Therapy
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is an evidence-based trauma therapy that helps the brain process distressing memories and reduce the intensity of the emotions, beliefs, and physical sensations connected to them.
You may remember what happened without feeling as though it is still happening.
EMDR can help address beliefs such as:
“I am not safe.”
“I am not enough.”
“I cannot trust anyone.”
“Everything is my fault.”
“I am powerless.”
“I will always be abandoned.”
“My needs do not matter.”
“I have to stay in control.”
EMDR does not erase the past. It helps your brain store the memory in a healthier way so that the past has less control over your present.
Attachment-Focused Therapy
Our earliest relationships often shape what we believe about closeness, trust, safety, and our own worth.
If love felt inconsistent, conditional, intrusive, or unavailable, you may have learned to protect yourself by withdrawing, overachieving, pleasing others, avoiding vulnerability, or remaining constantly alert to signs of rejection.
Attachment-focused work helps you understand the protective strategies you developed and how they may now be affecting your adult relationships.
The goal is not to blame your parents, former partners, or past communities. The goal is to recognize what you learned, honor how you survived, and build healthier ways of connecting today.
Experiential Therapy
Trauma healing cannot always happen through words alone.
Experiential interventions allow you to engage your emotions, body, memories, and beliefs in a more direct way. Depending on your needs, this may include guided imagery, parts work, somatic awareness, timeline exercises, symbolic activities, or other therapeutic experiences.
These interventions can help you recognize what you are carrying, give language to emotions that have been difficult to express, and practice responding differently in the safety of the therapeutic space.
Meet Kaara Kiddoe, LCSW
I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and trauma therapist who helps individuals heal from painful experiences that continue to affect their emotions, relationships, and sense of self.
I am passionate about this work because I have seen how unresolved trauma can quietly shape every part of a person’s life. You may appear strong, successful, and capable while privately struggling with anxiety, shame, emotional disconnection, people-pleasing, or the fear of being hurt again. You may understand why you respond the way you do but still feel unable to change the pattern.
My approach integrates EMDR, attachment-focused therapy, and experiential interventions to help you move beyond simply talking about your trauma and begin healing at a deeper level.
Who May Not Be Ready for a Trauma Intensive?
A Trauma Intensive may not be appropriate for everyone at every stage of healing.
Additional stabilization or another level of care may be recommended when someone is experiencing:
An immediate psychiatric crisis
Active suicidal intent
Recent or ongoing self-harm
Active psychosis or mania
Severe substance dependence requiring detoxification
Ongoing abuse or an unsafe living environment
Significant dissociation without adequate coping resources
Medical instability
An inability to maintain basic safety between sessions
An intensive is not a replacement for emergency care, hospitalization, substance-use treatment, or ongoing psychiatric management when those services are needed.
You Do Not Have to Keep Living in Survival ModeWhat if you could remember the past without becoming emotionally trapped inside it? What if you could set boundaries without overwhelming guilt, experience closeness without constantly expecting abandonment, and respond to conflict without shutting down or losing yourself?
The first step is completing a Trauma Intensive inquiry. We will learn more about your concerns, answer your questions, and determine whether an intensive is the right next step for you.
Success StoriesWhat my clients have to say about working with me
The hearts of Jared and Kaara Kiddoe are revealed in the attention to detail: Each experience was customized and very thoughtful. It was more than I expected…I felt seen. I felt valued. I felt as though this couples retreat was tailored especially for me. Jared and Kaara’s expertise and love of God are evident in the presentations. The content of the presentations provide a framework for normal marital challenges uniquely experienced in each marriage. And, the camaraderie is bar none!
— D. Laing (Attorney, married for 21 years, with two children)
In all the marriage counseling I have been to in over the last 14 years, everything in these sessions were a first for me. My mind was completely blown by the content. Why isn’t every counselor teaching this?! I left with real and practical tools that I can use that help me grow as an individual and also help grow my marriage. This is literally the hope that I have been looking for for years!!! Everything made sense. These tools can also help me become a better listener and communicator. I plan to teach and help my children to practice some these same principles. I feel like a veil has been torn from my eyes and I see my husband in a whole new light.
— J. John (Pastor’s wife, married with two children)
If you are looking to transform your marriage, reconnect with your spouse or connect with them on a deeper level, learn and grow as a couple, and fellowship with like-minded couples who desire to have happy, healthy, thriving marriages, then you must attend an Authentic Marriages event. I didn’t know what to expect, but what we experienced far exceeded my expectations. This is something that every couple should include as a part of their marriage maintenance. My husband and I look forward to attending the next event!
— B. Daniels (Wife married with two children)
Still wondering if this is right for you…?
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To make our Intensives more accessible, we offer payment plan options for many of our programs. During your consultation, we'll discuss available payment options and help you determine what works best for your situation.
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Trauma healing is a process, and no ethical therapist can guarantee that one intensive will resolve every concern. However, an intensive can help you make meaningful progress on a specific memory, trigger, or belief and may create momentum for continued healing.
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Absolutely! With your written permission, I can coordinate with your current therapist so that your intensive supports your broader treatment.
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No. You will not be forced to discuss every detail. We will focus on the information needed to understand the experience, the beliefs connected to it, and how it continues to affect you.
Still have questions? Take a look at the FAQ or reach out anytime. If you’re feeling ready, go ahead and apply.
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