Trauma Therapy in Massachusetts & BostonEMDR & IFS Intensives – Healing the parts of you that talking can’t reach
With longer sessions and a compassionate approach, EMDR and IFS dig below your understanding of your past and shift how you feel about it.
Trauma-Informed Therapy in Massachusetts and Boston
You can explain why you feel the way you feel, but it hasn’t changed a thing
You’ve done the work and been in therapy, maybe for years. You can trace your patterns back to where they started and explain them to a close friend over coffee. But you still react to your triggers the same way, and it’s as if, despite all logical understanding, trauma still lives in your body.
Understanding why you feel the way you feel doesn't undo what your nervous system learned.
If you struggle with:
People-pleasing
Anxiety
A difficult relationship with one of your parents
Perfectionism
Guilt, doubt, and never feeling good enough
A painful experience you've never fully come back from
To heal, you need to go deeper than where words can take you—your body and nervous system.
EMDR & IFS intensives in MassachusettsGiving you the time and the tools to reach the root of your reactions, reprocess your experiences, and finally heal from trauma.
Trauma doesn’t always look like trauma.Here’s what we can work on together
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People-pleasing & fear of conflict
Saying yes when you mean no, apologizing for things that aren't your fault, and going quiet instead of asking for what you need.
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Anxiety & the inability to rest
Your mind won't switch off, even when nothing is technically wrong. Or maybe you feel guilty about slowing down and on edge when you finally do.
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Childhood wounds & a difficult parent
Growing up as the responsible one, with a parent who couldn't meet you emotionally then and still can't now.
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Perfectionism & never feeling good enough
Impossibly high standards, a loud inner critic, and moving the goalpost every time you reach it.
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A painful experience you carry with you
An assault, an accident, a breakup, a betrayal, or a conversation that you still react to and think about, even if you’ve moved forward on the outside.
Recognize yourself in one (or more than one) of these?
Hi, I’m Haley Tolman Trauma Therapist in Massachusetts and Boston, LICSW
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High-achieving, deeply feeling women who are insightful and self-aware, yet still stuck in the same patterns. My clients are usually the ones holding everything together for everyone else. They've done therapy before, and they can articulate their struggles beautifully, but they're frustrated that none of that understanding has changed how they feel.
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I'm a licensed independent clinical social worker and a Certified EMDR & IFS therapist through EMDRIA and the IFS Institute, with additional training in integrating both approaches. That integration is the heart of how intensives work.
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IFS helps us understand the protective parts of you that learned to please, perform, and stay on guard, and the wounds they've been protecting. EMDR helps reprocess the experiences underneath, so you don't just think differently about your past, but feel differently about it, too.
I started offering trauma therapy intensives in Massachusetts and Boston because I kept watching the same thing happen in talk therapy sessions:
Right around minute 40, when you’re finally settled enough to make meaningful progress, we'd have to wrap up.
With an EMDR & IFS intensive, there's no clock cutting the work short. And the work is different—instead of talking about what happened, EMDR and IFS reprocess it at the brain & body level.
Education & Training
EDUCATION
Master of Social Work, Boston College
Bachelor of Social Work, Utah State University
LICENSURE
Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW), Massachusetts, License #LICSW1142133
Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), Utah, License #12396181-3501
ADVANCED CLINICAL TRAINING
Certified EMDR Therapist and Certified IFS Therapist, with advanced training in complex trauma, dissociative disorders, suicidal and self-harming behaviours, therapy intensives, and integrated EMDR and IFS approaches.
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Certified EMDR Therapist (EMDRIA) and EMDR Consultant-in-Training
Advanced EMDR trainings in complex trauma, dissociative disorders, suicidal and self-harming behaviors.
Certified IFS Therapist (IFS Institute) Level 1 and Level 2, program assistant for IFS trainings, and participation in ongoing IFS consultation
The Integrated EMDR & IFS Model (Levels 1 & 2 with Dr. Kendhal Hart, PsyD)
IFS & Highly Sensitive People training (Martina Williams, LICSW)
Mastering EMDR Therapy Intensives (Dr. Kendhal Hart, PsyD)
Therapy intensive training for therapists, Intensive Design Lab
There are two ways to work with me:
A multi-day intensive to tackle a specific problem or experience, and ongoing intensives for the painful patterns that run deeper.
The Multi-Day Intensive
A focused, 4-session format for working through one issue or traumatic experience.
This is for the experience or issue you can clearly name, such as a painful event, a breakup, an assault, an argument, or a specific behavior pattern that you want to make progress on (ex: people-pleasing).
We set aside a dedicated block of sessions for that one focus, moving through it with EMDR and IFS, with enough time to settle in, process it deeply, and ground before you leave.
You'll start with an intake session, come back a week or two later for two processing days scheduled back-to-back, and finish with an integration session about a week later.
Investment: $2,800, split into two payments
Additional payment plans available
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Session 1: Intake session (90 minutes)
Sessions 2 & 3: EMDR and IFS processing (4 hours each)
Session 4: Integration session (90 minutes)
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A personalized digital workbook with assessments and reflection questions to complete before we start, so our time together is built on a clear foundation.
A 90-minute intake session to identify your goals and map out the beliefs & experiences we'll target.
Two 4-hour processing days on consecutive days, with breaks built in as you need them.
A 90-minute integration session to incorporate new insights and plan your next steps.
A comprehensive written summary of what we processed, which protective parts showed up, and recommendations going forward.
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You have a specific event, theme, or time period to make a meaningful dent in, and you want dedicated time to work through it using EMDR and IFS.
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A single event, like a car accident or an assault
A painful breakup, divorce, or falling-out
A specific conversation or conflict you keep replaying
A stressful stretch that lasted weeks or months
Ongoing Intensives
Extended 3-hour sessions, scheduled at your pace, for deeper and more complex work.
This is best for painful experiences and unresolved pain that spanned years. It could be attachment trauma, a difficult relationship with a parent, or lifelong beliefs and patterns that you’ve felt stuck in.
These sessions are ongoing, but they aren't talk therapy stretched longer. Each 3-hour block uses EMDR and IFS to reach the subconscious parts of your brain where trauma lives, and the goal is fully reprocessing how you feel and react to triggers.
Investment: $750 per intensive.
Please note: a separate 90-minute intake session is required before the first intensive ($300).
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3-hour intensive blocks with enough time to settle, process deeply, and ground before you leave.
A personalized digital workbook to establish your goals and history before we begin.
An approach customized to you, leaning on EMDR, IFS, or an integration of both depending on what your system responds to.
Ongoing summaries and next-step recommendations so the work stays intentional between sessions.
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What you're working through has deeper roots or touches more of your life, such as early childhood trauma, disturbing experiences, and anything that has deeply affected your life for years.
Which Intensive Is Right for You?
Choose Multi-Day Intensive if…
There's one specific experience, event, or pattern you want to work through, such as a single traumatic event, a painful breakup, or a certain reaction you can see coming and still can't stop.
Choose Ongoing Intensives if…
What brought you here is bigger than one event, like a lifelong pattern or a complicated relationship with a parent, and you want to work through it steadily, at a depth weekly therapy can't reach.
If you’re not sure which format is right for you, I can give my recommendation during your free consultation!
You may be wondering…But what would I even talk about for three or four hours?
This is a common question I hear, and it comes from picturing an intensive as talk therapy stretched to three or four hours, which it isn't.
There is a structure that I hold throughout your session. We start with preparation skills and exercises we do together, and then move into EMDR and IFS, where much of the work happens internally, not through talking.
You won’t be sitting there trying to find something to say.
EMDR and IFS aren’t talk therapy, and the length of the sessions has a purpose. Trauma work has a natural arc to help you settle in, reach the hard material, and come back up gently, so nothing feels too ‘intense’ and there’s room for new insights to finish integrating.
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What is EMDR?
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It helps your brain reprocess painful memories that still feel emotionally “stuck,” so they can settle into the past rather than continuing to trigger the same reactions in the present.
Read More
When something painful happens, your brain is meant to process it and file it away as an ordinary memory. Sometimes it doesn’t, and the memory stays stored with its original charge intact, which is why a look or a comment can drop you straight back into feeling small, scared, or not good enough.
EMDR works with that stuck memory using gentle bilateral stimulation, such as following a moving dot with your eyes or tapping side to side. You don’t have to narrate every detail out loud. The point isn’t to understand the memory better. It’s to reprocess it in your brain, so it settles into the past.
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What is IFS?
IFS stands for Internal Family Systems therapy. It helps you understand the protective parts of yourself behind patterns like people-pleasing, self-criticism and anxiety, so you have more choice in how you respond instead of reacting automatically.
Read More
IFS starts with the idea that we’re all made up of different parts, and the ones working the hardest are often your protective parts. The parts that people-please, criticize you, or stay anxious and on guard each took on a job at some point to help keep you safe.
Instead of fighting those parts or trying to think your way past them, IFS helps you understand what they’re protecting and why. As the wounds underneath them get some attention, the protectors don’t have to work so hard, and you can feel more like yourself.
Which Intensive Is Right for You?
In your intensive, I use both EMDR and IFS, leaning more into one or the other depending on what your system responds to.
Why an intensive, and not more talk therapy?
Talk therapy is valuable, especially early on. It helps you understand your history and build the language for what you're feeling.
But understanding a pattern and changing it are two different things.You can know exactly why you people-please or go quiet in conflict and still repeat the same behavior over and over again.
EMDR and IFS reach the deep-seated places where trauma is stored in your nervous system, so what shifts isn't only what you understand about your past, but how it feels now.
Trauma Therapy in Massachusetts and Boston for High-Functioning, Deeply Feeling Women
An EMDR & IFS intensive can help you work through..
Are Therapy Intensives The Right Fit for You?
Therapy intensivesMight be the right fit for you if:
You're insightful, ambitious, and self-aware, and it's frustrating that understanding yourself hasn't been enough to change how you feel
You're often the responsible one, holding it together for everyone else
You feel things deeply, and you're ready to work with that instead of pushing through it
You've done therapy before and want to go deeper than weekly talk therapy sessions
You have the support and stability in your life to do focused emotional work
You want to get to the root of a pattern or experience, not just manage it
EMDR and IFS Therapy Intensives
Are NOT a good fit for you if:
My intensive format works best when the rest of your life is (relatively) steady.
This work may not be the right fit right now if:
You're currently struggling with substance use or another active addiction.
You're experiencing active thoughts of suicide or self-harm and need more immediate, ongoing support.
Your basic needs, like food, housing, or physical safety, aren't reliably met right now.
You're in or leaving an unsafe relationship.
You're in the middle of a major life upheaval, like a move, a divorce, or an acute crisis.
In these situations, steady, consistent support is the better starting place.
Are you a therapist doing your own healing work?
Many of my clients are therapists themselves. Whether you want to help the parts of you that get activated at work, experience EMDR and IFS from the client perspective, or dedicate uninterrupted time to your own growth, an intensive gives you the space for your own healing.
An intensive reaches past what you already know and shifts how it feels.
FAQs
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Since intensives require a significant amount of time in my calendar, a 50% deposit is required to reserve your spot, and the remaining 50% is due the first day of your intensive session. Your deposit is non-refundable, but if you need to reschedule your intensive, the deposit amount can be applied towards your new session.
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With my trauma intensives in Massachusetts, you’re not doing talk therapy for three hours straight. EMDR and IFS are different methods. Instead of talking through and analyzing your past, they work with your brain and nervous system to reach the places where trauma is stored beneath your awareness. Time is spent working with your body and nervous system, and using mindfulness techniques to gently move deeper. These methods need more time to work, which is why they come in an intensive format and not as weekly sessions.
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It depends on what you're working through, since deeper patterns and more complex histories take more time to process. Most people do one intensive every three to six weeks and continue until the experiences they’re targeting are fully reprocessed.
For complex trauma, somewhere between 6 and 12 sessions is typical.
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It depends on the complexity of the issues you’re working through. Often, one Multi-Day Intensive is enough to fully reprocess a specific experience or pattern. Other times, it makes a meaningful dent, and you can choose to keep working on it with me or another therapist for weekly sessions.
By 'specific experience or pattern,' I mean something relatively contained, like a painful breakup, an argument, a car accident, an assault, or a behavior pattern that shows up in one clear place, such as people-pleasing at work.
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Therapy intensives are longer sessions of focused work, often several hours at a stretch instead of the standard 50 minutes. They give you more time to dig deeper into the issues that you’re struggling with and make more meaningful progress.
With a 50-minute session, you often spend the first 15 minutes catching up and the last 15 minutes wrapping up, which leaves about 20 minutes of actual work on your goals. You tend to reach the important material right as it's time to close out, and that starting and stopping week after week is frustrating and slow.
My therapy intensives are trauma-focused, using EMDR and IFS, and come in two formats: a multi-day intensive for one specific experience or pattern, and ongoing intensives for deeper, more complex work over time.
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They're fully virtual. I work with clients across Massachusetts, so you can do your intensive from home or anywhere private and comfortable, without the added stress of a commute on a day of deep emotional work.
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Yes! EMDR and IFS work just as well virtually as they do in person. I guide the bilateral stimulation on screen, and you’ll either follow a moving dot with your eyes, tap side to side, or do another type of guided stimulation.
Being in your own space is actually often a plus because you can settle in with a blanket, a cozy drink, or your pet nearby. When you’re doing challenging and deeply emotional work, it’s helpful to be in an environment that makes you feel comfortable and relaxed.
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No, I’m not in-network with any insurance providers. Insurance doesn’t cover the intensive format, since it's built around plans that assume weekly 50-minute sessions. Working privately is what makes this format possible, and it gives us more freedom in general: the work is shaped around your goals and how you respond, not what a plan will approve. It also means no mental health diagnosis is required to justify treatment, so nothing follows you onto your medical record afterward.
What if I'm not sure I'm ready or which format fits?
That's what the free consultation is for. We'll talk through what you're working on, whether an intensive is the right fit right now, and if so, which format makes the most sense. Just get in touch, and I’ll help you figure it out!