I recently raised the fee for my three day EMDR intensive from $6,000 to $8,000, and from $7,000 to $9,000 when ketamine is part of it. When I quote those numbers to therapists, I get a wide eyed look. I almost never get that look from clients. If you are a therapist who cannot imagine charging that, the reaction is understandable, and it is usually a story about what you think you are selling.
Pricing is where more intensive therapists get stuck than anywhere else, so I want to walk through exactly what that number covers.
A three day EMDR intensive is priced on three things: the therapist’s layered clinical training, the full client experience before, during, and after the intensive days, and demand. My non ketamine intensive is $8,000 and my ketamine assisted intensive is $9,000. If you are consistently overbooked at your current fee, the fee is below its ceiling.
Key Takeaways
- My three day EMDR intensive went from $6,000 to $8,000, and from $7,000 to $9,000 with ketamine, in 2026. The extra $1,000 for ketamine has not deterred anyone.
- Clients pay for years of layered training, not three days: basic EMDR, certification, IFS informed EMDR, parts work, ketamine assisted EMDR, ongoing consultation, a $150 a month Journey Clinical membership, and higher liability insurance.
- The intensive starts before the client arrives: provider contact, medical clearance, a workbook adapted to the 90 minute intake, a curated playlist, and local travel recommendations.
- Comfort is clinical for a multi day format: coffee orders, freshly washed blankets, a scent check, a gift bag, and time outdoors are part of attunement.
- After the intensive: a parting ritual, a 1,500 to 2,000 word written summary sent through HIPAA compliant email, provider follow up, and a 60 to 90 minute session about a month later.
- A very high yes rate is a pricing signal. I raised my fee because I was booking more intensives than I could sustainably run.
What are clients actually paying for in an EMDR intensive?
Clients in an EMDR intensive are paying for the years of training that make a multi day, accelerated format safe, not for three days of a therapist’s time. For me that stack includes EMDR basic training and consultation, EMDRIA certification, IFS informed EMDR, separate IFS training, extensive work on dissociation and parts work, ongoing consultation to keep all of it clinically sound, business masterminds, and ketamine assisted EMDR training with the consultation and case coordination it requires.
The certification piece alone is a real investment. EMDRIA’s published certification requirements, current as of 2025, call for at least 50 clinical sessions using EMDR therapy with a minimum of 25 clients, plus 20 hours of consultation with an EMDRIA approved consultant, on top of completing an approved basic training. Every layer after that adds cost and time.
Ketamine adds its own line items. I am part of Journey Clinical, which is $150 a month. I had to increase my liability insurance. I added a separate consent form. And there is a real risk factor in helping someone through a non ordinary state of consciousness, which means the price has to reflect the assessment skill it takes to decide whether a client is a good fit in the first place.
“Clients aren’t just paying for the days. They’re paying for years of my layered ongoing training, consultation that makes the format safe, that gives me the ability to assess if this is for someone who’s a good fit.”
Dr. Carolyn Solo, PhD, LCSW, Future Template Parent EP 167
What happens before an EMDR intensive that justifies the price?
An EMDR intensive starts well before the client walks in, and that preparation time belongs in the fee. Before every intensive I make contact with the client’s providers: medical clearance and a prescriber for ketamine assisted work, the referring or ongoing therapist, the psychiatrist or psychiatric nurse practitioner if there is one, and sometimes a couples therapist. That is not just the conversations themselves. It is the phone tag and email tag to set them up, and that is my time.
Then there is the workbook. I have a standard intensive workbook that anyone can download from my website. After the 90 minute intake, I adapt it to the client: ideas for resourcing that fit them, things I want them to have in writing, and for ketamine intensives, a few pages on preparation, safety, and what the experience might feel like. I also put together a curated playlist based on what we are working on and the client’s own suggestions.
Because many clients travel to me, I send a thorough list of places to stay and eat. In a small town, a personal connection matters: I will tell a client to mention my name when they book, and the hotel that is “really busy this season” often finds a way. I will also mention which restaurant is closed on Tuesdays. Those touches are small, and they are exactly what makes a client feel that this experience was curated for them.
Why does comfort matter clinically in a multi day intensive?
Comfort and personalization are part of attunement in an EMDR intensive, and they are clinically supportive in a way that barely registers in a 50 minute session. A client who will be in the room with me for three days needs the room to work for them. So I ask about sensory sensitivities, particularly around smell, before I light anything. I ask for their coffee or tea order and bring it every morning. I ask about snacks and allergies before I stock the room. I have furniture a client can lie down on, which matters for EMDR in general and for ketamine especially, and I have a stack of blankets that I wash the day before every new client arrives.
I also give each client a Vermont themed gift bag on day one: a couple of local snacks, a beanie or cozy socks from a shop in town, a few soaps, all checked against their allergies. I am right by a five mile path along a river, and if the client is open to it, I bring the outdoors into the intensive in every season. Between days I send recommendations for a hike or a massage on their integration day.
“They’re not just an hour in your day. They are your day. They are your week. That is such a valuable thing to offer a client.”
Dr. Carolyn Solo, PhD, LCSW, Future Template Parent EP 167
For clients with a lot of attachment wounding, that sense of being important can occasionally feel overwhelming, and when it comes up we work with it. It is also deeply healing, and it is a large part of what an intensive offers that weekly therapy cannot.
What should happen after an EMDR intensive ends?
An EMDR intensive should close with a ritual, a written record, and a plan, and all three are part of what the client paid for. On the last day I do some sort of parting ritual with the client, whether that is planting a small succulent together or letting them choose a small gift from my office as a reminder of the work.
Then I close the loop with every provider I contacted at the start, because continuity of care is part of the service and because those relationships come back to an intensive practice many times over. The ketamine provider I work with most often now remembers me first when one of his patients needs therapy, and a thank you card after a busy stretch matters more than it sounds.
I also write the client a detailed summary: where they started, what we worked on, what I saw, what they noticed. Mine run between 1,500 and 2,000 words. I do not record sessions. I take detailed handwritten notes, photograph them, and upload them to Berries, a HIPAA compliant AI scribe, which drafts the notes and the summary for me to edit. The summary goes out through Paubox, a HIPAA compliant email service that connects to a regular Gmail account, so I never need an encrypted link. Paubox costs $384 a year at list price, and their referral program takes $250 off, so it is a small line item for the confidence it gives me.
Finally, I schedule a 60 to 90 minute follow up about a month later, and the workbook has pages the client fills in after the intensive so that the follow up has something concrete to focus on.
When should you raise the price of an EMDR intensive?
An EMDR intensive fee should go up when the yes rate is consistently high and the therapist cannot sustainably run the volume they are booking. That is the exact situation I was in at $6,000. I was getting so many yeses that I could not manage it, and I find it very hard to say no to an intensive once someone has booked the consultation, because I love the work and the income is meaningful. The high yes rate told me two things: the price was below the ceiling, and I needed to slow down.
“If you’re consistently overbooked or getting a very high yes rate, that’s in itself a pricing signal. The price is probably below your capacity’s true ceiling and the market ceiling.”
Dr. Carolyn Solo, PhD, LCSW, Future Template Parent EP 167
Rising costs are the second reason. Ongoing training and consultation, providers, office space, business coaching, marketing, a high quality accountant: all of it costs money, and I want to pay the people I work with what they deserve. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the Consumer Price Index rose 2.9 percent over calendar year 2024, and the specialized services a practice like mine depends on have outpaced that in my experience. A fee that never moves is a fee that quietly shrinks.
The third reason is what the higher price makes possible. Charging $8,000 and $9,000 lets me offer one pro bono intensive a year, freely and with generosity, because the other intensives carry it.
Does a high intensive fee scare clients away?
A high intensive fee builds trust with the right clients more often than it creates resistance. That has been my experience, especially with ketamine assisted work, where a client is trusting me with something significant and wants to feel that expertise reflected in how the whole thing is run. A higher price sends that signal.
Clear marketing does the rest. My pricing is on my website, so the fee is not a surprise by the time someone reaches out. People who do not want to pay it have usually priced themselves out before the consultation, and the people who book are ready. Since I raised the ketamine intensive to $9,000, the additional $1,000 has not deterred anyone. Almost everyone I speak with wants the ketamine component.
The Bottom Line
In a multi day, specialized intensive model, the price has to reflect the therapist’s clinical training and the full client experience, not just the hours in the room. So the question I would ask any intensive therapist is this: where are you underpricing? Is it the training investment? Is it the client experience? Are you actually counting everything this costs you, financially, emotionally, and in time?
If the honest answer is that there is no way in hell you could charge this, that is exactly the conversation I want to have with you. I have helped many therapists get there, and the best time to start was yesterday.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a three day EMDR intensive cost?
My three day EMDR intensive is $8,000, or $9,000 with ketamine assisted sessions, as of 2026. Fees vary widely between therapists, but a well priced intensive reflects the therapist’s specialized training and the full experience around the sessions, not only the contact hours.
What extra costs come with ketamine assisted EMDR intensives?
Ketamine assisted EMDR adds training, ongoing consultation, provider coordination and medical clearance, a Journey Clinical membership at $150 a month, higher liability insurance, and a separate consent form. I price the ketamine intensive $1,000 above the non ketamine version to cover that, and the difference has not deterred clients.
How do you know your intensive is underpriced?
A consistently high yes rate is the clearest signal. If nearly everyone who reaches a consultation books, and you cannot sustainably run the volume, the fee is below both your capacity ceiling and the market ceiling. That was the case for me at $6,000.
Do you need a HIPAA compliant email to send intensive summaries?
Yes. A 1,500 to 2,000 word clinical summary needs to travel through a HIPAA compliant channel. I use Paubox, which works with a regular Gmail account and costs $384 a year at list price, with $250 off through a referral. Sending through it means no encrypted links or portal logins for the client.
Listen to the full conversation: Future Template Parent EP 167, Dr. Carolyn Solo, PhD, LCSW, on the price increase for her EMDR intensives and everything the fee covers. Listen on Apple Podcasts.
