EMDR & IFS INTENSIVES · CHARLOTTE, NC

You're the one who holds it all together.

Deep, focused EMDR and IFS intensives for high-achieving women in Charlotte

Trying to keep it all together keeps you stuck in motion, overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the same time.You may understand where your patterns came from. You may know why you overfunction, shut down, please others, stay busy, or lose touch with your own needs. But being highly capable and insightful doesn’t stop the anxiety, burnout, or stress. Intensives could be a great start or addition to your therapy work.

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DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR?

If you've spent your whole life being the responsible one.

You're capable. Everyone says so. You're the one people rely on — at work, at home, in your family, in your marriage. From the outside, you're thriving.

Inside, it's different. You're exhausted in a way sleep doesn't fix. You keep asking yourself why can't I do this better? and what's wrong with me that I can't have all of this and still feel okay?

Rest feels bad. Slowing down feels almost physically wrong, like you're doing something you'll be punished for. So you keep going. You keep producing. You keep being the one who notices what everyone needs.

And somewhere underneath, there's a quieter truth you don't say out loud: you're tired of holding everyone up. You'd like to be held for once. You just don't know how to let that happen — and you're not even sure you're allowed to want it.

THIS WORK IS FOR YOU IF

You've been the adult in the room since before you were grown.
You overfunction in your relationships without deciding to, it's just your default.
You feel like a failure when you're not being productive.
You don't rest well; stillness feels uncomfortable, not restful.
You're the emotional and logistical engine of your household, and you're depleted.
On paper your life works. You just don't feel the way you thought you would.

THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU

The overfunctioning isn't a personality trait.
It's a trauma response.

If you grew up being the one who managed things, a parent's emotions, a sibling's needs, the household, the peace; your nervous system was trained young. It learned that safety comes from being useful. That love is something you earn by taking care of others. That your needs come last, if they come at all.

That training worked. It made you competent, reliable, the person everyone counts on. It's also why rest feels unsafe, why you overfunction on autopilot, and why you don't quite know how to take up space in your own relationships — how to be a full person who gets cared for, instead of the one always doing the caring.

You're not failing at slowing down. You're doing exactly what you were trained to do to stay safe. And it can change.

WHY AN INTENSIVE

Instead of one hour a week, squeezed between everything else.

Weekly therapy is one hour, then you’re thrown right back into life. An intensive is different. Dedicated, extended time to do focused, meaningful work, with the space to actually go where it matters and the support to come back to steady ground before you leave.

For women who are used to being efficient and are tired of spinning their wheels, this format tends to fit. It respects your time and your intelligence, and it goes deep enough to make a real difference.

Is this actually effective? Research on intensive, condensed trauma treatment has found outcomes comparable to — and in some studies better than — traditional weekly therapy, in a fraction of the calendar time, with notably lower dropout rates.

Think about your calendar. Every block belongs to someone else. Work, your kids, your partner, your family, the thousand small things you're the only one who remembers. When does any of it belong to you?

TIME THAT IS ACTUALLY YOURS

There's never time set aside for you.
This is.

An intensive is time that's genuinely yours. Not stolen in an hour between obligations. Not squeezed in and paid for with guilt. Reserved, protected time and space to turn toward yourself — with someone whose only job in that room is you.

For a woman who has spent her life making sure everyone else is taken care of, that alone is part of the work. Letting yourself be the priority, even for a few focused hours, is the beginning of the change.

Your intensive draws on three approaches that fit together, plus the nervous-system work that makes deep processing feel safe.

THE METHOD

How the work actually works.

Get to know your parts

INTERNAL FAMILY SYSTEMS

A way of working with the different parts of you, the relentless inner critic, the part that overfunctions, the part that's exhausted, the part that's scared to need anyone. Instead of fighting these parts, we get to know them. When they feel understood, they soften and you reach the steadier self underneath.

Reprocessing what’s stuck

EMDR

A structured, well-researched therapy that helps your brain reprocess old experiences that still drive present-day reactions — the overreaction, the dread, the not-good-enough feeling that shows up out of proportion. EMDR helps those old experiences finally settle, so they stop running the show.

Learning to take up space

RELATIONAL & ATTACHMENT

So much of the overfunctioning lives in your relationships, the default to caretake, the trouble receiving. This work looks at how you learned to relate, and helps you build a different template: one where you can have needs, take up space, and let yourself be cared for, too.

Safe enough to go deep

NERVOUS SYSTEM & SOMATIC

Deep work is only safe when your body is supported through it. We build in grounding and regulation tools so you can go to hard places and come back to steady. For a woman whose baseline is "on," learning what regulated actually feels like is part of the healing.

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THE PATH - START TO FINISH

A personalized and structure to guide our work.

1 A free consultation call

A short, no-pressure call to make sure this is the right fit — for what you're carrying and where you are right now.

Your intake & preparation session (90 minutes)

Before any deep work, we meet to understand your history, your patterns, and your goals — and to make sure you feel safe and ready. This is also where we choose your intensive dates together, so you leave with a real plan.

The Liminal Intensive Guide

Your custom preparation workbook helps you map your inner world before we begin: your parts, your attachment patterns, what you're carrying, what you want to be different. It becomes the framework we use to track your growth and capture insights throughout.

The intensive

Focused, extended time using EMDR, IFS, and relational work, paced with nervous-system regulation so you can go deep and stay resourced. We work with what's actually driving the exhaustion — not just the surface.

Your integration & follow-up session

Insights are only worth what you do with them. Afterward, we meet again to integrate what shifted, steady the gains, and make sure you leave with tools you can use in your real, fast-moving life.

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Hi, I’m Shaunna! I’m glad you’re here.

WHO I AM

I'm the founder of Liminal Psychotherapy here in Charlotte, a Board Certified and Nationally Certified Counselor specializing in women's mental wellness and maternal mental health. I work with high-achieving women, the capable, responsible ones who are quietly running on empty. I’m passionate about this work because these women are usually the foundation of their family and relationships, and don’t always know they need help and care since they are highly capable.

I hold master's degrees in clinical mental health counseling and in elementary education, with additional training in advanced perinatal psychotherapy and in working with adults who carry childhood trauma. Early in my career, I spent two consecutive years interning with a woman-owned psychiatric practice, learning perinatal and postpartum mental health from multiple clinical perspectives and working closely alongside a psychiatric provider.

The work I'm most drawn to is childhood, attachment, and developmental trauma. I'm an EMDRIA-certified EMDR therapist and work integratively with IFS, attachment, relational, and somatic approaches. This combination has been remarkably powerful for exactly this kind of healing.

Shaunna Rushing, National Certified Counselor (NCC), National Board for Certified Counselors · Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor Associate (LCMHCA), North Carolina · EMDRIA-Certified EMDR Therapist · Advanced training in perinatal psychotherapy and childhood / developmental trauma · MA, Clinical Mental Health Counseling; MEd, Elementary Education.

A different approach to therapy.

WHAT’S DIFFERENT

Built for high functioning women

Designed around the specific pattern of the woman who looks fine and is quietly depleted. It’s not adapted for you as an afterthought.

Depth over volume

A focused intensive with real structure, not another weekly hour that can be one more thing to manage.

A framework you keep

The Liminal Intensive Guide and your regulation tools stay with you. You leave with a map of your own inner world, not just the memory of a good session.

Genuinely integrative

EMDR, IFS, relational, and somatic work used together and paced to your nervous system, not one technique applied to everyone.

THE INVESTMENT

Priced as a complete program.

Each intensive includes your consultation, your 90-minute intake & preparation session, The Liminal Intensive Guide, the intensive itself, and your integration follow-up.

Half Day Intensive

$1,400

A focused half day of deep work over 3 hours.

Free consultation call
90-minute intake & prep session
The Liminal Intensive Guide
~3 hours of EMDR/IFS intensive work
Integration follow-up session

Full Day Intensive

$2,200

A focused full day of deep work over 6 hours.

Free consultation call
90-minute intake & prep session
The Liminal Intensive Guide
~6 hours of EMDR/IFS intensive work
Integration follow-up session

Private-pay · Payment plans available · In person in Charlotte, NC

QUESTIONS

What women ask before they begin

Frequently asked questions about EMDR intensives in Charlotte, NC

An EMDR intensive is a condensed format of trauma therapy that uses extended, focused sessions instead of one hour a week. Research on intensive trauma treatment has found outcomes comparable to weekly therapy in far less calendar time.
Weekly therapy spreads work across months in 50-minute pieces. An intensive sets aside dedicated time to go deep, with enough space to process and return to steady ground — which many busy, high-achieving women find fits their lives and their way of working far better.
No. Many of the women I work with don't think of themselves as traumatized at all. They just know they're exhausted, overextended, and can't figure out why doing everything "right" doesn't feel better. That's exactly who this work is for.
IFS (Internal Family Systems) is an evidence-based approach that helps you understand and work with the different parts of yourself — the inner critic, the overachiever, the exhausted part — so they can soften and you can access a calmer, steadier core.
Safety is built into the process. We spend real time on preparation and nervous-system regulation before any deep processing, so you have grounding tools in place and never go further than your system can handle in the moment.
It begins with a free consultation call. If it's a good fit, we schedule a 90-minute intake and preparation session — and at that session, we choose your intensive dates together. You're never committing to the deep work before you've met me and know exactly what to expect.
I see clients in person in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Intensives are private-pay and priced as a complete program. Half-day intensives start at $1,400 and full-day intensives at $2,200. This includes your intake and preparation session, The Liminal Intensive Guide, the intensive itself, and your integration follow-up session. Payment plans are available.