Intensive Trauma Therapy & Equine Healing Retreats
For some, healing from trauma requires something different than a weekly appointment. Michaela offers immersive trauma therapy intensives designed to help you move beyond survival and into lasting change. Instead of opening painful memories only to close them again 60 minutes later week after week, we devote anywhere from half of a day to four consecutive days to holding your story with safety, compassion, and depth.
Through a blend of EMDR, Equine- Assisted Psychotherapy, Internal Family System, somatic practices, and other trauma-informed approaches, you’ll have the space to process and rewrite your narrative in a way that honors every part of you. This extended time together creates the opportunity for profound breakthroughs that are difficult to achieve in traditional weekly therapy settings.
Uninterrupted Focus: Deepen the healing process without the distractions of daily life.
Lasting Impact: Work through layers of trauma in a condensed, supportive container.
Tailored Care: Your intensive is created around your unique needs, history, and goals.
Alongside evidence-based trauma therapy, Michaela offers equine-assisted sessions that invite a level of transformation talk therapy alone cannot reach. Horses mirror our nervous systems with profound accuracy, reflecting back what words can’t always capture. In partnership with them, you’ll:
Experience regulation through rhythm and connection.
Practice setting boundaries, building trust and consent, and repairing attachment wounds in real time in an embodied way.
Learn how to attune to your body’s signals while being supported by a living, responsive being.
Access deeper emotional release, often in ways that feel gentler and more organic than traditional methods.
Gain access to deeper regions of the brain responsible for trauma responses.
Why Choose an Intensive?
The Power of Equine Therapy
Many clients describe the equine work as the missing piece; the moment their insights truly “land” in both mind and body.
What You Can Expect
During your intensive, your focus will be entirely on your healing. In addition to trauma therapy (EMDR), and equine work, you may choose to integrate supportive practices such as trauma-sensitive yoga, musical healing approaches, or nature-based experiences. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a type of therapy that helps people heal from painful memories. By gently engaging both hemispheres of the brain using bilateral stimulation (BLS), often through eye movements, tapping, or sound, EMDR allows your mind and body to reprocess stuck experiences so they no longer feel as overwhelming in the present. With horses as therapy partners, we can also achieve BLS by being carried on horseback at the walk as we reprocess. Mounted work is not a requirement, and no prior horse experience is needed to participate in an intensive. Every intensive is personalized to provide a safe, nurturing space where your healing unfolds at its own pace.
You’ll leave with:
Greater clarity and integration around your trauma story.
Practical tools for regulation and resilience.
A renewed sense of self-compassion and hope for your future.
“When the horse carries and rocks us in attuned, connected movement, as a mother carries a child, something deeply regulating activates in the brain. This physical attunement creates relational connection that reaches deep into the limbic system (part of the bran responsible for emotions, memory, and relationships).”
Is This For You?
If you’ve carried childhood trauma, attachment wounds, or the weight of PTSD and C-PTSD, this intensive offers a chance to step into a different way of being. Whether you’re ready to finally feel free from the past, or simply long for a deeper connection to yourself, this may be the step you’ve been waiting for.
