Room to Breathe Intensives
A guided space to slow down, breathe deep,
and finally come up for air
About me
Hi, I'm Emily Tate, Licensed Professional Counselor, founder of Back to You Counseling Services here in Richmond, Va and now, founder of Room to Breathe Intensives.
I love to learn and add more tools to my toolbox, always: Registered Play Therapist, EMDR, Brainspotting, Parts Work, Safe and Sound Protocol, Ketamine Assisted Therapy, and whatever I'm inevitably studying by the time you read this. Every approach I learn gives me one more way in when the usual door is locked, and I refuse to run out of doors. In twenty-plus years of this work I've watched deep healing happen in real time, and I've watched people laugh right in the middle of the hardest parts, because serious work doesn't have to be solemn. I also co-founded Therapist Collective RVA, because healing works better in community, for clients and clinicians alike.
Room to Breathe exists because of something I kept watching in my weekly practice. A client and I would finally get somewhere deep, the nervous system opening, the old THING right there, ready, and the clock would say our time was up. Then next week we would spend the first part of the session just finding our way back to it, and sometimes it was not as close as it had been. 55ish minutes is enough for a lot of good therapy. It is not enough for the work that needs you to stay with the THING once you have finally reached it. I built this practice to give that work what it actually requires: room.
Finally, come up for air.
Why Intensives?
Maybe you've been holding your breath for a long time. Maybe you’ve tried the apps, the books, the podcasts, maybe years of genuinely good weekly therapy. Some of it helped. And still, there's that THING underneath, the one that never quite gets reached before time is up and you're back in the parking lot, holding your breath again until the next week.
That's what an intensive is for: enough time to finally reach it, and stay all the way through it.
Finally, enough time
An intensive is extended, focused therapy: hours or days instead of minutes, built around one goal. No warming up for thirty minutes only to stop right when we get somewhere. We prepare together, we go where the work needs to go, and we stay until your nervous system has done what it's been waiting years to do.
The work I do uses EMDR, Brainspotting, IFS/Ego States/Parts Work, SSP, and Attachment Informed therapy, the same deep, brain-based approaches I use at Back to You Counseling, with room to actually finish what we start.
And yes, sometimes Play. I'm a Registered Play Therapist, and that training doesn't go out the door when the client is an adult. Some Parts need to heal the way they should have been allowed to heal back when the THING happened, and that way is play. Sometimes grown-up material is simply easier to get near with a little playful distance. It's all allowed and welcome in here, however the healing needs to happen.
For some clients, ketamine assistance is an option, in partnership with Journey Clinical, who handles all medical screening, prescribing, and monitoring. A medicine session runs about three hours and has a day to itself; if you're doing more than one, they're spaced out with integration in between. My role stays what it always is: your therapist, before, during, and after.
Curious about all my training behind this? You can find the full list of my tools and credentials here.
About Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP)
For some clients, ketamine-assisted intensives open doors that are otherwise hard to reach — in partnership with Journey Clinical, who handles everything medical. Learn how KAP works here.
Intensives come in three lengths: The Deep Breath (half day), The Long Exhale (full day), and Open Air (multi-day).
Room to Breathe works with adults. If you're looking for intensive work for a younger client, reach out and we'll talk about what makes sense.
Fit Comes First
I say this in every consultation: fit matters more than anything. More than modality, more than credentials, more than how impressive any of it sounds. The research says the relationship between you and your therapist is the best predictor of whether therapy works, and everything I've seen in this work says the research is right.
So the free consultation isn't a sales call. It's a fit check, in both directions. If I'm the right person for what you're carrying, you'll feel it, and we'll get to work. If I'm not, I'll help you find the person who is. Co-founding Therapist Collective RVA means I know a lot of clinicians in this town, and when I don't already know the right one for you, I'll go ask until I do. Getting you to the right person is a good outcome in my book, not a lost one.
After that call, if we're both in, there's a screening form. It asks about your history, where things stand right now, and what you've got around you for support. I read it before we set any dates. Intensives ask a lot of a nervous system, and part of my job is making sure the timing is right and not just the fit. Sometimes the answer is yes, and here's where we start. Sometimes it's not yet, and here's what would need to be in place first. Either way you'll hear it straight.
You're not shopping for a service. You're choosing a person to go into the deep end with. I'll help you choose well, even if that's not me.