Why I Became an EMDR Consultant — And What I Wish Every Therapist Was Trained to Do

By Linda Smith, MA, LMHC — , Directory of Operations, NWMHA

I didn't set out to become an EMDR consultant. I set out to get better at EMDR.

When I completed my basic training, I thought I understood the protocol. I had the manual. I had the theory. I had practiced with other trainees. I started seeing clients with EMDR and, by most measures, it seemed to be working.

Then I started consultation. And I realized how much I hadn't known.

What consultation revealed

My first consultation sessions were humbling in the best possible way. Presenting a case to an approved consultant and walking through what I'd done — describing my clinical decisions in real time, out loud, to someone who knew the protocol deeply — exposed gaps I hadn't been aware of.

I was moving too fast through the preparation phase. I was making assumptions about a client's window of tolerance that weren't backed by enough assessment. In some cases I was targeting memories in an order that made clinical sense to me but wasn't actually following the treatment plan protocol. Small things that, accumulated across sessions, meant my clients weren't getting the full benefit of what EMDR can offer.

None of this was catastrophic. But it was wrong. And I wouldn't have found it without someone looking at my work.

What I started seeing in consultation with other therapists

As I progress toward becoming an approved consultant myself, I began providing consultation to therapists working toward EMDRIA certification. What I heard in those sessions confirmed what I'd been seeing in a different form — through clients who came to our practice after EMDR elsewhere.

Therapists running bilateral stimulation continuously, for long sets, without pausing to process what emerged. Therapists who skipped resourcing because clients seemed stable. Therapists who ended sessions without closure because time ran out. Therapists who were applying the bilateral stimulation component of EMDR to trauma without the protocol that makes it safe — and not realizing that what they were doing wasn't complete treatment.

These weren't negligent clinicians. Most of them were thoughtful, caring therapists who genuinely wanted to help their clients. They had simply received a training that gave them the technique without the clinical judgment to deploy it correctly. And without consultation, there had been no opportunity to discover the gap.

Why the field has a problem

EMDR basic training is 5-6 days. Twenty hours of consultation are required for certification — but certification is optional. There is no mechanism that prevents a therapist from completing a training and practicing EMDR indefinitely without any further oversight or development.

For most therapy approaches, this might be an acceptable risk. EMDR is different. It's a structured protocol designed to access and reprocess traumatic material. Done correctly, it can produce meaningful change faster than almost any other approach. Done incorrectly — without proper preparation, without the correct sequencing, without closure — it can leave clients flooded, destabilized, and more reluctant to seek help in the future.

The gap between trained and competent is not trivial. And the field's current structure doesn't do enough to close it.

Why I pursued approval and what it required

Becoming an EMDRIA-approved consultant requires meeting standards that go significantly beyond basic certification. It requires a depth of clinical experience, a track record of consulting with other therapists, and a demonstrated understanding of the protocol sophisticated enough to identify errors in someone else's work.

I pursued it because I believed that the way to address the problem I was seeing wasn't to complain about it — it was to build something better. The training center at NWMHA exists because Kevin and I decided we wanted to train therapists the way we wish we had been trained: with intensive supervision, with ongoing consultation built into the model, and with a standard that asks not just "did you complete the protocol" but "did your client actually move."

If you're a therapist working toward EMDRIA certification and looking for consultation that takes your clinical development seriously — that's exactly what I do.

And if you're a client who has had EMDR before and it didn't feel right — I'd like you to know that what you experienced may not have been the full protocol. You deserve the real thing.

For consultation inquiries or new client intakes, apply at the link below. We respond within 3 business days. →

Why We Started a Training Center — What We Kept Hearing About EMDR Scared Us

By Kevin St-Jacques, PsyD and Linda Smith, LMHC — Northwest Mental Health Alliance

This is not an easy article to write. It requires us to say something uncomfortable about a field we love and a therapy we've built our practice around.

But we think it needs to be said. Because the pattern we kept seeing — across clients, across consultation sessions, across intake after intake — was too consistent to ignore. And staying quiet about it felt like a choice we couldn't make.

So here it is: a lot of EMDR being practiced right now is not being done correctly. And some of it is causing real harm.

What we started hearing

It didn't happen all at once. It accumulated.

Clients would come to us after working with another EMDR therapist — sometimes for months — describing sessions that didn't sound like EMDR. A therapist who did bilateral stimulation for twenty minutes straight without stopping to process what came up. Sessions that jumped directly into trauma material without any preparation, assessment, or resourcing. Clients who left sessions feeling worse than when they arrived, with no closure, no grounding, no way to put things back in a container before driving home.

Some of them had been retraumatized. Not because EMDR doesn't work — it does. But because what they received wasn't actually EMDR. It was bilateral stimulation applied to trauma without the protocol that makes it safe and effective.

EMDR is a structured, eight-phase protocol. Bilateral stimulation is one component of it. Bilateral stimulation alone, without the rest of the protocol, is not EMDR.

We also heard this from the other direction — from therapists who came to us for consultation. What they described in their sessions sometimes stopped us cold. Skipping the history-taking phase because it felt slow. Moving into active trauma processing without establishing any sense of safety or internal resources for the client. Not completing closure at the end of sessions, leaving clients emotionally flooded and ungrounded.

These weren't bad therapists. Many of them genuinely cared about their clients. They had completed EMDR training. They believed they were doing EMDR correctly. They just hadn't been taught what correctly actually looked like — and the gap between what they learned and what the protocol requires was significant.

Why this happens

EMDR basic training is a 5-6 day course. That’s it. For a structured, eight-phase treatment protocol designed to address some of the most complex presentations in clinical practice.

To be clear: that training is a beginning. EMDRIA — the governing body for EMDR — requires many hours of consultation beyond basic training before a therapist can become certified. Twenty hours of working with an approved consultant who can watch your clinical work, identify gaps, and help you develop genuine competence.

Most therapists who complete basic training never pursue that consultation. There's no requirement to. There's no enforcement mechanism. A therapist can complete a basic training and begin billing for EMDR the following Monday, indefinitely, with no further oversight.

The credential "EMDR trained" tells you almost nothing about whether a therapist knows how to do EMDR well.

What we decided to do

We'd been running our practice for years when we made the decision to formalize what we were already doing informally: training therapists to a higher standard than the field requires.

The training center at NWMHA exists because we couldn't find what we needed in the existing landscape. Basic training courses that send therapists out the door with a certificate and minimal supervised practice. Continuing education that teaches technique without clinical judgment. A culture in the field that treats EMDR as a skill to add rather than a discipline to develop.

We wanted something different. A program where interns and clinicians learn EMDR from the ground up, under close supervision, with ongoing consultation built into the model rather than treated as optional. Where the standard isn't "did you complete the training" but "can you actually do this safely and effectively."

What this means for clients

Every clinician at NWMHA — including our graduate therapists — practices under a model of ongoing clinical oversight. Cases are reviewed regularly. Consultation is built into the week, not an occasional add-on. We review transcripts of sessions and notes. When something unusual comes up in a session, there is a licensed, experienced clinician to consult with — immediately, not eventually.

This is not standard practice. In most private practice settings, a therapist sees clients alone, writes notes alone, and makes clinical decisions alone. At NWMHA, no one is working in isolation.

We built it this way because of what we kept hearing. Because clients deserve to know that the EMDR they're receiving has been taught carefully, supervised closely, and held to a standard that goes beyond the minimum the field requires.

That's what the training center is for. That's why it exists.

If you've had EMDR before and it didn't feel right — or didn't work — we'd like to talk to you. What you experienced may not have been the full protocol. There's a difference, and it matters.

Apply for an intake at NWMHA — we respond within 3 business days. →