The Difference Between "EMDR Trained" and "EMDR Competent"
By Northwest Mental Health Alliance
When you search for an EMDR therapist, almost every therapist profile says the same thing: "EMDR trained." It's listed alongside CBT, DBT, mindfulness, and half a dozen other approaches as a service they offer.
What that phrase tells you is that a therapist completed a basic training at some point. What it doesn't tell you — and what actually matters — is what happened after that training.
What basic EMDR training involves
The standard EMDR basic training approved by EMDRIA — the Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing International Association — is a 5-6 day course, including didactic training, demonstrations, and practice with other trainees.
To be fair, this training is not nothing. It covers the protocol, the theory, the phases. Trainees practice bilateral stimulation with each other. They leave with a working understanding of what EMDR is supposed to look like.
But it is not enough to make someone competent in a complex trauma treatment protocol. And the field knows this — which is why EMDRIA has a certification process that requires significantly more.
What EMDRIA certification actually requires
To become EMDRIA certified, a therapist must complete the following beyond basic training:
A minimum of fifty EMDR sessions with actual clients
Twenty hours of consultation with an EMDRIA-approved consultant
Continuing education in EMDR
An active license in good standing
That consultation requirement is the most important piece. Twenty hours with an approved consultant means twenty hours of having your clinical work examined by someone who can identify gaps, correct errors, and push you toward genuine competence. It means someone has actually looked at how you practice.
Most therapists who complete basic training never pursue certification. There is no requirement to. No enforcement. No follow-up. The training happens and then the therapist goes back to their practice and uses EMDR — or something they call EMDR — indefinitely.
What competence actually looks like
An EMDR-competent therapist has done more than attend a training. They have:
Delivered EMDR to a range of clients with different presentations and levels of complexity
Worked through stuck cases in consultation — learning what to do when the standard protocol isn't moving the way it should
Developed clinical judgment about when to proceed with processing and when to slow down and stabilize
Learned how to adapt the protocol for clients who are highly activated, dissociative, or have complex trauma histories
Made mistakes and had those mistakes examined and corrected in a supervised setting
That last one is significant. Every therapist makes clinical errors, especially early in their EMDR practice. The difference between a competent EMDR therapist and an undertrained one isn't that one never makes errors — it's that one has had those errors caught and corrected before they become patterns.
What this means at NWMHA
At NWMHA, we have built a model where consultation and supervision are not optional extras — they are built into the practice. Our supervised graduate therapists work under licensed clinicians who review their cases regularly. Our licensed therapists have completed significant post-training consultation. Kevin St-Jacques and Linda Smith are both EMDRIA-approved consultants in training, which means they have met the field's standard for clinical expertise and are qualified to help certify other therapists.
When we say we specialize in EMDR, we mean that everyone practicing here has gone significantly beyond the basic training. We mean that clinical oversight is ongoing, not historical. We mean that the standard we hold ourselves to is what EMDR is supposed to look like — not what a two-day training makes possible.
"EMDR trained" is a starting point. Ask what came after.
Interested in working with an EMDR-specialized practice? Apply for an intake — we respond within 3 business days. →