Rebecca Saunders (00:03.864)
Hello and welcome to the EMDR Doctor podcast.
This is a podcast for clients where I share and explore information about all things EMDR. My name is Dr. Caroline Lloyd. I'm a mental health GP and an EMDR practitioner. And my goal is to demystify EMDR or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing to help you on your EMDR journey. EMDR is a powerful therapy which helps to reduce the distress from difficult memories. And my goal is to make it accessible to everyone.
hope you enjoy this episode. Hello, welcome back to the EMDR Doctor podcast. I'm Dr Caroline Lloyd and today I'm going to be talking about how to choose an EMDR therapist. And the reason I'm talking about this today is because this week I had a wonderful conversation with a potential client who called me up and actually interviewed me, which was really a new experience for me, but really great to see that person doing.
that. So they asked me lots of questions about my practice and I was really happy to give them the answers and I thought it's really quite unusual for people to be so specific about looking for a therapist to suit their needs and I think there should be more of it. Usually people phone me up and just say do you have availability and whilst of course this is a really important question because many EMDR therapists don't.
have availability at the moment because there's just too much demand for the availability that we have. So it is an important question to ask and perhaps the first one that you might like to ask. But there are lots of other questions that would probably be a really great idea for you to ask in order to figure out if that therapist is going to be a good fit for you. I'll be going through some of those questions today in this podcast. So
Rebecca Saunders (02:06.928)
The first question to ask is probably what is their level of training? Now in order to become an EMDR therapist you have to do the basic training. So there's one weekend, there's a second weekend a little bit later, I think it's probably about 10 weeks later and in that intervening time you have to see a certain number of clients and do active EMDR processing with a certain number of clients and you have to have a certain amount of supervision. So all therapists should
have supervision and what that looks like is a therapist goes to a supervisor who has a greater level of experience than them and they talk through difficult cases or problems that they're encountering in the sessions. So all therapists have supervision. EMDR therapists do tend to be very good at getting supervision and because it's really built into the training that we that we get. So levels of training.
So the basic training and then there's advanced training and then if a therapist goes ahead and gets more consultation or more supervision and they get a certain amount of experience in a variety of presentations then they can become accredited with the EMDRAA. So the EMDRAA is the Association of Australia for EMDR therapists and it's our
of governing body so they set the standards for training and consultation and so forth and if we become accredited with the EMDRAA what that means is that we've had a certain amount of experience and we have been approved for accreditation by our consultant so we've kind of been recommended to the EMDRAA to be accredited. So accreditation does guarantee a certain level of
experience and a certain level of expertise. So that's one question that you can ask your therapist. How much training have they had? Are they an accredited therapist with the EMDRAA? And they're both excellent guides.
Rebecca Saunders (04:23.692)
So after becoming accredited, then a therapist can become a consultant. So if you ask a therapist what the level of training is and they say that they're a consultant, this actually means that they have a very high level of experience and expertise and they actually help.
younger or less experienced therapists with their issues or problems. So a consultant EMDR therapist is kind of at that top level of experience.
You may like to ask the therapist if they engage in supervision or if they engage in consultation. So the two words are pretty much synonymous. And as I explained before, that just means that if we are experiencing some difficulties with our practice, we take that case to someone more experienced and we talk it through. So all therapists should be having supervision. And it's just one of the questions that you can ask your potential therapist.
You may like to ask them how many EMDR sessions have they done? So the answer to this can be a little bit confusing because as I explained in one of my previous podcasts, there are eight phases to EMDR. So, but for this, for the purpose of this.
discussion, we will think about an EMDR session as an EMDR processing session where you take a memory and you process that memory. So in asking how many EMDR sessions have they done, the answer to that may be very few or maybe very many. So I myself probably can't count how many I've done. I did my training in 2020 and I have used EMDR.
Rebecca Saunders (06:10.858)
every working day since then. So it's a countless number of processing sessions that I've done. But if an EMDR therapist is at the beginning of their EMDR journey, they may have only have done five.
If they did their training last week and they've done five, then that's great progress and you know that they're fully involved in it and they're learning quickly. So even if they've only done a small number of processing sessions, it doesn't necessarily mean that that's a red flag. They may be an excellent therapist and they may be practicing EMDR beautifully.
But the more sessions they've done, the more experience they have. And if you have a particularly complex problem that you're taking to EMDR, then you may like to go and see a more experienced therapist. So that sort of brings me to the next question. Does your EMDR therapist have any special interests or have they done further training?
So there's quite a few further trainings that we can do or advanced trainings that we can do as an EMDR therapist. And I have done several of them. Many therapists have done several just depending on what their particular area of expertise or their particular niches or their particular interests. So if they haven't done further training, they may still be a really excellent generalist.
but it's just a little bit of information to keep in mind. Say, for example, they say, yes, I've done advanced training in 2 .0 EMDR 2 .0, which is a very specific style of EMDR that is quite focused on kind of severe trauma.
Rebecca Saunders (08:03.724)
then that might be a pointer that you, if you have severe trauma, that might be, you know, positive thing for you. They may have done training, say for example, in EMDR for grief. And if that pertains to you, then that's a bonus. Or they may be a specialist in using EMDR in specific populations. So say for example, autism,
There is specific training that you can do for autism and using EMDR with autistic clients. If that is relevant to you, then you may like to actively seek out a therapist who has experience or has extra training in that particular arena. So different therapists have different interests, you know.
Some therapists are really interested in phobias or PTSD or they're really keen to work with people with depression, for example, or they may have a quite a specific niche like working with people who have medical trauma. That's one of my particular interests. Or they may have even niched down even more into that. So they may work with survivors of cancer or they may work with postnatal trauma or perinatal
or trauma and that's another little really interesting niche. So some therapists like to work with adoption trauma and that's quite a specific niche as well. So EMDR is excellent for all areas of trauma but you may just like to seek out a therapist with a particular interest in your area.
And it may be that if you ring up a therapist that you've found that is, say, let's say, for example, it's adoption trauma that you want to heal and you find a therapist who does specialise in adoption trauma.
Rebecca Saunders (10:04.716)
then if you phone them and you say, I sit in your niche, then they may well take you on even if they're not taking on general trauma clients because it's their area of expertise. They feel very comfortable and very confident and they might feel very passionate about working with that particular cohort of clients. So that's actually another kind of benefit to you if you can bring that up in that initial conversation with a therapist.
Areas that I would be more specific about if you have OCD or if you have an eating disorder in particular anorexia or if you have DID dissociative identity disorder or if you are working with addiction then I would suggest to find a therapist who does have that niche that specialty because these are particular areas
where a generalist may not be able to offer you very targeted therapy. So you'll still probably get better because all of those things.
probably indicate a history of trauma, especially in like early childhood. And so any therapist who is a generalist for trauma will be able to help, but you may get faster results if you see a therapist who has a special interest in particular kind of areas. So OCD, eating disorders, addiction and DID. And I'd possibly even say autism there as well. Many therapists will be very comfortable
working with autism even if they are not a specialist in that field. But you probably do need just to have a general talk about that with a potential therapist if you're interviewing a therapist. So I might also talk about the format in which the EMDR therapist works. So the usual format is weekly, one -on -one, regular sessions and that's a fantastic way to work.
Rebecca Saunders (12:10.19)
There are now newer ways to work with people that are not so welded to that sort of traditional model of weekly one -on -one 50 minute sessions. So some therapists do intensive therapy, which is an excellent way to get good results fast. So that might look like working with someone over a period of, two weeks, two hours, three times a week.
that might be one way to have an intensive. I do an intensive of a four hour block. So initial intake session, a four hour block and then a six week follow up.
after that. So that's just the way that I like to do my intensive. So intensive EMDR therapy is a different way of working. I would generally say most EMDR therapists who do intensives would prefer that you had your own weekly talk therapist to give some support during that process. But it's not a be all and end all, but it's handy to have.
So the other format that I'll just talk briefly about is group therapy. So group EMDR is a new and evolving method or format of providing EMDR therapy. So group therapy can be lower cost, it can be easier to access, but is probably not suitable for CPTSD or the dissociative disorders or DID, that sort of.
acute presentation. So that's another question that you might like to ask the format of their therapy, whether they prefer the weekly or they have a different way of working like intensives. And there are now even EMDR intensive retreats that you can go on, which is I think a lovely way to work. OK, so I hope that's been helpful. hope that's given you some information and some background about EMDR and how to choose an EMDR therapist.
Rebecca Saunders (14:11.726)
Of course, there will be some other factors that you can't really ascertain on the phone in just a five or 10 minute conversation with a potential EMDR therapist. And good fit is one of those kind of very gray areas. You have to have a certain level of comfort with your EMDR therapist. You have to have a certain level of feeling safe and feeling like you can trust them.
and a feeling that you can go to those hard places because it is quite intense therapy. So and you probably won't know if you are a good fit just by a short phone consultation. You may you may get a strong feeling. Yes, I really like this person. I think I can trust them. I think I can.
divulge all the information that I need to discuss or you may be a bit unsure and you know sometimes it takes a couple of sessions with someone to really know whether you can do that and that is just part of the process. So if you get a couple of sessions in and you're feeling like this is just not working then just you are allowed to change therapists. So you might like to talk to that therapist about it there may be something that the therapist can do for you that helps you feel more comfortable.
you
And so it's a conversation that's definitely worth having. If the therapist replies, well, this is how I work and I can't really change for you, then that probably is an indication that it's not a good fit and it's quite okay. You are allowed to change therapists. So if it's not working out for you, then please do feel that it's quite okay to do that. And you can always find somebody who is a better fit for you. So not everyone is a good fit for everyone.
Rebecca Saunders (15:59.736)
Sometimes it's worth persisting to find a therapist who is a good fit for you. Doesn't mean they're bad, doesn't mean that you're bad, it just means that you don't fit with each other and that's fine. So I hope this has covered a little bit of ground in terms of feeling more comfortable about asking your therapist some questions before you start therapy with them. If you have any questions feel free to reach out to me and until we speak next week, bye for now.
