Therapist Training

The whole process of training therapists is very interesting and challenging. The degree to which a trainer is responsible for the therapy behavior of the people they train is also very intriguing. I have met many therapist who read a book or attend a lecture and then begin to use these procedures in therapy. At times this is a very creative process that results in wonderful theapy. At other times it is a disaster and results in terrible theapy.

Licensing boards go to great length to insure that the people they license are fully trained and have had the proper amount of hours of supervision. Beyond this, there is little standardization for training or for therapy. Observations of therapists who are all supposedly experts and have the same theoretical framework show that they employ their training and their theories in very different ways. Again, many are very creative and successful and others are perhaps creative but very poor therapy.

So, what to do. Dr. Shapiro has opted to standardize training to insure that people who claim to be trained in EMDR have actually been trained up to the standards of the EMDR Institute. Each practicioner then has the challenge of integrating EMDR into their practice in whatever way makes the most sense to them.

From my point of view, this standardization of training is important. EMDR, like all ways of doing therapy, is actually very complicated. Complete training is critical to success. It does not, of course, insure that every EMDR theapist will be an expert therapist. It just increases the probabilities. Quite frankly I wish that my training in other forms of psychotherapy had been as rigerous.

Replies:

Re: Therapist Training, by curious, 5/4/00 Re: Therapist Training, by Sandra Paulsen, Ph.D., 5/4/00 Re: Therapist Training, by The Contributor, 5/10/00 Re: Therapist Training, by Ricky Greenwald, 5/4/00 Re: Therapist Training, by anonamous, 5/15/00

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