Re: Therapist Training

There are no controlled studies looking at levels of training for EMDR therapists. There is certain anecdotal information which bears on this question.
1) People are forever saying that there is so much densely packed into the trainings, that they wish there had been more time or more detailed coverage. It is very rich training however.
2) Even after taking the two levels of training, people generally feel humbled by how much they don't know when they start using EMDR.
3) Even the most experienced EMDR therapists say things like, "it takes every bit of therapeutic acumen I have to keep up with what emerges in EMDR".
4) Many people have large shifts in their theoretical orientation as a result of learning EMDR, because they have to explain to themselves the amazing results. So the behaviorist becomes more dynamic, the dynamicist becomes more systems oriented, the systems/Gestalt person adopts some cognitive/behavioral pieces -- and all think more in terms of traumatology and accelerated information processing. Again, all this is just to explain to themselves what they see.
5) Finally, in answer to your question, yes it is very very powerful indeed, and in untrained hands can have disastrous results. Analogy: anyone can make a surgical incision, if you have a sharp knife and a warm body -- but the test of the surgeon is whether you know how to prepare the patient, where to cut and why, how to do it incisively, how to minimize pain, what to do when you get in there, how to control the bleeding, and how to close people up. EMDR is ALOT like that. That's why Francine learned she had to wrap a very careful and complex protocol around the bilateral stimulation in order to keep the patients SAFE. That's why we screen for dissociation. THat's why we do careful informed consent. Its all about safety. This is not an exaggeration, and not a hype, it is the truth.

People who ignore this caution, and experiment with bilateral stimulation on people without sufficient knowledge, are likely to have no ill effects on some of their victims, but potentially catastrophic results on others.

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Re: Therapist Training, by The Contributor, 5/10/00

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