You've completed your consultation hours and have your EMDR Basic Trained status, now what? You have the basic understanding of EMDR , the process and phases but is the investment in ongoing consultation of any benefit to you?
Obviously as a EMDR Consultant-In-Training, I would advocate in this investment for you both professionally and personally. Here's are some of the ongoing benefits I invite you to consider.
Group and Individual consultation helps you become confident. Let's be honest, transitioning to being an EMDR therapist has a learning curve even for seasoned therapists. When I learned EMDR a whole new realm of the therapy field opened up for me. The learning curve was steep and there was a lot of professional vulnerability. Consultation gives us the opportunity to learn its okay and helps guide you as your begin to navigate that curve.
EMDR Consultation expands your knowledge base. As therapists we can truly appreciate the complexity of the human experience. There is no one size fits all when it comes to therapy. EMDR consultation, especially in group format, increases your exposure to the multiple types of clinical presentations enhancing our learning opportunities. We simply cannot know everything, but being part of a group allows you to understand differing clinical presentations and applications of the eight-phases.
Consultation helps with our "blind spots." Being a therapist requires a great amount of autonomy and independence. It's one of the things I enjoy the most about our profession. However, just like our clients get stuck inside their mindsets, we do too. That's another great benefit of EMDR consultation, outside perspective. Often it takes that one piece that someone else is able to name, identify or offer as a perspective in order for us to get unstuck.
EMDR Consultation builds community. Therapists needs spaces of being validated, understood and supported as much as our clients need it. Reducing our isolation supports our own nervous system health and expands our capacity to provide ongoing service to others. Isolation can be a major factor for private practitioners and even EMDR therapist inside agency settings may feel a sense of isolation as one of a few EMDR practitioners. EMDR Consultation is an opportunity to build your own support network for both formal and informal opportunities to consult.
Professional and Business Growth. EMDR Consultation can help you explore how you would like to grow yourself professionally and as a practice. Often therapists are somewhat generalists in the early years of career development. However, as we become more specialized in modalities such as EMDR we have the opportunity to refine our practice. EMDR itself can be a specialization of your niche and be even further refined such as specializations of Anxiety Treatments, Performance Enhancement, and so forth. Seeking consultants and consultation groups can help you identify and refine by your growth interests
Looking for EMDR Consultation? I specialize neuro-informed EMDR, polyvagal theory, yoga and somatic regulation strategies. I offer both individual and group consultation services. I would love to talk with you to see if we are a good fit.