What I Wish I Knew When I Was a Brand-New EMDR Clinician

I still remember finishing my EMDR basic training and feeling like I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. And I want to say that loudly, because I think a lot of newly trained clinicians assume that feeling means something has gone wrong.

It hasn’t. It’s actually pretty normal.

Feeling ill-equipped after basic training is normal

Even if you had an excellent trainer. Even if you already came in with a strong clinical framework and years of experience under your belt. You can do everything “right” and still walk out of that training feeling like you have no idea how you’re going to actually do this with a real client sitting in front of you.

I think we don’t talk about this enough. Basic training gives you the structure, but it doesn’t give you the reps. And without the reps, of course it’s going to feel shaky. That doesn’t mean you picked the wrong training or the wrong modality. It just means you’re at the beginning of a much longer learning curve, and that’s exactly where you’re supposed to be.

Pick your first cases carefully

Here’s something I had to learn the hard way. A lot of us who go into EMDR training are already trauma specialists. We’ve built our caseloads around complex trauma, because that’s who tends to find us and that’s who we’re drawn to helping. Which makes total sense — but it also means that right after basic training, those are often the clients we bring EMDR to first.

And that can be a rough way to start. Complex trauma cases need a level of pacing and resourcing that takes time to build as a clinician. When reprocessing gets stuck or doesn’t move the way we expect, it’s really easy to conclude that we’re bad at this, or that EMDR just doesn’t work. But that’s usually not what’s actually happening. We just picked one of the hardest possible cases to cut our teeth on.

If you can, start with clients who have single-incident traumas or who are already fairly wellresourced overall. Let yourself get some early wins with reprocessing that actually moves. That confidence matters, and you can absolutely work your way toward more complex cases from there.

A lower SUD still counts, even without a zero

I used to feel like a session hadn’t really “worked” unless we got the SUD all the way down to zero. If we didn’t, I’d walk away feeling like I’d failed the client somehow.

But a decrease is still real relief. If someone starts at an 8 and leaves at a 3, something meaningful happened in that room. Reprocessing isn’t always linear, and one session rarely tells the whole story. I try to name that shift for my clients now — because it is movement, and it deserves to be recognized as progress, not written off because it wasn’t “complete.”

Ongoing consultation is what actually builds the skill

If basic training hands you the map, consultation is where you learn the actual terrain. I don’t think I’d be the clinician I am today without ongoing consultation — whether that’s a group, or sitting down one-on-one with a consultant.

What I love about group consultation specifically is how normalizing it is. Hearing someone else describe the exact thing I struggled with last week reminds me that this is just part of the process, not evidence I’m doing something wrong. It’s also often where I realize what I’m already doing well, which is genuinely hard to see on my own.

And there’s something else that doesn’t get talked about enough — just preparing a case to bring to consultation is valuable on its own. Having to organize the history, the target, where things got stuck, forces a kind of clarity that’s hard to get to any other way. Sometimes I’ve figured out what I needed to do before I even said a word out loud in the group.

EMDR is easy to learn and hard to do well

The eight phases can be taught in a weekend. Doing them well is a completely different thing. It means tracking your client, tracking yourself, catching the small nonverbal cues, and sitting with a level of emotional pain that is genuinely heavy to witness, session after session. That’s draining work, and it’s not something people outside this field always understand.

Give yourself the time it actually takes to close that gap between knowing the protocol and being able to really hold the room.

If you’re navigating this right now

I offer ongoing EMDR consultation — individual or group — as an EMDRIA Approved Consultant. I’m based in Groton, Connecticut, and meet with clinicians locally in person as well as via Zoom, wherever you are in the world.

I’m opening a new consultation group for early-career EMDR clinicians this August. If any of this resonated with you and you want to talk about whether it’s a good fit, reach out through eringardnerflores.com.