Fake EMDR Therapists--Watch Out!

Clients seek me out for my specialty as a trauma therapist, especially as EMDR is becoming well-known as the best option. People are relieved to find a therapist in their area who uses EMDR. The question is, does the therapist actually have a training that is EMDRIA-Approved? EMDRIA is the international association that certifies EMDR trainings, making sure that they follow the research, and protect the safety of clients.

Most therapists, perhaps even 90%, who say they use EMDR have an on-the-cheap training without international approval, often as a business strategy, or because the length and difficulty of a real training was intimidating. Or maybe they just watched a few EMDR videos online!

As an example, I attempted to find a Certified EMDR therapist for a friend's child in a major city of two million people. Hundreds of therapists claimed to "do EMDR." But only ten were actually EMDRIA Certified EMDR therapists. This sort of misrepresentation would never be possible in medicine. What if there were schools of dentistry that offered a three-month doctorate?

Especially if a client has serious childhood trauma, an unapproved EMDR training can hurt people. I had a student at an EMDR Institute training describe to me that she had taken one of these trainings from an organization called PESI. It was a couple days, a few hundred dollars, and what the student described learning did not even resemble EMDR. The Institute has particularly flagged PESI's training as dangerous.

How could an unapproved EMDR training be dangerous? After all, what harm could come from waving their fingers in someone's face? A lot. These people have come to me after their "EMDR." They are very often nearly untreatable, with symptoms worse than ever. The therapist did not do a proper evaluation, was untrained in trauma theory, had no supervision--and worst of all, increased the symptoms by not knowing how to find the proper memory to work with. Many other issues. Unfortunately, these practices often initially produce a fake cure, and then things go downhill.

Make sure that your EMDR therapist attended an EMDRIA-Approved training. EMDR is not a magical finger-waving technique for making bad memories go away, it is a comprehensive therapy with eight phases, developed over decades, with professional organizations and scientific research. Internationally-Approved training takes a long time and a lot of money. There are Basic Trained, Certified, and Approved Consultant levels of training. Someone who is an Approved Consultant, for instance, has spent at minimum four years and $6000 in training, overseen by an EMDRIA Consultant with a lot of experience every step of the way.

So it is preferable to find someone at least EMDRIA Certified, as this means the therapist has 1) an initial training that followed international guidelines, 2) an extra two years of training under someone highly experienced, and 3) has to prove to EMDRIA every two years that have taken extra training classes. A Basic training in EMDR is just fine in many cases, but but Certification shows a high level of dedication to continued learning.