Mastering EMDR: Overcoming Common Barriers

Are you a mental health professional who has been trained in EMDR but finds yourself struggling to apply it effectively in your practice? 

Perhaps you’re running into barriers, getting stuck with clients, or feeling unsure of how to even get started with complex cases. 

If you’ve already received eye movement desensitization reprocessing (EMDR) training but need a boost to sharpen your skills, expand your creative use of the model, and navigate common hurdles, this course is for you. 

In this live online course, renowned EMDR expert Megan Salar, MSW, will teach you how to take your existing knowledge and transform it into something dynamic and adaptable. This course is designed for clinicians who have a foundational understanding of EMDR and are eager to refine their approach and apply EMDR with greater confidence and flexibility. 

You’ll gain a new perspective on the core concepts of EMDR that allows you to identify where to start, what to focus on, and which parts of the model allow for flexibility versus where you should remain consistent to maintain effectiveness in treatment. You’ll also gain the practical skills and creative techniques necessary to overcome obstacles and ensure that EMDR works for your unique clients. 

Confronting Common Struggles 

As a mental health professional, you understand how crucial it is to meet your clients where they are, particularly when working with trauma. Clients often have unique needs, and “one-size-fits-all” approaches simply don’t always work. EMDR is an incredibly powerful tool and does allow for individualized treatment, but using the model that way doesn’t always feel accessible, even after basic training.  

Many clinicians run into the same frustrations: 

• Feeling Overwhelmed by the Model: EMDR is a powerful tool, but it has many moving pieces and can be daunting at first to fully integrate it in your work, especially with clients who have complex trauma histories. 
• Fear of Making Things Worse: Starting trauma processing can feel like navigating a minefield, particularly when working with complex cases. You want to ensure that you’re proceeding in a way that’s both safe and effective, but the uncertainty can be intimidating and leave you reaching for more familiar tools.
• Managing Pressure for Quick Results: As EMDR becomes more widely known for its ability to produce rapid results, clinicians often find themselves under pressure to deliver those same quick fixes, despite the fact that trauma healing is a deeply individual process. This can become a roadblock and even prevent progress if not navigated effectively. 
• Client Stagnation and Blocks: You may have experienced moments when your client gets “stuck” or can’t access the necessary resources to move forward. Sometimes, resourcing skills just don’t seem to work as intended or clients simply don’t seem to respond well to reprocessing and desensitization. 

Unlock Your Full Potential as an EMDR Therapist 

This course is designed to be more than just a review of the eight phases of EMDR. It’s about fine-tuning your skills and learning to think creatively about how to apply EMDR in a way that is tailored to your clients’ needs and how they can most effectively process difficult content or experiences. 

You’ll dive deep into advanced techniques that will set clients up for success throughout the phases, as well as how to adapt when you encounter setbacks. 

Here’s what you can expect from the course: 

• Master the EMDR Model: You’ll go beyond the basics to explore key strategies for navigating early phases, which will set you up for more effective work overall. This isn’t just about going through the motions—it’s about making each phase work for the unique needs of your clients. 
• Expand Your Resourcing Techniques: Resourcing is a key component of EMDR that can effectively “make or break” treatment. In this course, we’ll focus on creative, client-centered strategies for building and strengthening adaptive resources and using them throughout the process to support healing. You’ll also gain skills to incorporate resourcing when traditional methods don’t seem to work, ensuring you have the tools to support your clients effectively. 
• Navigating Complex Trauma: When working with challenging cases, including those related to complex trauma, addiction, or co-occurring disorders, starting reprocessing can feel overwhelming. Megan will guide you through how to manage these difficult cases with confidence, ensuring you don’t rush through the process but allow clients the space they need to heal. 
• Creative Application of EMDR: One of the most exciting aspects of this course is the opportunity to use creativity to meet clients’ unique needs. You’ll learn how to change up your use of bilateral stimulation to navigate setbacks, use restricted processing when needed, and apply the entire EMDR model flexibly to best support integration.  

Expand Your Practice 

This course is designed for clinicians who are already familiar with EMDR but are looking to sharpen their knowledge so they can apply it more effectively and confidently. If you’ve completed basic EMDR training and are struggling to get started, apply the model flexibly, or overcome barriers with certain clients, this course will provide you with the tools you need to enhance your practice. 

EMDR has applications that go beyond traditional therapy, and this course you’ll get a better sense of how to incorporate it into your unique clinical approach. 

Enhance Client Outcomes 

Through this course, you will gain a more thorough understanding of how to integrate EMDR effectively into your practice, while overcoming the common barriers many clinicians face. You will: 

• Gain a deeper understanding of the eight phases of EMDR and how to handle complex cases. 
• Navigate common challenges and misconceptions that arise in EMDR application. 
• Pave the way for powerful work by enhancing your use of resourcing and creative strategies for keeping clients grounded throughout treatment. 
• Build confidence in your ability to work with complex clients and difficult situations, overcoming the frustrations that often arise when using EMDR. 

Turn Setbacks into Success 

If you’re eager to break through the barriers that have been holding you back and want to explore creative ways to make EMDR work for you and your clients, this is the course for you. Gain the skills and confidence you need to make a lasting impact in your practice and ensure that your clients receive the care they deserve. 

Reserve Your Spot Today! 

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to overcome the challenges you may be facing as a practitioner. You’ll find this course a breath of fresh air as it helps you reignite your passion and confidence in your clinical work and use EMDR in a new way to drive positive change. 

Join us for this transformative course and take your EMDR skills to new heights! 

This training offers 8 CE hours if attended live. We can only provide CE to those who are present via Zoom for the live sessions. However, the sessions will be recorded and available to watch later. Registrants may access these recordings at any time for up to nine months after the live training ends.

The didactic portions of this training will be filmed for later use. Because of this, live participation activities like Q&A, breakout rooms, etc., will be scheduled toward the end of the sessions.

Before registering, please review conflict of interest disclosures and complete CE information here.