After Basic Training

Six Weeks to A Confident EMDR Practice

For EMDR therapists who know the protocol and still hesitate to use it.

The program will start in the new year, but join the waitlist to find out when registration opens.

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Holly Forman-Patel, LMFT · EMDRIA Approved Consultant & Basic Trainer

Holly Forman-Patel pointing at a framed print in her office that reads Let's EMDR this shit.

If you've thought any of these, you're in the right place

"I'm not sure if it's even working."
"I'm afraid I'll dysregulate this client."
"I'm afraid of hurting someone."
"I still have to use my manual."
"It feels so structured. Do I really have to say it exactly the way I was taught?"
"I'm just unsure."

Here's what that uncertainty actually does. It keeps you from offering EMDR to the clients who could benefit from it. And when you do start, it makes the structure hard to hold, so you drift, the client switches targets every week, and the work never quite lands.

You didn't do anything wrong. Basic training gives you the whole model in a few days. It cannot give you the confidence. That part comes later, and almost nobody tells you how to get it.

Confidence in EMDR isn't a personality trait, and it isn't more information. It's knowing what to do in the specific moments that make you hesitate, and knowing how to say it out loud.

After a decade as an EMDRIA Approved Consultant, I can tell you those moments are remarkably consistent. The same handful of stuck points, over and over, therapist after therapist. So I built this program backwards from them.

Why I built it

The protocol shrank while I wasn't looking

I'm the kind of person who jumps in. I used EMDR with a client the first week after my basic training, and it went really well, so I kept going.

Then I started hitting walls. A session wouldn't work with a certain kind of client, so I'd quietly stop using it with that kind of client. Then another. By the time my consultation hours for basic training were done, I looked up and realized I'd gone from using EMDR with most of my caseload to using it with just a few people. Nobody told me to stop. The protocol just shrank while I wasn't looking.

That was a decision point. I could let it keep shrinking, or I could double down. I got certified. I worked with two consultants, one for kids and one for adults, and I did double the consultation hours required, because I wanted to actually be good at this.

That's what this program is. Everything I learned unsticking myself, and then unsticking two hundred other therapists.

What you get

Most lessons run 5 to 20 minutes. The practice is weekly, not daily, because you have a caseload and clients don't arrive on a content schedule.

The curriculum

The six weeks

  1. 1 Week 1

    Explaining it

    Your elevator speech, the AIP model in plain language, and what to tell clients to expect.

  2. 2 Week 2

    Readiness

    How to know when a client is ready to reprocess, and what to do when they're not yet.

  3. 3 Week 3

    Structure and timing

    Organizing your sessions, when to start reprocessing, and what in the script you have to stick to versus what you don't.

  4. 4 Week 4

    In the room

    Following the client's lead, choosing and pacing bilateral stimulation, and holding structure when a client wants to switch targets every week.

  5. 5 Week 5

    When it gets hard

    Managing intense emotion, what to do when processing stalls, and how to respond when a client doesn't want to do EMDR that day.

  6. 6 Week 6

    Momentum

    Practicing with a colleague, talking about EMDR publicly and on your website, and how to keep going after week six.

Six weeks from now, you'll be offering EMDR to the clients you've been avoiding, and holding the structure once you start.

What this won't do: make you an expert in six weeks. Expertise comes from doing the work with real clients, and you'll probably still have your manual nearby. That's fine. This clears the things that keep you from getting the reps.

This is for you if

  • You've completed EMDR basic training and you're not using it as much as you thought you would
  • You second-guess yourself in session and you're tired of it
  • You want to feel steady with the protocol before you go find the right consultant for you

This is not for you if

  • You're looking for CE credits, EMDRIA consultation hours, or anything toward certification. This has none of those, on purpose.
  • You want consultation on your specific cases. That's a different thing, and I offer it separately.
  • You haven't done EMDR basic training yet. This picks up where that leaves off.
  • You want to feel confident without using EMDR with actual clients. The reps are the work.
  • You already feel steady with EMDR and you're looking for advanced material.
Holly Forman-Patel delivering bilateral stimulation with two fingers during an EMDR session with a client.

Bilateral stimulation in session. Week 4 covers choosing it and pacing it.

Who's teaching this

Holly Forman-Patel, LMFT

I've been practicing EMDR since 2012, I'm an EMDRIA Approved Consultant, and I'm an EMDRIA Approved Basic Trainer, the highest level of EMDR credentialing there is.

200+therapists in individual consultation
475+therapists have taken my trainings
15,000+face-to-face client hours

I teach EMDR basic training. This is the program I wish existed for everyone right after it.

Cohort one, founding member $400

$499 for everyone after

The program is $499 after that, and the price will keep rising as future cohorts grow. Founding members get the lowest price it will ever be, and I mean that literally.

Cohort one opens in January. Doors will be open for a short window. Join the waitlist and you'll be the first to know when they do.

If you've been telling yourself you'll feel ready to use EMDR once you understand it better, I want to gently push back. You already understand it. What's in the way isn't knowledge, it's the moments where you're not sure what to do, and those are learnable. That's the whole six weeks.

Join the waitlist

Be the first to know when registration opens, and get the founding member price.

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