After Basic Training

Six Weeks to A Confident EMDR Practice

For EMDR therapists who know EMDR is helpful 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

"Maybe EMDR just isn't right for me."
"I'm afraid I'll dysregulate this client."
"What if I hurt my client and retraumatize them?"
"What if my client is judging me for using my manual?"
"I don't get how to make this client centered."
"I feel dumb explaining the BLS."

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, and the work feels like it 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.

The bonus is worth the price of the program

Register and you'll receive two of my on demand trainings in December, before the cohort begins: the 8 hour EMDR Refresher and the 3 hour When the Train Stops Moving training on stuck reprocessing.

Together they normally cost $400, exactly the founding member price of this program.

In other words, the trainings are worth what you paid. The six weeks of live support, practice, and coaching come with 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.

I initially used it with almost every client. Then I started hitting walls. A session wouldn't work with a certain kind of client presentation, so I'd quietly stop using it with similar situations. 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 decided to get certified, worked with two consultants, and began to realize the small stuck points that were occurring.

These stuck points were not glaring. They often related to my internal confidence and were easily smoothed out once I realized what they were.

I then witnessed similar patterns occurring with other therapists, often those initially coming to me for EMDRIA certification. The pattern over the last decade became clearer and clearer. This program was born from my own experience paired with my work with consultees over the years.

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

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

  2. 2 Week 2

    Readiness

    For you AND your client. Ways to prepare yourself and your client to do the work. Uncovering any of your own fears or internal limitations to doing the work.

  3. 3 Week 3

    Maintaining structure yet being client centered

    Organizing your sessions. What do I keep script wise versus what can I change. How do I tailor this protocol to the client in front of me.

  4. 4 Week 4

    When it gets hard

    Navigating initial stuck points. Managing intense emotion. What to do when processing stalls, and how to respond when a client doesn't want to do EMDR that day.

  5. 5 Week 5

    Evaluating where you are now

    Confidence reevaluation. What is working, what still needs honing. Creating an action plan.

  6. 6 Week 6

    Doing the work

    Practicing it with clients. Tailoring your website and profiles to showcase EMDR therapy. And how to keep going after week six.

Six weeks from the start of the program, you'll be offering EMDR to the clients you've been avoiding, more naturally applying the protocol and feeling confident as you do so.

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. The more you provide EMDR, the more confident you will be, and the easier it will be to navigate the inevitable stuck points.

This is for you if

  • You don't feel confident explaining EMDR therapy, so you've stopped trying
  • 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
  • You know EMDR is the right therapy for you but you just aren't integrating it into your work

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.

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

Includes $400 in bonus on demand trainings available in December.

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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