EMDR Consultation

Consultation may include:

• AIP-informed case conceptualization and treatment planning
• Client readiness, preparation, pacing, and stabilization
• Target identification, selection, and sequencing
• Application of the eight phases and three-pronged approach
• Procedural accuracy, reflection, and integration of feedback
• Foundational decision-making before adding specialized applications

Before hours can be accepted: The EMDRIA Approved Trainer™ must authorize the consultant and clarify the program’s requirements, forms, documentation, and learning goals. Trainees remain responsible for confirming that consultation will be accepted by their training program.

Consultation may include:

• Proficiency and fidelity across all eight phases
• AIP case conceptualization, target sequencing, and treatment planning
• Recognizing when a modification is needed and articulating the clinical rationale
• Working with complex presentations while preserving the integrity of the model
• Ethical, trauma-informed, and culturally responsive decision-making
• Observable learning through video, live observation, detailed case presentation, transcript, session summary, or reflective dialogue

Current EMDRIA hour structure: Certification requires 20 consultation hours; at least 10 must be individual. An active EMDRIA Approved Consultant in Training™ may provide up to 15 of the 20 hours. The remaining five hours must be completed with an EMDRIA Approved Consultant™. Requirements may change, so EMDRIA remains the final authority.

Consultation may include:

• Clarifying the clinical challenge and the decisions affecting EMDR effectiveness
• Revisiting readiness, preparation, pacing, target selection, or sequencing
• Examining stalled processing, looping, avoidance, shutdown, or protective responses
• Considering case-specific interventions and fit within the current treatment plan
• Identifying assessment, training, collaboration, referral, or safety needs
• Agreeing on practical next steps that support client safety and treatment effectiveness

Credentialing boundary: Focused case consultation is not a formal credentialing process and does not count toward EMDRIA basic-training, certification, or consultant requirements.

• Connecting presenting concerns to maladaptively stored memory networks
• Organizing past experiences, present triggers, and future responses
• Prioritizing targets and explaining the rationale for sequencing
• Identifying blocks, incomplete information, and competing treatment needs
• Using EMDR as a guiding clinical framework rather than an isolated technique

• Assessing readiness for trauma reprocessing
• Preparation, stabilization, regulation, and closure
• Dissociation awareness and decisions about pacing or referral
• Working with avoidance, overcontrol, shutdown, or rapid compliance
• Considering the Flash Technique within an EMDR treatment plan when clinically appropriate
• Recognizing when another treatment need must come first

• Complex and developmental trauma
• Childhood sexual abuse and adult sexual trauma
• Attachment injury, chronic shame, and disrupted self-trust
• Moral injury, grief, cumulative exposure, and professional responsibility
• Trauma patterns connected with substance use, relapse risk, or overfunctioning
• Cases that remain emotionally present for the treating therapist

• Sexual trauma and erotic agency
• Intimacy, attachment, boundaries, betrayal, rupture, and repair
• Kink/BDSM, D/s, and consensual power exchange
• Consensual nonmonogamy and polyamorous relationship systems
• Consent, capacity, coercion, autonomy, relational impact, and accountability
• Nonpathologizing, culturally responsive case conceptualization

• Moving from external reassurance toward internally grounded clinical judgment
• Clarifying the reasoning behind a clinical choice
• Normalizing uncertainty without bypassing accountability
• Recognizing limits of competence and identifying training, collaboration, or referral needs
• Examining how self-doubt, overresponsibility, or imposter feelings affect the clinical work

Consultation may address how the therapist’s responses affect clinical decisions. Personal trauma treatment, burnout treatment, or ongoing emotional support belongs in a separate psychotherapy relationship.

1. Clarify the pathway: foundational, certification, or focused case consultation.
2. Identify the developmental need: what you currently know, do, question, avoid, or need to strengthen.
3. Set one or two learning goals: specific, observable, relevant, and revisited as your work develops.
4. Bring behavioral material: a de-identified case presentation, video or live observation when permitted, transcript, structured session summary, or reflective dialogue.
5. Use feedback deliberately: translate feedback into a focused practice task, apply it, reflect, and return with what changed.

• EMDR consultation supports professional learning and clinical decision-making; it is not psychotherapy.
• Consultation is not clinical supervision. The consultee retains autonomy and responsibility for client treatment.
• Recommendations are collaborative rather than directives that transfer responsibility to the consultant.
• Jillian does not serve as both psychotherapist and EMDR consultant to the same person at the same time.
• A written agreement clarifies scope, goals, confidentiality, documentation, fees, and credentialing status before consultation begins.
• Cases must be de-identified. Do not send names, records, or protected health information through the website inquiry form.

• EMDR basic training through EMDR Consulting, Roy Kiessling model
• Flash Technique
• EMDR for moral injury
• EMDR early intervention and crisis response, including EEI Suites
• EMDR treatment of complex PTSD
• EMDR-AIP intervention for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse
• Engaging teens’ protective parts
• Psychological First Aid

These trainings inform consultation around assessment, pacing, preparation, target sequencing, dissociation awareness, protective responses, crisis context, and thoughtful adaptation.

• Residential and outpatient work involving addiction recovery, co-occurring conditions, trauma complexity, and high-acuity stabilization needs
• High-functioning professionals, therapists, caregivers, and people carrying chronic responsibility
• Veterans and military-connected clients navigating trauma and moral injury
• Medical personnel and first responders processing cumulative exposure and loss
• Complex and developmental trauma, attachment injury, chronic shame, grief, and identity disruption
• Sexual trauma, intimacy, relationship systems, consensual power exchange, and nontraditional relationship structures