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Last spring a clinician I’ll call Renee finished her Basic Training. She did the thing most of us do in the week afterward, which was sit down and try to figure out how to actually implement EMDR therapy.

She emailed me a week later. The subject line was “What now?”

The body of the email was a list.

She’d printed out the EMDRIA Certification requirements, gone through them with a highlighter, and sent me some questions about requirements, including:

• Fifty sessions with twenty-five clients.
• Twenty hours of consultation, ten of those individual.
• Twelve hours of EMDRIA-approved continuing education.
• A letter of recommendation from an EMDRIA-approved consultant.
• Two letters of recommendation from peers or colleagues.

She kept a spreadsheet of her hours, clients, and CEUs, and wanted to know how fast she could do it as an independently licensed clinician.

I thought about how to answer her after recently reviewing the new 2026 EMDRIA Approved Consultant Standards. They describe the following designations along this professional path as voluntary: EMDR Certified Therapist, Consultant-in-Training, Approved Consultant, and Trainer.

But most clinicians ask about the EMDR Certification requirements, and I wanted to share my thoughts about the consultation process for Renees pursuing certification.

There are also other reasons a clinician might be in consultation, finishing the consultation hours required during Basic Training, or accumulating the consultation-of-consultation hours required for the Consultant-in-Training pathway, and the standards treat requirements for those differently.

I’ll focus on Certification here, but the full document is linked at the end if you want to review it. I think the Certified Therapist pathway is structured to equip clinicians with the components, confidence, and discernment to work well with complex clients.

What actually changed in 2026

This issue isn’t a comprehensive summary of every change in the fifty-page document, and the elements Renee highlighted didn’t really move.

• Twenty hours of consultation.
• A minimum of ten individual consultation hours.
• Fifty sessions.
• Twenty-five clients.
• Twelve CE hours.
• Peer recommendations.

What the new Approved Consultant standards do is describe an experience the consultation hours are meant to provide if we’re aiming for effective practice. They are still explicit that consultation is not supervision and center cultural humility as an aspect in the document. A new feature articulates a consultant’s role around three simultaneous modes. Educator. Motivator. Evaluator.

This is how it impacts the clinician seeking certification.

Mountains and metaphors

Living among the Utah mountains, there’s a word I’ve been sitting with when I think about the consultant–consultee relationship, as well as the dynamic between trauma therapists and the clients we sit with.

Utah and Colorado are home to high-altitude peaks that draw mountaineers training for Himalayan summits. Professional Nepalese Sherpas are part of that wider mountaineering community in both states and in Nepal. I’m borrowing the word with care, because Sherpa is the name of a Tibetan-origin people whose work as guides has long carried physical and financial risks the rest of the climbing community doesn’t share. I’ve been thinking about something specific in this kind of work, the work of guiding other people through difficult terrain.

Sherpas are from the mountains. They have grown up reading the weather and terrain that climbers visit only briefly. Many of us came to trauma work through something in our own histories. That’s a different kind of familiarity, but it’s a real one, and for many, it’s part of what draws us to this work and motivates us to sit with what clients bring.

A Sherpa can teach you how to interpret the weather, and keep you moving when the altitude gets hard, and you want to turn back for the wrong reasons. A Sherpa can tell you honestly when you’re not ready for the next pitch. What I find useful about the Sherpa image is that one person, in one role, holds several things at once. Teaching. Encouraging. Evaluating. All three roles woven into the same relationship are what make the climb.

That’s what the new standards say a consultant is doing, too. They just use different vocabulary. But below I’ll break down what that looks like in consultation. At the end of the day, the consultee, like the climber, bears full responsibility for their own steps and for how much of the guide’s feedback they’ll incorporate along the way. They accept that their decisions impact their progress.

What a guide reads in the terrain

A good professional Sherpa doesn’t just guide but continually reads the terrain and adapts to it. They anticipate when a stretch needs crampons and oxygen. They know when to spread the rope team out across an unstable section. They also consider how previous snowstorms, freezes, and thaw cycles impact the journey by increasing the risk of avalanches.

The new standards make a similar distinction about consultants. Alongside the three modes, they also name the competencies a consultant should bring to your development. They’re stacked, with general therapy knowledge as the foundation and teaching and consultation skills at the top.

EMDR doesn’t replace general therapy competence. It sits on top of it.

When you’re working with a client who has a history of child sexual abuse, an eating disorder, perinatal mental health concerns, or battling an active addiction, you still need a solid understanding of the dynamics and vulnerabilities the experiences bring into the clinical setting, and the clinical knowledge isn’t suspended just because of training in the EMDR standard protocol.

Just as you’d want to be guided by a professional Sherpa who knows this mountain, at this time of year and under these conditions, consider a consultant who has foundational knowledge of your terrain. Pacing with a perinatal client with postpartum symptoms. Treating childhood sexual abuse survivors within a family system. The treatment standards for working with clients with restrictive eating disorders.

The standards assume you are still developing sensitivity to the terrain, regardless of where you are in the certification process, and consultants play a role in helping develop a consultee’s map. For example, under the dimension of general therapy skills, I might recommend readings of treatment guidelines and standards for counseling adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse to better engage, support, and develop a treatment plan for impacted clients.

The experience the hours are meant to provide

The three-mode framing of the new standards is an actual feeling, not just a conceptual understanding. So let me describe each one as it shows up in the room, what it looks like when a consultant offers it, and what it asks of the consultee in return. Each of these modes are skills consultants are growing in. If you’ve been a consultee, you’ll have worked with consultants whose skills in these areas vary across a spectrum. They’re also not services delivered to a passive recipient; each mode is a component of the relationship.

Educator. A consultant in educator mode is teaching. They explain why the outcome of Phase 2 looks different with a chronically dissociative client than with a client with a single-incident trauma. They slow down to walk you through a case conceptualization in real time, and invite you to experiment with different methods of tracking client information. They collaboratively help you name the AIP rationale behind an intervention you did intuitively. They help you integrate fidelity to the model, fidelity to general therapy skills, and responsiveness to the person in front of you. When this role is working, you finish a consultation hour knowing something you didn’t know going in, such as how these aspects integrate.

Circling back to Renee, what attitude does she need to make this possible? It asks her to bring studenthood. Coming with cases prepared. Experimenting with ways to track case information that works for her brain. Making time to read and digest what the consultant recommends. A consultant can teach a consultee who hasn’t done the reading, but the teaching won’t land.

It also means sitting with the discomfort of not yet knowing ‘everything’, being a work in progress (like all of us), and a willingness to be gentle towards herself as she grows.

Motivator. A consultant in motivator mode believes you can do this when your belief is low. They notice when you’re stuck and offer to help you unpack it without shame. They remind you that confusion early in EMDR is not evidence that you’re bad at it. They remind you that you’re a Master’s graduate and that freshman year is usually hell. They tell you the story of their own first dissociative case and the generosity of clients after failed interventions. When this role is working, you leave the hour with more capacity to keep going, and turn down the volume of the internal voice shouting (and shaming) to be perfect.

What would I tell Renee? Be honest about where she is, especially when she acknowledges that I’m avoiding this case, or when she’s tempted to refer out because the work is hard, not because the referral is clinically indicated. Motivation lands when the consultee is willing to show warts and trust that they’ll be met. Motivation can’t do its work when a consultee announces they’re ‘all good’, (or it’s just a flesh wound for Monty Python fans), and they don’t allow the relationship to help them when they really feel overwhelmed.

Evaluator. A consultant in evaluator mode names Renee’s strengths and blind spots. They reflect back to her the value of the strong therapeutic relationships she forms. They also highlight how trying to process targets that are too broad contributes to a confusing Phase 4. They point out the populations they think she’s ready to work with and the ones they think can benefit from additional education. When this role is working, Renee should leave with a clearer picture of strengths and growth areas.

What it asks of her is the willingness to be seen. Honestly, that can be hard. We all want to be seen as the clinician we wish we were, not as the one we currently are. Evaluation is the role most consultees are most afraid of, and the new standards are more explicit about unpacking this mode. For example, Renee should expect deliberate (not unkind) feedback that’s developmentally appropriate, ongoing, and based on observed competencies.

The three modes aren’t sequential, and they aren’t divided among different consultants, with one serving as a motivator, another as an evaluator, and a third as an educator. The standards make it clear that the same consultant aspires to hold all three and aims to shift between them in response to where you are in your development and what the moment requires.

What this means for the certification requirements

Returning to Renee’s highlighted list with the three modes in mind, her experience might look something like this.

The 20 consultation hours. Treat these as the apprenticeship, not a box to check. The standards now structure time so it’s used for development rather than just accumulating hours. To that end, the cap is two hours per day. If you’re climbing Everest, you don’t try to compress your training into single marathon sessions, because the skills don’t integrate that way. The two-hour cap structures the same principle into consultation. In group consultation, time is divided equally among participants. That matters because everyone in a group is supposed to be developing, not just the person whose case is on the table that day. If you’re in a group where one consultee dominates and the rest spectate, you’re not getting what the standards describe as group consultation. You’re getting a passive audience seat that’s not reliable in growing your muscles.

The hours focus on skill development in the standard protocol, the eight phases, the past-present-future three-prong approach, conceptualizing cases through an AIP-informed lens, and treatment planning. Those aren’t separate competencies. They’re the integrated skill set the certification is naming. Each element adds a different facet. For example, the 10 individual hour minimum is where the evaluator mode can do its specific work; a consultant can’t deliberately name what they see in your case conceptualization if they only see you in a 2-hour group.

The 50 sessions with 25 clients, 12 CE hours, and recommendation letters. These add an outside, real-world perspective. Two letters from peers attesting to your professional use of EMDR as well as your ethics, and character, and a separate letter (or letters) from an EMDRIA Approved Consultant you’ve worked with, addressing your use of EMDR with clients and recommending you for certification, complete the picture. The Approved Consultant letter is where the evaluator mode becomes formal; your consultant is putting in writing that you’re ready to practice EMDR independently with the populations you’ve been working with. Pick a consultant who will be willing to write that letter honestly… and then earn it.

Why Renee’s spreadsheet was the wrong tool

When Renee sent me her spreadsheet, she was treating Certification as a procurement and box-checking problem. Find the cheapest hours. Get the recommendation letter. I don’t think Renee was wrong to organize and create the spreadsheet. She had a full caseload, eldercare, two kids with packed schedules, and a session quota at her community clinic job. The spreadsheet was a great dashboard to track a lot of moving parts, so they make sense.

But the spreadsheet can hide the ‘why’ behind the inputs. The standards describe the twenty hours as a relationship doing real work.

That distinction matters in a way I want to be specific about. If you pick a consultant who only offers one of the three modes, you can still complete your hours. You’ll get the credential. But you won’t get the experience the credential is supposed to represent.

And if you receive all three modes from a consultant who is offering them well, and you don’t engage as a learner, an honest reporter of your own struggle, and a clinician willing to be seen, you also won’t get the experience. The hours are necessary, but they aren’t sufficient. The development happens in the relationship, and the relationship is co-produced.

If you’re stuck partway through the process and frustrated with your consultant, it’s worth asking yourself which side of the relationship the stuckness is sitting on. Sometimes it really is the consultant. Switching is appropriate, and the clearer framing in the new standards can help you tell. Sometimes it’s the work you haven’t yet carved out time for.

So the question I’d ask Renee, instead of helping her optimize the spreadsheet, was this. What are your goals, and what are you hoping changes across these twenty hours? Not what hours you accumulate. What changes in you?

She didn’t answer for two weeks. When she did, the answer was good. I applaud her for examining her motivations and goals honestly. She said, I want to stop apologizing in sessions when I don’t know what to do next.

That’s a Certification goal, and the relationship is the vehicle to get there.

What to listen for in an intro call

If you’re at Renee’s stage, here’s what I’d tell you to listen for when you’re talking with a prospective consultant.

Listen for whether they shift between the three modes in the conversation itself. A consultant who has internalized educator-motivator-evaluator will do small versions of all three across an intro call. They’ll teach you something about how they think about consultation. They’ll express encouragement about something specific you said. They’ll ask a question that’s evaluative in a gentle way.

Listen for whether they ask what you want to develop, not just what cases you have. The new standards name that consultation is developmental. A consultant who has read them will be thinking about your formation, not just your case list.

Listen to how they describe feedback. If they talk about feedback as something they give only when something goes wrong, that’s a corrective stance. If they talk about feedback as something woven into how you work together over time, that’s developmental.

And listen, finally, for whether they treat the hours as an apprenticeship or a transaction. That is, nothing is really expected of you besides showing up to class.

These are diagnostic questions, but they’re also examples of practicing your clinical judgment on the certification pathway itself. Reading a consultant on an intro call is the same skill, in miniature, as reading a client’s strengths and deficits in an intake.

What Renee did next

Renee contracted with a consultant shortly after her ‘What now?’ email. She picked the one who, in the intro call, asked her what she was afraid would happen in her next EMDR session. Renee told me later that no one had asked her that before. The question itself was a small piece of all three modes at once. Educator in the framing of the question. Motivator in the acknowledgment that fear was a normal part of development. Evaluator in the invitation to be honest about it.

She’s about six months in now and has fourteen hours of combined individual/group time logged. She’s been working with the same consultant the whole time. Her spreadsheet still exists. She showed it to me on a Zoom call a few weeks ago. The hours column is filling up at a slower pace than she’d hoped.

The other column, the one that didn’t exist when she emailed me, is the one she’s started keeping notes in. It says things like, today I noticed the urge to fix instead of stay present when a client was talking about horrific loss. Today, I asked the client about the emotions they noticed instead of telling them what I noticed. Today I used the MID-60 answers to alter the treatment plan as it revealed symptom distress 3x over clinical significance, I didn’t recognize it three months ago.

That second column is what the three-mode experience makes possible. Her consultant offered the conditions, she began to notice, and the development blossomed in the space between.

What now?

I keep thinking about Renee and how, in the week after Basic Training, she sat with her highlighter and spreadsheet, trying to find the fastest route through. I think about her because almost every clinician I’ve worked with started there.

The 2026 EMDRIA Approved Consultant Standards clarified the consultant/consultee relationship and how it could serve clinicians and, subsequently, clients by articulating the learning conditions and attitudes allowing you to read the mountain when guiding your clients.

But it also stresses you’re not alone and expected to perform; you’re also not in a military boot camp. When you’re working towards certification, the consultant is on the rope with you, cheering you on towards your summit.

Want to review the full standards? Find the link here.

One way I can help is with certification consultations? Access the Clinician page for more information about individual and group offers, or to schedule a 15-minute free call.