Bring me the case that is not moving
Individual EMDR consultation for clinicians working in complex trauma, CPTSD, narcissistic abuse, and coercive control. I am an EMDRIA-approved consultant and assisting faculty at Precision EMDR Academy, so hours with me count toward EMDRIA certification and toward Precision EMDR Advanced Certification, which I can sign off on myself.
Where I land, clinically
You are hiring someone whose thinking you are going to borrow, so here is mine up front.
I work with clients who are still in it: I have heard clinicians say, “Do not take clients who are currently in the relationship.” My question is: how are they supposed to get out if nobody will support them through it?
When a client goes back, that is not a failure of therapy. It is a product of worsening abuse. So instead of pushing our clients to leave, we push our clients to safety. That is a different thing.
Codependency is the wrong frame. The moment it gets called codependency, it turns the client away from safety planning and away from seeing the actual danger. It turns the clinician toward the client as the problem. In an environment built with manipulation, it cannot just take two. You end up missing the safety concerns, the power dynamics, the mesosystems keeping the client where they are, and the attachment piece underneath it all.
Working safely towards reprocessing is stabilizing. If we are not doing the work, if we are not supporting reprocessing, we are not getting clients where they want to go. That is a bigger travesty than being momentarily in distress.
Basics before adaptation. You have to know the rules in order to break them. I want you to understand the rules so that we can break them appropriately.
Sweets, sours, burning questions, and clinical cases
That is the structure, and it is the same whether you are in a basic training cohort or working with me individually, so it's normal to expect it.
What I am usually looking for beneath the case you bring is this: do you know the memory network you are working in? A lot of the time we step back to history taking. What symptom are you actually working on? Have you done an adequate dissociation assessment?
Because what I see often is a clinician working with someone whose presentation is closer to dissociative identity disorder, without training in assessing or handling it. When we skip danger assessments and dissociation assessments, we set our clients up for much longer reprocessing than if we had caught it at the start and managed it there.
I also pay attention to what the case is doing to you. With coercive control, clinicians get stuck in resourcing, wondering whether they can even work with this client, worried about making things worse. Part of my job is helping your nervous system settle, because if you don't keep the end goal in mind, your system stays activated, and that doesn’t help your client.
Something you did not walk in with
I take notes in consultation and use them to identify your next steps, so you walk away knowing what I can do, how we did it, and what comes next.
Sometimes that includes PDFs. More often, you walk out with the knowledge of what to do more effectively and how to use the resources you already have.
And you walk out knowing what to do the next time you see this, so it is not just about this one case. That is far more useful than me throwing script after script and protocol after protocol at you.
What I want, honestly, is for complex cases to feel less complex, and for you to walk out the door feeling like you have got something.
~MA in PA
EMDRIA Trained Therapist
“Candace was incredible I learned so much from her, she went above and beyond for us!”
Rates, prerequisites, and how letters work
Individual consultation: $190 per hour. Live over video. Consultation is not clinical supervision.
Group consultation: $150 per 2-hour session, in a curriculum-based track.
One thing to know before you book. My consultees do Precision training alongside our work: Decoding Complex Developmental Trauma Part 1, the Precision Refresher, or Precision EMDR basic training.
You do not need to have finished it. You do not need to have started it. What I ask is that you are ready to begin one of them right away, and that we run it in parallel with the consultation rather than making you wait.
Here is why. Basic training manuals differ enormously between organizations, and I cannot work with a framework I do not know. Shared language is the whole point, and it is something I teach in my own course. This is how we get onto the same wavelength without you having to teach me how you were trained.
On recommendation letters. Skills verification is part of individual consultation, not a separate product sitting next to it. It requires a video and a full case. The floor is five hours, and five hours is a floor and not a guarantee. A letter means I am putting my name on you and saying you can run standard protocol with complex clients, get through TICES appropriately in Phase 3, conceptualize using the AIP model, and do interweaves that make sense. I won't sign that until I believe it. If I cannot write you a strong one yet, I will tell you exactly what is missing so you can go get it.
FAQ
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Good question. The real one underneath it is: do you want to work with this population, and do you want a specialist who works with it regularly? If yes, I am your person. There are plenty of approved consultants and you can absolutely find a cheaper hour, and if someone cheaper is good for you, that is fine. Here is my reasoning. If you don't do it right, you do it twice. I do not want you further along in your career, floundering, having to relearn things, paying on the back end what you would have paid up front. You are not just buying hours, you are investing in your career. Pick consultants who build referral networks with you and mentor you through it.
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Group has other people in it, so it runs more instructionally. We get into case structures, the nitty-gritty of how you actually do a thing, and you get questions answered that you would not have thought to ask. You also connect with people who are worried they are not doing a good job, and find out they are not alone. Individual is your career goals, the intricacies of your own understanding, and where we break things down for you specifically. Many people do both.
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No. That course is only required if you are in the curriculum group. The Precision training condition above is the real one, and it runs alongside our work rather than before it.
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Yes. I am an EMDRIA Approved Consultant. They also count toward Precision EMDR Advanced Certification, which I can sign off on as assisting faculty.
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Yes, with skills verification, a video, a full case, and at least five hours. See above.
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You can still get consultation, and I have worked with several people in exactly that position. You have to be licensed to be EMDRIA certified or Precision Advanced certified, but you can be working toward it now, and you are better off for it later.
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It varies. Some book a single session for one stuck case. Others meet regularly toward certification.