We know that work as a trauma therapist can often leave clinicians feeling burnt out. And when we live and work through a globally altering experience, like the COVID-19 pandemic, that burnout gets amplified and can push folks to leave the field entirely.

So, can you imagine what life would look like if you had three times the amount of clients in your practice?

Y’all, for life as a child therapist, that’s what reality can look like.

I sat down with my friend and colleague, Nicole Symcox, to talk about what private practice self-care should look like while working as a virtual EMDR therapist with kids.

Listen as Nicole shares her own iron-clad systems that keep her safe so that she may continue to do the same for her clients. We unpack what it’s like to create boundaries with kids and their parents, the secret to protecting your time, and how to design a practice that works within your self-care container.

Your business is a precious resource for the folks in your community, so don’t spend your time overextending yourself for pennies on the dollar.

Let us help you create a business that reflects your worth.

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Nicole Symcox is a Licensed Psychotherapist, Mental Health Educator, and Podcast Host for the popular show, Mental Health Remix. In her private practice in California, she provides holistic healing for kids and teens, and is a Certified EMDR clinician and CIT. 

Using her framework for treating trauma and anxiety, she's helped thousands of clients gain freedom, peace, and an empowered sense of living. Through her coaching platform, she offers business coaching and EMDR consultation to clinicians who want to build a profitable private practice, while offering clinical excellence utilizing EMDR for kids.

Learn more about Nicole at www.nicolesymcox.com/consultation

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Looking for more business self-care encouragement?
If your private practice is leaving you burnt out and feeling desperate for change, it's probably because you're in need of self-care that's built into your business model. As Nicole and I discuss, we're not taught how to run a business as we come up in our training and it's time for us to break that cycle.

The Consultation Program addresses this gap in our education by offering clinicians practice design support along side clinical consultation. Apply today to embark on an eight month journey in the only comprehensive consultation program out there.

I promise you, there's nothing like it!

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Zero Disturbance offers comprehensive resources for therapists on EMDR-informed clinical reasoning, intensive design, passive income systems, & teaching excellence. 

With a Masters in Education from Vanderbilt, Kambria has been creating trainings and teaching adult learners for 20 years. As Director of Education and Quality Improvement at Stanford Medical School, her job was to decomplicate and consolidate complex systems and topics, thereby giving medical trainees successful learning experiences. Now, as a busy mom of fraternal twins, dedicated business owner of Zero Disturbance, and EMDRIA Approved Consultant, Kambria knows what it means to do things efficiently, effectively, and in a learner-centered way. 

Today, we’re talking money.

And, believe me, I know that this is a hard thing for many therapists to talk about. I’ve had to work through my own stuff with this, coached many consultees, and now, I'm here to offer you some insight on the frameworks that we traditionally use to determine our rates and what we can try to do instead.

Listen as I dive into the notion that the information we’re using to generate our rates is, in most cases, distorted and riddled in generational trauma passed down by therapists before us. The unfortunate truth is that the data we’re using to keep our heads above water is dangerously devaluing the work that we do.

We are highly-trained, trauma-informed, brain-based therapists whose value goes far beyond what insurance and directory companies are telling us. I want all of us to make informed decisions when it comes to our rates because, as we're starting to learn, no one else is going to do it for us.

Understand how to define your therapy rates in a way that reflects the transformations you facilitate. And leave the frameworks of the past behind you.

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Looking to learn more about designing your rates? We're on a mission to help clinicians see the value in their transformative services and we want you there!

The Consultation Program offers practice design coaching along side clinical consultation to help clinicians understand that they're highly-trained specialists who deserve rates that reflect their services.

Apply today to embark on an eight month journey in the only comprehensive consultation program out there.

I promise you, there's nothing like it.

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Zero Disturbance offers comprehensive resources for therapists on EMDR-informed clinical reasoning, intensive design, passive income systems, & teaching excellence. 

With a Masters in Education from Vanderbilt, Kambria has been creating trainings and teaching adult learners for 20 years. As Director of Education and Quality Improvement at Stanford Medical School, her job was to decomplicate and consolidate complex systems and topics, thereby giving medical trainees successful learning experiences. Now, as a busy mom of fraternal twins, dedicated business owner of Zero Disturbance, and EMDRIA Approved Consultant, Kambria knows what it means to do things efficiently, effectively, and in a learner-centered way. 

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Reference for number of mental health care professionals in the United States

When we hear the word imagination, a variety of things may come to mind. Maybe it’s two kids playing a pretend game or maybe it's a fantasy television show or maybe it’s even a comic book with some creative characters.

What we don’t typically think about is EMDR therapy. In fact, when we think about imagination and EMDR, our training might even tell us that what we’re looking at is dissociation.

That's why today, I want to open up a conversation about the relationship that we, as clinicians, have with imagination.

We know that, for children, imagination holds the key to so much of what we know to be human development. Imagination is what kids use to play, and to learn, and to try on different identities and cognitions. It’s a powerful tool that so many children use to process their day to day life.

So, y’all, when our adult clients are reprocessing childhood trauma and a cartoon character or some other imaginative figure comes in, I want you to pause before you write this off as dissociation. Take a moment to recognize that you may actually be exactly where you need to be: in their childhood neural networks and narratives. Then take a moment to recognize that your client may be doing exactly what they need to be doing in Phase 4: connecting those childhood narratives to the present, adult narratives.

We put so much pressure on ourselves to identify when our clients are dissociating in Phase 4 that we’re quick to react with the assumption that we need to bring them back to target or back to the present. But what if, instead, we were to take some time to let imagination do the job it was meant to do?

I imagine we’d be offering a resource to our clients that we didn’t even know they had.

Listen to this podcast episode to learn more about imagination and EMDR therapy.

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Are you ready to re-imagine your private practice?

If you're looking to re-imagine your private practice but don't know where to start, you're probably in need of a community of business-minded clinicians. Enrollment in The Consultation Program encourages clinicians to think outside the box to create business models that work for them. Apply today to embark on an eight month journey in the only comprehensive consultation program out there.

I promise you, there's nothing like it.

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Zero Disturbance offers comprehensive resources for therapists on EMDR-informed clinical reasoning, intensive design, passive income systems, & teaching excellence. 

With a Masters in Education from Vanderbilt, Kambria has been creating trainings and teaching adult learners for 20 years. As Director of Education and Quality Improvement at Stanford Medical School, her job was to decomplicate and consolidate complex systems and topics, thereby giving medical trainees successful learning experiences. Now, as a busy mom of fraternal twins, dedicated business owner of Zero Disturbance, and EMDRIA Approved Consultant, Kambria knows what it means to do things efficiently, effectively, and in a learner-centered way. 

Y’all know that I believe EMDR is magic. And I think, among the many reasons, the magic of EMDR lies within its structure. 

It can feel safe to hear and repeat the message of “stick to the script and trust the process.” And while the message has a positive intention, it's just not good enough.

In fact, it's basic. And EMDR is too sophisticated to be basic.

At first we see the benefit of this message with our peers in basic training exercises and single-incident trauma clients in our practices; it feels reassuring and so we internalize it.

But then something troublesome can happen. 

When a complex trauma client walks through our door and the line-by-line script doesn’t offer what that client needs, we get cold feet with EMDR.

And not only do we lose trust in the process, but we lose trust in ourselves.

Sticking to the script and trusting the process should no longer be the default message in basic EMDR training or Facebook comments for those seeking consultation. We deserve more nuance than that because we are far beyond basic.

So, I’d like to offer something different. What if this idea just meant that we believe in the power of EMDR, the value of the 8 Phases, and that we trust the AIP model? And what if we used this as encouraging blueprint instead of a line-by-line script to be repeated?

If we can alter the way that we value the structure of EMDR, we can alter the relationship that we have with ourselves as EMDR clinicians. 

Listen to my most recent podcast to understand how we limit ourselves with this message and what we can do instead. 

You deserve to trust yourself because EMDR is magic… and so are you.

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If you're looking for clinical consultation that's going to offer you frameworks and insight to strengthen your EMDR training, I encourage you to check out The Consultation Program. Apply today to embark on an eight month journey in the only comprehensive consultation program out there.

I promise you, there's nothing like it.

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Zero Disturbance offers comprehensive resources for therapists on EMDR-informed clinical reasoning, intensive design, passive income systems, & teaching excellence. 

With a Masters in Education from Vanderbilt, Kambria has been creating trainings and teaching adult learners for 20 years. As Director of Education and Quality Improvement at Stanford Medical School, her job was to decomplicate and consolidate complex systems and topics, thereby giving medical trainees successful learning experiences. Now, as a busy mom of fraternal twins, dedicated business owner of Zero Disturbance, and EMDRIA Approved Consultant, Kambria knows what it means to do things efficiently, effectively, and in a learner-centered way. 

We know that every experience has feelings attached to it. And, as therapists, we’re apt to listen to and validate those feelings for our clients and (hopefully) for ourselves.

And learning, just like all of the other experiences in life, has feelings attached to it. And while we would typically create space for the feelings that come up, in Phase 4 we tend to pick and choose what feelings we think are appropriate for this time.

Reprocessing in Phase 4 is just learning, y’all. And for our clients (and for us), there are going to be feelings that show up as this happens.

Our job is not necessarily to interfere with these feelings because we believe that something else should be happening. Our job is to understand if that frustration, or other feeling, is clinically relevant.

And spoiler alert, oftentimes, it is.

I’ve identified the 5 questions that I ask myself whenever I’m feeling “stuck” in Phase 4 and my hope is that this framework will help you understand that sometimes “stuckness” is the clinical stepping stone you need to understand for your client.

If you're looking for clinical consultation that's going to offer you frameworks and insight just like in this podcast, I encourage you to check out The Consultation Program. Embark on an eight month journey in the only comprehensive consultation program out there. Apply here today!

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Zero Disturbance offers comprehensive resources for therapists on EMDR-informed clinical reasoning, intensive design, passive income systems, & teaching excellence. 

With a Masters in Education from Vanderbilt, Kambria has been creating trainings and teaching adult learners for 20 years. As Director of Education and Quality Improvement at Stanford Medical School, her job was to decomplicate and consolidate complex systems and topics, thereby giving medical trainees successful learning experiences. Now, as a busy mom of fraternal twins, dedicated business owner of Zero Disturbance, and EMDRIA Approved Consultant, Kambria knows what it means to do things efficiently, effectively, and in a learner-centered way. 

If your experience as a newly trained EMDR therapist was anything like mine, you probably started to see that “sticking to the script” to navigate through standard protocol was confusing when working with complex trauma clients. Why? Because the beauty of standard protocol often needs interweaves, parts work, and more Phase 2 preparation (things not in "the script") in order to flow. And while some basic trainings teach us these things, many of us don't get to learn these more advanced topics in the beginning of our EMDR training. 

And far too often, the lack of understanding to work with these complex clients creates a fear in us. We worry that we can’t do EMDR because we don’t know what to do when reading the line-by-line script isn't working.

I want to offer a framework for you to think about case conceptualization in a way that lowers the stakes when it comes to choosing a target with your complex trauma clients. 

What if I told you that you don’t have to dive into the first, worst, or touchstone memory right away with your new EMDR clients? What if I told you that, instead, you can pick an initial target where the stakes are lower because the SUD is lower?

And what if I told you that this “pilot” would breathe life into your relationship with your client and your client's relationship with EMDR?

Listen to my most recent podcast where I unpack case conceptualization with all types of clients so we can decrease our anxiety. 

It's time to give yourself permission to gather information so that you may make informed choices. 

Learn more about standard protocol, case conceptualization and more with The Consultation Program. Embark in an eight month journey to enhance your clinical confidence. Apply here today!

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Zero Disturbance offers comprehensive resources for therapists on EMDR-informed clinical reasoning, intensive design, passive income systems, & teaching excellence. 

With a Masters in Education from Vanderbilt, Kambria has been creating trainings and teaching adult learners for 20 years. As Director of Education and Quality Improvement at Stanford Medical School, her job was to decomplicate and consolidate complex systems and topics, thereby giving medical trainees successful learning experiences. Now, as a busy mom of fraternal twins, dedicated business owner of Zero Disturbance, and EMDRIA Approved Consultant, Kambria knows what it means to do things efficiently, effectively, and in a learner-centered way. 

If you think about what traditional images of psychotherapy look like, you might imagine something hierarchical, impersonal, and precise. Where the clinician is as good as invisible and the sessions sound scripted. 

But what we know now is that effective therapy happens when stuff gets relational and creative integrations are designed. Because the clinicians who offer something inspiring to the world are the ones who show up with intention, authenticity, and an openness to experiment. 

I sat down with EMDR clinicians Andrea Skitch and Norine Vander Hooven to talk about what it means to blend powerful tools like Kundalini Yoga and Brainspotting with EMDR therapy. 

I’m inspired at how these women have stacked their talents and blended them with EMDR therapy. Because I can feel that not only do they offer something beautiful for their clients, but that they also do for consultees and for themselves.  

Listen to this Spotlight episode as we unpack what it means to experiment clinically and with our business models, and you’ll find that all of it is connected. 

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Want to keep learning with us?

Learn alongside clinicians just like Andrea and Norine in The Consultation Program. Apply today to embark on an eight month journey in the only comprehensive consultation program out there. It’s time that you stack your talents because there’s nothing like it. 

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Learn more about this episode’s spotlight guests:

Norine Vander Hooven, LCSW

www.norinevanderhoovenslcsw.com for training, consultation, and suicide prevention course.

www.westlaketraumaandresilience.com for counseling services.

Contact Information:

[email protected] 

[email protected]

Andrea Skitch MSW RSW

Psycho-Spiritual EMDR Consultant-in-Training 

Founder of The Aquarian Academy 

Raising the consciousness on Mother Earth by healing trauma, one soul at a time. 

andreaskitch.com

@andreaskitch 

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Zero Disturbance offers comprehensive resources for therapists on EMDR-informed clinical reasoning, intensive design, passive income systems, & teaching excellence. 

With a Masters in Education from Vanderbilt, Kambria has been creating trainings and teaching adult learners for 20 years. As Director of Education and Quality Improvement at Stanford Medical School, her job was to decomplicate and consolidate complex systems and topics, thereby giving medical trainees successful learning experiences. Now, as a busy mom of fraternal twins, dedicated business owner of Zero Disturbance, and EMDRIA Approved Consultant, Kambria knows what it means to do things efficiently, effectively, and in a learner-centered way. 

Every clinician, whether they think they work with reproductive issues or not, needs to hear this discussion! Why? First, even if your clinical work doesn’t focus on these topics, you’re still likely to find them showing up in your office. Next, how we think about incorporating EMDR therapy during the reproductive period, especially during a client’s pregnancy, can be applied conceptually to every client! By exploring the hopes, fears, and hesitations that arise when incorporating EMDR during the reproductive period, we illuminate what comes up across clinical practice areas. 

There are a lot of alarming messages in the therapy world about EMDR and pregnancy. And for many EMDR clinicians, this messaging has instilled an aversion to doing EMDR with our pregnant clients. 

We're taught to fear the "dangers" of doing EMDR in the first and third trimesters, the threat EMDR has on high-risk pregnancies, and that we should, at all costs, avoid any reprocessing in Phase 4 with our pregnant clients.

And while this messaging has a good intention, it loses sight of one of the biggest questions associated with EMDR and pregnancy: what's the risk if we don't do EMDR with our pregnant clients? 

I sat down with perinatal mental health advocate and expert Dr. Mara Tesler Stein to learn more about EMDR and pregnancy to unpack the past, present, and future behind this misunderstood question.

Listen as we talk about the fears we have as clinicians, our responsibilities to our clients, and the research that actually answers the often asked question "Can you do EMDR with a pregnant client?" 

Want to keep learning with us?

Are you ready to grow your clinical reasoning skills in a way that separates you from the traditional thinking of the past? Apply for The Consultation Program today to build your clinical confidence in a comprehensive eight month journey. 

There’s nothing like it.

Learn more about today’s spotlight guest: 

Dr. Mara Tesler Stein, Psy.D., PMH-C

www.touchstoneinstitute.org

Training + Education:

Foundational training (Aug/Nov, 2022)

The Advanced Practice of EMDR for Perinatal & Infant Mental Health (June, 2022)

The Advanced Practice of EMDR for Perinatal & Infant Mental Health (on-demand)

Empty Cradle, Broken Heart: A Practitioner's Guide to Working with Bereaved Families (With Dr. Mara Tesler Stein and Dr. Debbie Davis), May, 2022 

Mara Tesler Stein, Psy.D., PMH-C is a clinical psychologist practicing in Chicago and Jerusalem. She is the founder and director of The Touchstone Institute for Psychotherapy and Training where she offers both EMDR Foundational trainings for perinatal specialists & advanced EMDR workshops which take a deeper dive into the intersections and applications of EMDR and perinatal mental health.

Dr. Stein is a staunch advocate for trauma-focused care and is trained and certified in a range of integrative trauma therapies. A certified EMDR therapist, EMDRIA Approved Consultant and Trainer for the Institute for Creative Mindfulness, Dr. Stein is also certified in Emotion-Focused Family and Couple Therapy, is a Gottman Certified Therapist, and continues to pursue training in Clinical Hypnosis, Yoga-Informed treatment, Advanced applications of EMDR, Brainspotting, and Ego-State therapies.

She is the co-author (with Deborah Davis, Ph.D.) of Parenting Your Premature Baby and Child: The Emotional Journey (Fulcrum, 2004) and Intensive Parenting: Surviving the Journey Through the NICU (Fulcrum, 2013).

Her trauma work is grounded in her personal perinatal journey, which began 25 years ago taking her through infertility, twin pregnancy, prolonged hospital bedrest, the NICU, and years of raising NICU graduates.

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Zero Disturbance offers comprehensive resources for therapists on EMDR-informed clinical reasoning, intensive design, passive income systems, & teaching excellence. 

With a Masters in Education from Vanderbilt, Kambria has been creating trainings and teaching adult learners for 20 years. As Director of Education and Quality Improvement at Stanford Medical School, her job was to decomplicate and consolidate complex systems and topics, thereby giving medical trainees successful learning experiences. Now, as a busy mom of fraternal twins, dedicated business owner of Zero Disturbance, and EMDRIA Approved Consultant, Kambria knows what it means to do things efficiently, effectively, and in a learner-centered way. 

Who do you think you are? You’re too big for your britches. Wait your turn; you’re too young. You may have grown up hearing similar messages that were meant to help you, but a lot of those messages are just the result of generational trauma. Instead, these messages did more harm than good.

Even as adults, people often want to put their fears onto us, and give us a plan that works for them but not for us. We can no longer hold on to beliefs that do not serve us. We cannot be effective therapists or teachers having listened to these voices and choosing to continue to listen to these voices.

As adults, we have choices. We can make intentional decisions about the voices that we let into our heads and into our hearts. Of course, sometimes we listen to the wrong people, but it’s important that we take responsibility and make a choice on who we are going to listen to and who we aren’t.

If you have any desire for other people to listen to you, you have to be very intentional about who you are listening to and who is guiding you. Surround yourself with people who believe in you and who allow you to let your unique light shine.

If you're ready to get more from your practice, join us in The Consultation Program: https://www.zerodisturbance.com/consultation-2022

Resources:

Who Do We Think We Are by John Legend

Out Deepest Fear by Marianne Williamson

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Zero Disturbance offers comprehensive resources for therapists on EMDR-informed clinical reasoning, intensive design, passive income systems, & teaching excellence. 

With a Masters in Education from Vanderbilt, Kambria has been creating trainings and teaching adult learners for 20 years. As Director of Education and Quality Improvement at Stanford Medical School, her job was to decomplicate and consolidate complex systems and topics, thereby giving medical trainees successful learning experiences. Now, as a busy mom of fraternal twins, dedicated business owner of Zero Disturbance, and EMDRIA Approved Consultant, Kambria knows what it means to do things efficiently, effectively, and in a learner-centered way. 

I was recently speaking with a consultee about her experience with veterans and I asked if she would be willing to share her unique perspective. Her response was, “what am I going to say that hasn’t already been said?”  

This got me thinking. Why don’t people create content? It’s not because they don’t have ideas or because they’re not smart. I realized it’s not just about the content, but it’s about how it is delivered. 

Each of us is a combination of all of the people and voices that we have taken in. This creates a unique perspective within us that no one else has. Each of us has different content to share based on our own unique perspectives, and each of us will deliver that content in a unique way.

Similarly, content is received in very different ways by different people. Even if what you are sharing has already been said, no one can say it in exactly the unique way that you can, which means that it has never been received in the same way either.

If you're ready to get more from your practice, join us in The Consultation Program: https://www.zerodisturbance.com/consultation-2022

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Zero Disturbance offers comprehensive resources for therapists on EMDR-informed clinical reasoning, intensive design, passive income systems, & teaching excellence. 

With a Masters in Education from Vanderbilt, Kambria has been creating trainings and teaching adult learners for 20 years. As Director of Education and Quality Improvement at Stanford Medical School, her job was to decomplicate and consolidate complex systems and topics, thereby giving medical trainees successful learning experiences. Now, as a busy mom of fraternal twins, dedicated business owner of Zero Disturbance, and EMDRIA Approved Consultant, Kambria knows what it means to do things efficiently, effectively, and in a learner-centered way.