A Competence Framework for Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy

View the supporting document and six domains of competences for delivering EMDR therapy.

About the framework

The framework was commissioned by Health Education England. It was written by experts at UCL overseen by an Expert Reference Group. It contains six domains of competences for practitioners delivering EMDR therapy:

  1. Core professional competences – the knowledge and skills needed to operate in a professional context.
  2. Generic therapeutic competences – required to manage sessions and engage clients in the intervention; competences for assessing and managing risk.
  3. Knowledge of trauma – for working with people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including knowledge of trauma and dissociation.
  4. EMDR-specific knowledge of the Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) model (maladaptively stored memories of trauma).
  5. EMDR interventions – the eight phases of the standard EMDR protocol; adapting the EMDR protocol when there are mental health presentations in addition to PTSD; using EMDR with people with complex PTSD.
  6. Meta-competences – needed to guide the implementation of any assessment or intervention.

The supporting document

The supporting document contains important background information and discussion, and should be read before the competence framework:

 

EMDR Therapy Competence Framework - Supporting document cover
Click the image or here to view the supporting document (PDF)

Preview of the map of competences

Here is a preview of the map, which can be found in the supporting document. It shows the six domains of competences knowledge and how they inter-relate:

 

EMDR Therapy Competence Framework - Map image 1

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