Consultation as Community: Why EMDR Therapists in Private Practice Need More Than Training
Most EMDR therapists don’t go into private practice anticipating the loneliness that can follow. We’re drawn to this work because it’s meaningful, relational, and deeply human. We value autonomy and depth, and many of us leave group settings or agencies hoping for more alignment and freedom.
What often surprises people is how quietly isolating private practice can become.
There’s no team meeting to process a heavy session.
No colleague down the hall to ask, “Have you seen this before?”
No shared container for holding the emotional weight of trauma work.
For a while, continuing education and advanced trainings can fill that gap. Learning something new can feel energizing and grounding. But eventually, many therapists realize that what’s missing isn’t more information or techniques or protocols - it’s community.
Consultation Is More than Case Collaboration
EMDR consultation is often framed as a place to get answers, guidance, or reassurance about clinical decisions. And it is totally that - and - when consultation happens with the same group of people over time, it becomes something else entirely.
It becomes relational.
You don’t have to reintroduce yourself each month.
You don’t have to explain your practice context from scratch.
You get to follow up on cases without completely introducing it as new.
You get to know other clinicians on a deeper level.
Over time, trust builds. The conversations deepen. The group develops a shared language. Consultation shifts from “What should I do?” to “How do I want to practice, and who do I want to be while doing this work?”
That’s EMDR consultation as community.
Why Community Matters
EMDR therapy, and trauma work in general, asks a lot of clinicians. We keep track of multiple cases that are all in different phases, maybe using different protocols. Many of us are integrating other modalities and tracking parts, relationship dynamics, childhood memories.
We hold intense material. We witness suffering and transformation. We sit with uncertainty.
Doing that work in isolation increases the risk of burnout, self-doubt, and over-responsibility. Not because therapists aren’t capable — but because this work was never meant to be done alone.
A consistent EMDR consultation community helps distribute the weight.
It offers:
A place to normalize stuckness
A container for uncertainty and ethical nuance
Support for the therapist’s nervous system, not just their skillset
A reminder that you are part of something larger than your solo office
A place to celebrate WINS in community
My EMDR Consultation Cohort
When I started these EMDR cohorts, it was primarily to simplify the certification process and offer an affordable path to certification. As I’ve run the groups over the last two years they have grown into something so surprising and beautiful - a community of colleagues who helped each other, laughed together, and helped one another grow.
This is a small, consistent EMDR consultation cohort for therapists in private practice that meets monthly over the course of six months (with the option to join for the year!) It’s designed for EMDR therapists in private practice who want:
Ongoing relational support
A stable group of peers
Space to think together, not perform
A place where clinical growth and sustainability are equally important
Yes, this cohort can count toward EMDR certification hours. But that isn’t the heart of it. The heart is connection — building a community where EMDR therapists don’t have to carry their work alone.
What has helped you stay connected in private practice? Share in the comments!
If you’ve been craving something more relational, more consistent, and more human than one-off trainings, consultation as community may be exactly what you’re looking for - reserve your spot today!
Y-BOCS II Nerd Alert 🧠 (why I’m changing the severity thresholds)
This week I was updating a Y-BOCS II score for a client who is officially in remission from OCD (yay!), when I glanced down at the scoring thresholds in the PDF I give to consultees. I noticed something that didn’t sit right with me: I had “8–15 = mild symptoms,” but in practice I’ve been treating 12–14 and below as remission/subclinical.
So I had a moment of, “Wait… how can something be ‘mild OCD’ and ‘in remission’ at the same time?”
That sent me into a little research spiral with our best friend, Chatty G, and here’s what I found: I wasn’t totally making stuff up - the ranges I had in my handout were:
0–7 subclinical
8–15 mild
16–23 moderate
24–31 severe
32–40 extreme
40–50 “severe debilitation”
That’s basically the old/original Y-BOCS (0–40) bands — which are all over the internet — and then I stretched them up to 50 because the Y-BOCS II goes to 50 (each item is 0–5 now, not 0–4). So what I had was a reasonable clinician adaptation, not nonsense. I suspect I found this online somewhere, but in true ADHD form, I cannot be sure!
But… the Y-BOCS II doesn’t actually come with official severity cutoffs.
The manual tells us how to score it (sum items 1–10, 0–50) but it never gives us “this is mild, this is moderate.” So most of us just kept using the old Y-BOCS language and pretended it fit. (Guilty 🙋🏻♀️)
Then I found a 2025 paper that finally does what we wanted it to do: it proposes empirically derived severity benchmarks specifically for the Y-BOCS II. That paper basically says: let’s make severity fit the 0–50 scale, and let’s put remission at the bottom where it belongs. Then they tested it, and based on their research they recommend these categories:
0–14: subclinical / remission
15–21: mild
22–34: moderate
35–50: severe
This lined up exactly with what I was already doing clinically — using 14 and below as “we’re out of the OCD woods.” It also lines up with broader OCD outcome work that uses Y-BOCS remission in that same neighborhood.
So I’m updating my scoring guide to match that version.
New Language:
Y-BOCS-II (10 items, 0–5 each; total score 0–50). Severity bands based on recent Y-BOCS-II psychometric work (2025):
0–14 = subclinical / remission
15–21 = mild
22–34 = moderate
35–50 = severe
Note: earlier versions of this handout adapted the original Y-BOCS (0–40) bands to a 0–50 scale; this version reflects empirically derived Y-BOCS-II benchmarks.
I strongly encourage you to download the new version here!
Things I Think You’ll Love
It matches how we talk to clients. If someone is 12 or 13, we call that “pretty much in remission,” not “still mildly OCD.”
It’s actually tied to recent data, not just inheritance from the 1989 version. Y’all know I prefer the YBOCS II over the YBOCS primarily because it assess for avoidance compulsions - this allows us to use empirical research without missing out on the avoidance assessment.
TLDR - The Y-BOCS II goes 0–50, but the old severity bands we all used were for the 0–40 version. A 2025 paper finally offered severity ranges that actually fit the 0–50 scale, so I’m updating my handout to match.
Thanks for trusting me to keep evolving the tools I share with you — I want them to match what the current research is actually saying, and as I always say - I am learning right along side you!