It was a great experience to be with colleagues and friends for another year of sharing ideas and getting updates on research and clinical developments.
Every year, the EMDRIA Annual Conference brings together the broader EMDR therapy community for a few days of learning, reconnecting, and taking stock of where the field is headed. This year's theme was one that feels particularly close to what we teach at The Center: EMDR as an integrative psychotherapy. The keynote speakers brought that theme to life in ways that were genuinely exciting, and it was meaningful to hear it articulated so clearly across the conference as a whole.
Nine of us from The Center attended this year: Deany Laliotis, Ami Allen, Katrina Blair, Devon Dubois, Mari Fullmer, Erin Gardner-Flores, Lida Lisowe, Kris Rinkenberger, and Rachel Totten. For some of us, it was the first time we had actually met in person, which, after so many hours together on Zoom for trainings and consultation groups, was a real treat.
One of the highlights of the weekend was watching Center faculty member Rachel Totten present her first EMDRIA conference workshop. Her presentation, "Squeezing the Adaptive Juices in Reevaluation," brought clinical depth and real specificity to a phase of EMDR therapy that often gets less attention than it deserves. We were proud to watch her in that room, and it is exactly the kind of moment that reflects what faculty development at The Center is meant to produce.
Hanging out together at The Center booth was a high point of the weekend for me. Not only were we busy talking to our fellow EMDR therapists about The Center's trainings and consultation, we also had time for small talk and just getting to know one another, something that doesn't happen often when we're meeting online for a training or a group session. There is something irreplaceable about being in the same room. Online training has made it possible for The Center to reach clinicians across the country and internationally, and that reach matters to us. But a weekend like this one is a reminder of what the community looks like when it gathers in person, and why we keep showing up.
The broader conversation at the conference reinforced something we have been teaching for years: EMDR therapy is not a technique to be applied. It is a comprehensive psychotherapy, integrative in its nature, relational in its practice, and far broader in its clinical reach than its reputation as a trauma protocol sometimes suggests. Hearing that framing echoed in the keynotes and across sessions was encouraging, and it gave us plenty to bring back into our own training rooms.
We are already looking forward to next year.
If you are an EMDR therapist interested in training or consultation with The Center, we would love for you to join our community.
