A guide for licensed therapists
How do you actually choose an EMDR training?
People ask this in the same threads over and over: which program, which format, is it worth $1,500 or $2,000, does it matter who I train with. Most of the answers online are either a competitor's ad or a two-sentence "I liked mine, ask around." Neither one tells you what to actually compare. This page is the longer answer: what EMDRIA approval means, the formats you'll run into, real price ranges, and the questions worth asking before you pay for anything. Beyond Healing Institute runs one of these trainings, and it shows up near the bottom as one option among several, because that's an honest place for it.
What "EMDRIA-approved" actually means
EMDR isn't a licensed or trademarked term, so anyone can call a course "EMDR training." EMDRIA approval is the thing that separates a real basic training from a weekend workshop with the letters EMDR in the title. An approved program has to include a specific structure and it can't be shortened: 20 hours of didactic instruction, 20 hours of supervised practicum, and 10 hours of consultation, completed within 12 months of the training's start.
That consultation piece is the part people miss. It's not optional and it's not the same as the practicum hours you do during the training week. It's ongoing, individual or small-group time with an EMDRIA-approved consultant after the didactic and practicum portions are done, and it's what turns "I sat through a training" into a program EMDRIA will actually certify as complete. Some programs bundle those 10 hours into your tuition. Some sell you the didactic and practicum, then bill you separately for consultation at $25 to $50 an hour. That difference alone can move a program's real cost by $250 to $500, and it's usually not on the price page.
EMDRIA keeps a directory of approved providers at emdria.org/find-an-emdr-training, and is explicit that some well-marketed programs are not EMDRIA-approved and don't count toward EMDRIA credentialing. If a program doesn't appear on EMDRIA's own provider list, ask directly whether it satisfies EMDRIA's requirements before you pay. Don't assume "EMDR" in the name means it does.
One more thing worth knowing going in: "EMDR training" and "EMDR certification" are two different products, sold by mostly different sets of people. Basic training is the 50-hour skeleton above. Certification is a separate, later step, usually another 20 hours of consultation plus continuing education, sat for after you've been using EMDR in practice for a while. Most of what you'll see marketed is basic training. If you're searching for certification and landing on basic-training pages, that's why it feels like nobody sells what you're actually looking for.
Formats
The three shapes a training comes in
- Cheapest to run, so often the cheapest to buy. Works fine for the didactic content. The practicum hours, where you're actually practicing the protocol on a partner with feedback, are harder to do well over Zoom breakout rooms than in a room with a trainer walking the floor. Several national programs run online-only.
- The traditional model: two three-day blocks, months apart, so you have time to sit with Part I before Part II. Good if you want the material to breathe. Slower to finish, and often the format that unbundles consultation, so check the total cost, not the weekend price. Also ask who will be in the room for Part II. Blocks can fill separately, sometimes in different cities, so the people you practiced with in the first weekend may not be the ones you finish with.
- Five consecutive days, all 40 didactic and practicum hours done, consultation scheduled afterward. Fastest to complete, and the format where practicum works the way it should: one cohort, start to finish. Practicum isn't roleplay. You practice EMDR on each other, and real material comes up, so it matters that Thursday's practice partner has been in the room with you since Monday. Trust builds across the week instead of resetting. The trade is your calendar, a full week up front. And in-person supply has been thinning as more programs go virtual-only, so if you specifically want a room and a partner across the table, your options are narrower than they used to be.
What things actually cost
A real price comparison, not a "starting at"
Pulled from providers' own pages in July 2026. Total cost is what matters, not the headline number, since a few programs sell an attractively low base price and bill consultation separately. Where that's true, the note column says so.
| Provider | Format | Consultation | All-in cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scaling Up EMDR | Virtual / hybrid | Included | $1,250 – $1,450 |
| Beyond Healing InstituteUs | In-person + Zoom, 5-day | Included (10 hrs) | $1,600 one-time · $1,650 total (8 × $206.25) |
| Trauma Therapist Institute | Virtual / in-person, two 3-day blocks | Included | $1,690 |
| Coast to Coast EMDR | Webinar / city cohorts | Included | $1,595 |
| TICTI | Live online, 7.5 days | Included | $1,725 ($1,525 early) |
| Center for Excellence | Online, two parts | Included | $1,895 |
| EMDR Consulting | 5-day intensive / virtual | Included | ~$1,995 (reported) |
| EMDR Institute | Two weekends, 3 to 4 months apart | Not included, add $250 to $500 | ~$1,500 base / ~$1,800 to $2,000 true cost |
| Trauma Recovery / HAP | Two 3-day parts | Not included, add $250 to $500 | ~$1,080 base / ~$1,300 to $1,600 true cost, eligibility-restricted |
Prices verified July 2026. Figures are all-in totals including consultation where a program sells it separately. If you spot something out of date, email therapy@connectbeyondhealing.com.
HAP is restricted to clinicians at qualifying nonprofits, agencies, schools, or government employers. Everyone else isn't eligible regardless of price. Figures for EMDR Consulting, EMDR Institute, and Trauma Recovery/HAP true-cost ranges come from event pages and third-party listings rather than a published price page, since several providers don't post total cost publicly.
Seven questions worth asking any program
- Is the 10 hours of consultation actually included in the price? If not, get the real add-on cost in writing before you compare it to a program that bundles it.
- Who leads the practicum, and how many people are in the room with them? Twenty hours of practicum with one trainer and thirty participants is a different experience than the same twenty hours with a trainer walking a room of ten.
- Do you keep the same cohort and practice partners the whole way through? Practicum means practicing EMDR on each other, and real material surfaces. Going there takes safety, and safety takes time with the same people. If the training splits across weekends or locations, ask whether one group carries through both parts.
- What happens if you miss a session? Multi-month formats sometimes make this easy. Intensive weeks sometimes don't. Ask before you register, not after you miss the Tuesday.
- Is there a payment plan, and what's the cancellation policy? Most programs in this price range offer one. If a program doesn't, ask why.
- Does the program lead anywhere after basic training? If you already know you want certification eventually, ask whether this provider has a pathway or whether you'll be starting over with someone new.
- Can you talk to someone who actually took it? Reviews are easy to stage. A program willing to connect you with a recent graduate, unprompted, is telling you something.
Where Beyond Healing Institute fits
One option, not the only option
We run an EMDR Basic Training out of Springfield, Missouri, in person with a simultaneous Zoom track, five consecutive days, taught by Jen Savage and Bridger Falkenstien. We built it around one conviction: the practice hours only work when the room feels safe. One cohort, the same practice partners from Monday's first walk-through of the protocol to Friday's last set. By midweek you're not practicing on a stranger, you're working with someone who knows you, and that's when the practicum stops being an exercise and starts being EMDR.
The rest of the design follows from there. In person, at a price that doesn't ask you to unbundle consultation to make the math work. One week instead of two weekends months apart, because a week that finishes in a week is easier to schedule around a caseload, and because the group you start with is the group you finish with.
It isn't the cheapest program on the list above, and it isn't trying to be. It sits mid-band on price with all 50 hours, including consultation, built in from day one. If the format and the price fit what you're looking for, good. If a fully virtual program at $1,250 fits your life better, that's a legitimate answer too, and nothing above was written to talk you out of it.
EMDR Basic Training at Beyond Healing Institute
- Format
- In-person, Springfield MO, plus live Zoom
- Schedule
- Five consecutive days
- Next cohort
- October 12 – 16, 2026
- Cost
- $1,600 one-time, 8-payment plan available
If you want it in one place
The comparison guide, as a PDF
Everything above, plus the full provider table, in one document you can actually save and compare against. We'll email it to you. If the October 12 – 16, 2026 cohort timing is useful to you, there's an easy way to say so, no pressure either way.
If you're ready to look closer
Questions about our October cohort
If you've read this far and BHI's format sounds like the right fit, we're glad to answer specifics: seats, payment plans, what the Springfield room looks like, whether Zoom attendees get the same practicum experience. No pressure to decide today.