When new EMDR therapists begin their journey, it’s natural to look for the “right” scripts, worksheets, and interventions. We want to do good work. We want to support our clients well. We want reassurance that we’re following the model correctly.

And while external resources can be incredibly helpful, there is something powerful that happens when therapists begin developing and strengthening their own resources alongside their clients.

The process doesn’t just benefit the people we serve—it transforms us as clinicians.

Resource Development Begins With Us

One of the most beautiful aspects of EMDR therapy is that it trusts in the innate healing capacity of the human nervous system. Resource development is no exception.

As therapists, we often guide clients through exercises such as Safe Place, Nurturing Figure, Protective Figure, Wise Figure, Container, and various grounding practices. Yet many of us have never taken the time to fully develop these resources for ourselves.

What happens when we do?

We begin to experience the interventions from the inside out.

We notice what feels authentic. We discover where we get stuck. We become aware of the subtle shifts that occur when we access feelings of safety, competence, protection, or connection.

Rather than simply facilitating an exercise, we begin embodying it.

Confidence Grows Through Experience

Many new EMDR therapists worry about whether they are “doing it right.”

The irony is that confidence rarely comes from memorizing another script.

Confidence grows through experience.

When therapists spend time strengthening their own resources, they begin to trust the process. They develop a felt understanding of how adaptive information becomes activated and linked within the nervous system.

This experiential knowledge creates a different kind of confidence—one rooted in understanding rather than performance.

Instead of wondering what to say next, therapists become more attuned to what the client’s system needs in the moment.

Resource Development Strengthens Phase 2

Phase 2 is often described as preparation, but I view it as much more than that.

It is the foundation upon which the rest of the work rests.

When therapists have personally invested in developing and revisiting their own resources, they become more skilled at helping clients build theirs. They can identify subtle barriers, recognize when a resource hasn’t fully “landed,” and creatively adapt interventions to fit the client’s unique needs.

Clients often need more than a cognitive understanding of safety or competence. They need opportunities to experience these states in their bodies.

The more familiar we are with our own resource network, the more effectively we can help clients develop theirs.

Building an Adaptive Information Network of Strength

One of the concepts I return to repeatedly in my work is that resources are not simply exercises. They are experiences that become integrated into the Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) system.

Every time we intentionally strengthen experiences of safety, competence, connection, protection, resilience, or self-compassion, we are helping build networks that can support future processing.

This perspective was beautifully expanded by Laurel Parnell in her work on attachment-focused EMDR and resource development. Her book, Tapping In, remains one of my favourite EMDR texts. Parnell invites us to move beyond viewing resources as an item on the readiness checklist, and instead understand them as deeply meaningful relational and corrective experiences.

Her work reminds us that resources can be developed, strengthened, revisited, and woven throughout treatment—not simply introduced and then set aside.

Creativity Has a Place in EMDR

One of the greatest gifts therapists bring to EMDR is their creativity.

Resource development allows us to draw upon our clients’ strengths, interests, values, identities, relationships, memories, spiritual beliefs, and lived experiences.

A therapist who has spent time cultivating their own resource network is often more comfortable helping clients discover resources that are uniquely theirs.

The goal isn’t to create perfect resources.

The goal is to help clients access experiences that support regulation, resilience, and connection.

An Invitation

If you’re an EMDR therapist, especially early in your training journey, consider this an invitation.

Spend time developing your own resources.

Strengthen your Safe Place.

Cultivate a Wise Figure.

Reconnect with moments of competence, courage, and connection.

Notice what happens in your body as you do.

Not because you need to become perfectly regulated before helping others—but because your own experience will deepen your understanding of the model.

And in that process, you’ll likely discover something important:

The more you trust your own adaptive information network, the more you learn to trust your clients’ as well.

Warmly,

Tamara