Mental Health Practitioners’ Trauma Knowledge and Self-Efficacy Post-EMDR Training

This research study examines mental health practitioners’ level of trauma knowledge and trauma treatment self-efficacy pre- and post-EMDR therapy training in Texas. The purpose is to determine if practitioners' self-perception of efficacy in treating trauma and trauma knowledge will improve after completing EMDR training. The practitioner sample (N = 113) is from an EMDR trainer who conducted six EMDR trainings in Texas. Descriptive, correlational, and paired t-test statistical procedures were implemented to analyze the data for the study. The results show that practitioners’ self-perception of competence and knowledge could be attributed to their years of clinical experience treating clients with trauma. The results also show practitioners’ knowledge of trauma (pre=3.38, SD=.36; post =3.53, SD=.31 on a 5-point Likert scale) and treatment self-efficacy (pre=5.76, SD=1.98; post =7.77, SD=1.25 on a 11-point Likert scale) improved post-EMDR training with a medium effect size of .44 for knowledge of trauma and a large effect size of -1.21 for treatment self-efficacy. Therefore, EMDR therapy training improved practitioners’ knowledge of trauma and their treatment self-efficacy. The clinical implications of this study show the educational effects EMDR therapy training has on practitioners’ treatment, and based on these results, it is important to determine whether other trauma-focused trainings have similar effects.