Kim Howard 00:05
We are beginning August for the guests podcast from the “Zero Disturbance” podcast. EMDRIA member Cambria Evans M Ed, LMFT host of the Zero Disturbance podcast interviews former EMDRIA Board President Carol Miles MSW, LCSW. Cambria and Carol will talk about the happenings at EMDRIA, as she loved the organization. And if you want to understand more about EMDRIA and the direction the organization is moving, stay tuned for EMDRIA’s innovation journey.

Cambria Evans 00:35
My friends, it has been a very disorienting couple of years to say the least. And I know that, like all of you, I’ve been trying to put together a narrative of what is going on? What’s going on in the world? What’s going on, in different communities that I’m a part of. And one of the questions I regularly ask people and people ask me is what is going on with EMDRIA? If you have heard that question, ask that question. This episode is for you. Because today, we get all of our questions answered with our guest, Carol Miles. Carol was not only a former president of EMDRIA, during COVID, but it’s also a current board member. She is a trainer in Louisiana. And she is someone who has a deep passion and commitment to EMDR. So tune in today, as Carolyn, I help all of us construct a narrative of what’s going on with Andrea, taking us back four and five years ago, walking us through all of the buzz and the changes and the innovation that Andrea has been up to to help us make sense of what has happened to help us understand what is happening now. And help us understand what the vision for the future is enjoy. So I am very grateful to be here on the podcast today with Carol Miles. Carol has had so many different leadership roles in EMDRIA over the years, and has been gracious enough to come and speak with us to help us understand. Give us a narrative about what has been going on. And Andrea, lots of transformation, lots of changes, and excited to get to know you and hear about what’s been going on with Andrea, but also just to understand more about how you have held these leadership roles during COVID. And during all the things that have been going on. So thank you so much for joining us, I really appreciate it.

Carol Miles 02:46
Well, Cambria, thank you so much for inviting me, I really appreciate all that you’re contributing to EMDR. And I’m happy to be a part of that.

Cambria Evans 02:55
Like, I think that you and I have messaged each other quite a bit over the last year. So and I think we both have a love and a passion and commitment for EMDR and making sure that it’s received in a really effective and safe way. And as you and I were talking about putting this podcast episode together, I was becoming more and more impressed with not just what you’ve been doing in your leadership roles, but also what emdria has been doing to support all the pivoting that we’ve had to do as clinicians. So I’m excited to talk about all of that today.

Carol Miles 03:28
I did too. That’s great. I love all the work that we’ve done all the things that emdria have accomplished. I mean, I think it’s a great organization.

Cambria Evans 03:35
Yes. And I hope people listening today can understand that and feel proud to be a part of that and to really understand what what’s been happening behind the scenes. Before we go into all of that do you want to let folks know where you are and kind of what you’re up to, and your own practice and your own training?

Carol Miles 03:54
Sure. So I’m located right outside of New Orleans in a small town called Covington that is near the city of New Orleans about 45 minutes away. And I have a solo practice. In addition to a direct practice with adults, I also am a virtual trainer. I haven’t done any face to face training since the beginning of the pandemic, but I became a trainer in 2015. And so we do several trainings a year. And then since the pandemic and we moved into virtual training, I’ve done exclusively virtual trainings. So I love that. I love teaching, I love helping other people learn the stuff that I’ve learned that helped their helps their clients. So that’s the biggest part of what I do live in the small town and teach people all over the world.

Cambria Evans 04:41
So cool. I have to ask you started training in 2015. Was that in person?

Carol Miles 04:47
Yeah. 2015 In 2015, there were no standards that allowed for any virtual training. So when I started, I started you know, a role as an adjunct professor at the school so work at Tulane University’s program there. And we offer this as a continuing education program and allowed students to participate once they’ve completed their core competencies in their master’s program. And so I did that in person. And it was such a thrill to do that my very first training, I remember really vividly having my dream training team there with me to support me because I was a little nervous about stepping into being a real adult and do the training as a trainer. And so I had Sue Evans, who since passed away, Sandy Kaplan, and Karen Walter Reed there to help support me as facilitators, as we worked with the students we had that was great. And then I’ve trained continuously since then. But it wasn’t until the pandemic that we were allowed to do zoom trainings anywhere. And actually emdria, I’m very proud to say, was the very first place that allowed that I should take this back a little bit, Australia had a different type of virtual training that they did, prior to emdria. But the first, live streaming of all of those sorts of trainings for emdria really happened with the pandemic, and very soon after the beginning of the pandemic.

Cambria Evans 06:11
I’m trying to take myself back. And I’m excited to go back. But we’re also like, do we have to go back to 2020, but I’m trying to get myself back to 2020 with you to think about just that time in February and March, when we all had to figure things out so fast. And, you know, consultants and trainers not being sure, are we are we allowed to do EMDR with clients online? Are we allowed to train online like it was all this newness in a time when we were so overwhelmed, and just traumatized and and shocked by what was happening? What was it like for you as a trainer to have to pivot? I mean, I’m guessing you’re pivoting your clients budget, but also you’re pivoting your trainings at the same everything.

Carol Miles 06:55
So one of the things that was really fabulous for EMDRIA to accomplish was the year before we had a task force to look at. Can we do EMDR? Online? If you remember, at one point that was really controversial. And there were many naysayers, loud voices, who were saying, No, you can’t do EMDR. Online, it’s going to be this horrible disaster. With a pandemic. We had already studied that for a year. And we coincidentally, were in the process of publishing the paper that made recommendations about if you’re going to do this, this is how to do it right at the point that the pandemic shut everybody down. And so emdria suddenly had this series of recommendations available to all of us, or emdria members posted on our website. And I think that was very helpful. I was like everyone else apprehensive about the thought of becoming a therapist online. And now it just seems like so normal. It seems like it works. It works like it did in my office, sometimes I do face to face now. And you know, that works. And it works online, too. But the the bigger pieces in emdria board member was we had all these trainers, I mean, not just my trainings, but all these trainers across the United States and Canada, who were stopped in the water I was finishing, I just finished a part one in March came home to the U.K., I can’t do that anymore. And then had my part to set up and we moved it into the virtual capacity. And so that was a, it was very eye opening to learn that those were interim standards and emdria passed very quickly, the board agreed that it was important to do this to keep people getting trained in EMDR, and providing the services that are so needed worldwide. So we moved ahead to the interim. And then by the end of that year, had our first draft, our first run of the standards for virtual trainings. And then we approved virtual trainings amazingly quickly, if anybody knows our staff at emdria. They know that was a very small staff. And they do a tremendous job of getting things down. They’re the ones who implement the things that the board decides. So we decided they implemented and boom, we were all virtual trainers. That’s how it changed. It seemed almost overnight, it was so quick.

Cambria Evans 07:17
Which is so miraculous. And I want everyone listening to just hear the innovation that was demanded of us and EMDRIA, because to think that every single person in that that small core group or everyone on the board, was going through their own stuff was going through their own trauma with the pandemic and their own feelings. And somehow, I don’t know how you would describe that, that culture that allowed everyone to be able to focus enough to make all of these things happen for every for all of us for all the EMDR clinicians for all the trainers because if you think about it, it’s almost kind of like you graduate at headquarters. And open trainers are going to be you know, like there’s This army that needs to be deployed in a health crisis. And it’s like, how did we get the troops out virtually, I mean, I can’t imagine the potential chaos. And just the overwhelm of doing that. But you did it.

Carol Miles 10:13
We did, we had a small group of task force made up of board members and non-board members that looked at what’s the best way to do this, we brought in a consultant on how to manage learning management systems online, and really tried to figure out the best way forward, I don’t think we figured out the perfect way to do anything. But I think we figured out a good way to get going and to look at it. And that was really hard work some nights, you know, late nights up with the folks who are on that, that task force. And then the board is a very hard working board. So they’re involved in a multitude of other things. So there are folks working on standards, there’s folks working on other things, trying to make sure that we have all of the structure within emdria, because we also that year, decided to become a distributed workforce. So instead of having all of the folks be housed in Austin, we then decided we could have a distributed workforce, the board agreed and our executive director went forward and began to hire people from other locations. So we have people on staff from one coast to the other coast. Now, we do have a larger staff today than we had when we start when I started out on the board almost six years ago. And they’re they’re still the majority would be from Austin, because we still have people, same staff people that we had before in many cases and added new people and, and that’s been very exciting to see that happen. One of those new people helped us to develop opportunities in terms of what we offer to members with our publications. And we have hosted publications. Now, when I joined, we had a newsletter, and we have the journal for research. Now we have the “Journal for EMDR Practice & Research,” we have “Go With That magazine,” which is award- winning, by the way, we won an award. Congratulations, kudos to the staff there. Great job. We have the “Focal Point blog.” And then we have a whole list of toolkits and practice resources available on the website. And that staff put all of that together into our website for and to keep all of that running. So all that infrastructure was happening, while the same time that we were converting to this distributed workforce. And it was really was a lot of work for everybody involved, to make all of that happen. And then that year progressed. And as you well remember, then the Black Lives Matter movement, really blossomed. And at that point, we as a board began to really reckoned with, where are we in terms of diversity, and inclusion. And we then developed a statement and decided that it was important to all of us on the board to be anti racist. So we want our organization to be an ally, for folks who are not part of the dominant culture who are in from all different walks of life, many different types of intersections there, of course, and we wanted to create that purposefully, which has been an another whole look at how does the organization run? How do we set things up? How do we do the best way possible there? So that’s been another part of of the years since the beginning of the pandemic. And well since my years on the board, which is, I have sort of a weird term because I got on the board. And then I ran for president, which I said I wasn’t going to, but I did. And then I was president elect, that I was president. For those two years, we’ve been talking about that. I was past president for a year. And I said goodbye to everybody. And then somebody left the board and they said, Carol, do you want to continue on? And I said, sure, I wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye yet. And as you can imagine, being this involved in such an incredible organization was hard to say goodbye. And so now I’m completing that fifth year on the board.

Cambria Evans 13:00
So so many different experiences you must have had in these leadership roles and still have now and I think I want to I want to slow down what you just said, because I think it’s really important for folks to understand this. You know, we were all invited to take a position around Black Lives Matter and all the different kind of social justice things that have been happening over the last couple of years. And I know that I always appreciate when a business or organization takes a position and explicitly has a value around something. So I appreciate that there was a position of we’re anti racist like we’re like we’re a safe place and I think that for clinicians to hear that is is is comforting, right to know that that our leadership is giving us that message to be really clear on where we stand with that.

Carol Miles 15:05
I hope so I think one of the things that we’ve added to the trainings is in is all of the trainers must include in their training now, a whole section on how do we work with a more diverse, more diverse populations. So there’s a whole section on anti racism and racial trauma that we have embedded into the curriculum for basic training. So those of us who got trained, some years ago, didn’t have that. But everybody going forward since last year, I guess it is sort of last year on when the pandemic occurred, and when it ended, and it hasn’t ended. But since we made these changes to the standards, we’ve now required that part and that will grow and change over time. But right now, we’re using the go with that magazine that was devoted to racial trauma as the basis of that information.

Cambria Evans 15:53
Wow. And I imagine that that decision will open up lots of other groups to feel like they have, you know, the appropriate clinical information or inclusiveness, that that makes me feel excited, makes me feel proud to be part of EMDRIA that way, you, you mentioned briefly just now, well, you mentioned lots of things that you guys have been doing. But in particular, you mentioned this kind of revisiting the standards. Do you want to, you know, obviously, Francine passed away, and lots of things were kind of falling into place. And you want to kind of walk us through just like what was happening behind the scenes during that time? And what the standards being revisited like, Can you can you give us a picture of what that was?

Carol Miles 16:42
Before Francine passed away, so she died in 2019, I believe. And she died just before the conference that was held in California, the last conference that was held in person. And that conference, we held a memorial for us. I think that was the last. But before that before Francine, before we thought she was going to die anytime soon, we had decided to invest in something called the Council of Scholars. And the Council of Scholars is an international organization. That imagery is started or instigated, I guess is the best word for it. It’s run under the journal. So it’s not run by the board or EMDRIA at all, but we fund the majority of it. So we budget it, but we don’t run it. We’re invited guests when it occurs when they have their meetings. But we’re not. I mean, I went to the meeting and I just tried to be super quiet because I was just an observer and a guest there. So the Council of Scholars is made up of, as I said, scholars from all around the world, we have some American scholars, Canadian scholars, European scholars, Japanese scholars, folks from all parts of Asia all over the place. And they’re they’re the folks who’ve been spearheading the research around the world for MDR. And the first time I went to the first Council of Scholars meeting, first inaugural meeting, I was blown away by the brains in the room. I mean, just imagine it’s really incredible to think that I was witnessing these folks all coming together. Well, our thought had been that we would create the Council of Scholars, and they would begin to develop kind of the directions for research to go in. And when our founder passed away, that would be really helpful to have, because there wouldn’t be another textbook to come. Well, friends who died before we really expected it. Thank goodness, we have the Council of Scholars because they’re in place to support our psychotherapy model and help it continue for her legacy to continue throughout, however long it needs to continue, so that we know which way to go with it. Now, you know, Francine was quite an innovator mildly, she was curious and interested in creative and her work. And so we don’t want EMDR to be stagnant and stuck. We want it to be creative and growing and changing. But we want it to grow and change and not get rid of the things that have worked well. But to enhance those things and create new things where possible. So we want to be innovative, but we also want to keep what works. So we’re following the Council of Scholars and the research they develop it others develop a force to see where as EMDR gonna go.

19:33
There’s so many things yet to see and I appreciate all that you just said and I didn’t get to know Francine personally, but from what I’ve heard about her and what I’ve read about her, she was constantly innovating her own work. I mean, she was she really I think saw it as such a fluid dynamic modality expanding to an entire psychotherapy model now and and we’re so grateful for that and And I can deeply appreciate how challenging it must be to keep the validity of something that’s working. And also be open to learning more, I am so grateful that there are folks tasked to figure that out. It just I imagine that’s really challenging to do lately.

Carol Miles 20:19
And when you get a lot of advanced, folks in EMDR, together in a room, they don’t all have the same opinion. So, you know, they’re all coming from different walks of life, different cultures, different understandings, and they’re coming together in a way. So I’m from Louisiana, and we make gumbo. So I think of it as income that right. And they’re all different kinds of gumbos, or seafood combos, there are green gumbos. And there are chicken and sausage combos, or duck and sausage combos are all kinds of combos, right? And they’re all fabulous. And so this is this big gumbo pot of all these different types of scholars who are putting things together and choosing what recipes are we going to use now and when and how. And one of the big ones that came out over the last year came out of the political component of that, we’re really, really looking at the definition of EMDR. And so there was an article published in the journal. But I say the journal I mean, the Journal of EMDR Practice and Research in our journal, that really the title of it is what is the EMDR. And so it looked at some new ideas about how to address that we have a definition of EMDR injuries website. That’s our role to do that. And this article, makes some subtle suggestions and not so subtle suggestions in some areas about ways to really look at that. So that’s been already an incredible outcome. And we’re as a board addressing that information. Looking at it, what does it mean? What does it mean for emdria? But that came out of it that Council of Scholars that got started back then it’s a it’s a an amazing? It’s amazing thing to watch. I’m so proud of EMDRIA, for spearheading the start of that. I think it’s it’s an amazing story.

Cambria Evans 22:08
Wow. What is for folks listening or watching? And for myself? What is the best way to get a peek into what they’re talking about? Or what they’re up to? Is it to read the journal? Is it to go to the conference? Like how do we get to know kind of what is the the next thing in terms of innovation for for EMDR. So I think that the first thing is to be a member of entry. That’s let’s just start there. Because once you’re a member of EMDRIA, you have access to the journal, you have access to the “Go With That magazine.” So those two publications hand in hand with that magazine as a real practical kind of magazine. I look forward to it every time it comes, because it’s focused on a topic. And it has a broad range of folks, some of those folks are folks who’ve been on the council or are on the council. And they talked to their subject, right. So we’ve got that, and I’m a very practical kind of person, I’m not really an academic. So the journal is much more academically written. And it’s about the research. And we now have new that was the other thing that happened since I’ve been on the board is that our longtime editor, Louise decided to retire. So we’ve had to do a search for new editors. So we now have two editors that that work together to run that. And they’re top notch folks that do an amazing job of really vetting the research as it comes in. So I think those two places are going to be the most likely places that you’re going to hear anything. But you’ll also hear things when you come to the conference. So when you come to the conference, there will be speakers who are likely some of whom are part of the council, there will be there always plenary addresses that will look at various aspects of what’s going on in the world and EMDR. And there’ll be places there with that information, I think will become more readily available to the membership. It’s it. You know, there’s a there’s a bit of a separation sometimes I think we have almost I think we have 12,000 numbers now are right about that. And it’s a huge organization. So there are a lot of people in the organization who have no idea who Carol Miles is or who EMDRIA or Cambria are. They don’t know us, right? Well, 1,000 people, they don’t know all of us, that’s fine. But how do you find out what’s going on and emdria be a member participate, be actively involved in EMDRIA come to the conference next year. The conference will be held in August in Virginia in 2023. And we’ll I’ll be there so look forward, it’ll be in person.

Carol Miles 24:39
You know, I’m gonna knock on wood with you. That’s the plan to have an in person talk. The conference will again be live streamed and recorded, which is a great opportunity for people but it’s not nothing like giving somebody a hug in the hallway. So I’m looking forward to those moments again with people and next year I won’t have any missed possibilities as a board member, so I could just walk around, hug everybody, it’d be great.

Cambria Evans 25:03
I hope that happens. That sounds amazing to be together, you know, you, we’re gonna get back to standards. But I wanted to give some context you’re saying 12,000 members is that in the U.S. and Canada?

Carol Miles 25:17
Canada is a very small part of our membership. I don’t know the numbers off the top of my head. But that may include the MDR, Canada folks join. And as part of that they have access to EMDRIA got part of their membership. So I don’t know how they’re counted in that number.

Cambria Evans 25:34
Okay, got it. So but we’re talking mostly in the United States, then that’s members? And I don’t mean to put you on the spot, do we have a sense of how many people are part of different emdria? I know, there’s like emdria for Europe and different, you know, countries or continents? Do we have a sense of how many EMDR clinicians are trained? Our world? Yeah. I’ll have to dig around and find out well, because you had shared with me when we spoke that you said when you joined, EMDRIA, I think it was it was at 2004 2008, you said that there was like 3000 members?

Carol Miles 26:08
Yeah, it was 2008. And I think there were probably three to 4,000 members at that time. So we’ve grown very rapidly over the years. And even with the pandemic, there were predictions that we were going to lose members. And we would slow down the growth. But we really have not had that I think people are hungry to be part of a community and emdria is a community that can be a part of.

Cambria Evans 26:32
And it sounds like there was not too much interruption of training, because of the all this work that y’all had done to kind of make these standards for virtual training and get everyone set up and pivoted to do that. So that’s incredible. And wow, such accelerated growth since you joined as a member in 2008. How would you describe the culture from from when you joined to now? Does it feel different given all the new people? How would you articulate that to us who are kind of just coming in and wanting to understand the story.

Carol Miles 27:07
So I think that when I started out there were folks who were what I call first generations. So the folks who are first-generation EMDRIA, folks, often were trained by Francine herself, they knew one another had known one another for years. And I know I would be in the EMDRIA Conference meeting feel like, I’m not like them, I wasn’t trained by her. And I don’t know her. And I haven’t been here a long time. And I felt a little lonely. Sometimes I did have my mentors who I had met through my training. And you know, I would go look for them whenever possible. And, you know, go sit by them or go talk to them. And they were wonderful in introducing me to people. And that was great. But because it was a smaller group, it felt as if there was sort of an elite group. And that wasn’t intended. I don’t believe anyone intended that. But it was just a just kind of, by virtue of people known each other a long time it felt that way a bit. Over the years. Now, I’ve been involved for a long time. So I know I know a lot more people and I don’t feel lonely too often. But I also learned to just smile and say hi to everybody and talk to everybody and try to make everybody I felt like I had kind of a hostess job when I got on the board. And I was also before that I was on the conference committee. So I felt like I had a host job there too. And so I would try to speak to people and help help them not feel as lonely as I felt. But I think now that it’s so big, it can’t really have an elite group, because there’s too many people there. And there are many, many, many, many, many groups. And now with all of our networking opportunities, so that’s changed. Also in the years while I’ve been with emdria. At one point, there were emdria regional networks. And the regional networks were not terribly defined. They were it was sort of the Wild West a little bit. I founded a regional network with a colleague as well. And it was a great opportunity for networking and connection. But it was a little complicated in figuring out, how did it relate to the mothership. And there was there were no rules about that. So in the beginning of my term as presidency, we decided to make a change to what we did with local networking. And then we were interrupted with the pandemic. And that’s still something that we need to work on my local chapter and many local chapters decided Alright, well, we’re not regional network for emdria. But we’re still a regional network. So we continued on, barely skipping a beat with that. And I think that still needs to be more patched into the mothership, if you will. But I think that now the online community is much more robust. We have that one community that I forgot the name of at this moment that everybody is automatically assigned to and then you get to pick the other communities that you want to be part of. We have those opportunities for you to get emails or a daily digest or a weekly digest of what’s going on who’s the consultants all talk together and the trainer’s I’ll talk Gather and the folks who are interested in more issues around diversity, the folks that are more interested in perinatal, I mean, different topics or areas, I think create more connection. And then we’ll have meetings of those groups and face-to-face someday.

Cambria Evans 30:17
It’s so interesting listening, you talk about, you know, regional groups, and it’s like, I can feel my body this this hope of like, Oh, that would be nice for that to come back again. And I mean, I’ve been with EMDRIA, since you know, only 2016. I got trained in 2016. And it’s like, I can even see the expansion of the online community piece, right? I mean, because I, every day I get, I get the general listserv, kind of Q&A, people are giving each other like referrals or feedback or training suggestions. I’m on the consultant listserv I get every day. So I can see what other consultants are thinking about and what they’re asking each other. And I don’t think I realized until just right now that I utilize those emails as a way to stay educated about well, what’s my, what’s my community talking about? Because, you know, we’re lonely in our offices. But I think I think, I think even you know, we had the emdria conference, but even just having those touch points with each other, just to say, like, what are we talking about what’s coming up in the office? Like, what should I be telling my console tees, you know, that I’m not thinking of or having gotten trained in yet. And that, for me feels kind of like an anchor, just to kind of check myself a little bit too. And just to kind of see who’s out there.

Carol Miles 31:31
Think it’s different than the Facebook groups, you and I are both parts of various Facebook groups. But the emdria group is, it’s a, I think it’s people who are very passionate about EMDR, who are very connected through emdria. And so it’s different than folks who just arrived through Facebook, it just has a different flavor to it. To me, we’re also working one of our staff members, who is really tasked with the area of working with those communities and building them up and trying to have folks within those communities who are actively volunteers who are actively looking at the communities and trying to sort out, you know, what are the ways to encourage conversations there that are meaningful and appropriate? Yeah. And so we’re trying to police those kinds of things, not really much police happening, but but involve that in that way. So you know, trying to encourage those conversations more than anything else, because some of them were quite stagnant for a while. And there’s no point in having one if it’s not going to have a conversation going on. And it’s so we’re really working with those pieces.

Cambria Evans 32:35
That’s great. I think at this point in my career, the idea of having a Facebook group to manage feels like my worst nightmare. Because there is such a spectrum of ideas, ways people speak to each other at each other. And so, you know, I haven’t noticed anything that felt abrasive to me on the emdria listserv. I think everyone keeps it pretty professional and considerate, which is kind of nice. And I appreciate that there’s an intention to clarify what that space is. Right?

Carol Miles 33:08
Yeah. I think if there if someone attempts to post something that isn’t professional, it is moderated. Yeah. And so, you know, we’re trying to be as careful as possible to keep that a safe space for all of them.

Cambria Evans 33:20
Yeah. But then that’s great, though, because culture is defined by what we don’t allow and what we promote. Right. So to have both of those things feels important. And listening to us talk about all the things y’all are doing. I’m like, gosh, this is a lot of work.

Carol Miles 33:35
It is I will say that the time that I spent on the board has been amazing. I mean, it’s been it’s been a lot of work the two years that