What is a license, and how do I check it?
A license is the number a country’s or state’s health authority gives to someone who finished their psychology studies and can legally practice. Every verified profile in this directory shows that number, the authority that issued it, and the date Psilumina last confirmed it was still active.
How you check it depends on the country. In Argentina, each province has its own professional board (colegio or consejo) for psychologists, searchable by number or name. In Uruguay, the register sits with the Ministry of Public Health. In Spain, each regional Colegio Oficial de la Psicología keeps its own list of members. In the United States, a license is verified through the psychology board of the state where the person practices.
An active license confirms one specific fact: the person finished their studies and was authorized to practice as of the date it was checked. On its own it says nothing about their experience with a specific concern, how you’ll feel in the room, or whether their way of working will suit you. You only find that out by talking to them. That’s what comes next.
Is EMDR training the same as a license?
A license authorizes someone to practice psychology in general. EMDR training is a separate course, specific to that technique, taken afterward on its own. A therapist can hold a license and never have done that training, so it’s worth asking about each one separately, never assuming one implies the other.
In practice, EMDR has its own training ladder. The levels show how much training someone has completed, not a score on their general clinical skill:
| Level | What it means |
|---|---|
| EMDR trained | Completed EMDR’s basic training. |
| EMDR certified | Added supervised practice hours and a formal evaluation. |
| EMDR consultant | Can supervise other therapists’ EMDR practice while they train. |
| EMDR facilitator | Assists in delivering the official trainings. |
| EMDR trainer | Delivers the official EMDR trainings. |
Every verified profile in the directory shows the highest level that person reached, with the institution and the year. No level on this list is better than another for your particular situation: they’re facts for you to weigh, not a quality ranking.
The directory lets you filter by EMDR training level, alongside reason for consultation, language and modality. A higher level on this ladder doesn’t mean more years of clinical experience overall: it measures EMDR-specific training, nothing else. You can weigh that against whatever the person tells you in a first consultation.
What should I ask in a first consultation?
In a first consultation you can ask about their experience with what brings you in, whether they work in person, online, or both, how they build a treatment plan, how often you’ll meet, and what happens if you need to change or cancel an appointment. How they answer says as much as the answers themselves.
You can also ask how they handle confidentiality, what happens if you decide to stop at some point, and whether they work with supervision or consult with colleagues when they need to. There’s no single correct answer to any of this: what matters is that they answer clearly and without rushing you. Some concrete questions worth bringing with you:
- Have you worked before with what brings me in?
- What does an EMDR session generally look like?
- What happens if I decide to stop coming at some point?
- How do you handle the confidentiality of what we talk about?
What signs mean I should keep looking?
Keep looking if someone pressures you to decide before answering your questions, avoids talking about their license or training, promises a fixed number of sessions will resolve something, or brushes off what worries you. None of these on their own means bad faith, but they’re reason enough to get a second opinion.
A few phrases worth treating as a warning sign, not as a description of what real therapy can promise:
- “EMDR will sort this out in a few sessions, guaranteed.”
- “You don’t need to check my license, just trust me.”
- “You need to start right away or you’ll lose the spot.”
If several of these show up together, or something still doesn’t sit right after a first consultation, getting a second opinion costs you nothing but time, and it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
Choosing a therapist is a personal decision, and this guide doesn’t replace your own judgment. Psilumina doesn’t build that final list for you or suggest who to contact first: what we do is check, with a date, the documents on every profile before it goes live.
What you can do here is search the therapist directory by reason for consultation, language or modality, check the license and training level on each profile, and decide for yourself who to reach out to.