Megan Salar, MSW

Trusted EMDR & Trauma Educator

Megan Salar, MSW, EMDR-C, ACADC, CCTP-II, is an author, educator, consultant, and professional trainer specializing in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, trauma-informed care, attachment, addictive disorders, complex trauma, and parts-oriented approaches. Her work helps mental and behavioral health professionals understand advanced trauma concepts and apply them with greater clarity, preparation, and respect for client readiness.

Megan Salar, MSW, EMDR-C, ACADC, CCTP-II, has trained thousands of professionals in the United States and internationally. Her teaching combines structured clinical concepts with practical examples, helping clinicians examine what may be interfering when trauma processing becomes blocked, repetitive, emotionally overwhelming, or disconnected from the client’s present capacity for regulation.

Megan Salar, MSW, EMDR-C, ACADC, CCTP-II, currently focuses on authorship, consulting, professional education, and training rather than providing psychotherapy through her public educational services. Her work emphasizes that sophisticated trauma treatment requires more than a technique: it requires assessment, informed consent, clinical judgment, pacing, cultural responsiveness, and an understanding of the client’s wider emotional and relational system.

Professional Background

Megan Salar, MSW, EMDR-C, ACADC, CCTP-II, earned her master’s degree in clinical social work from Northwest Nazarene University in 2011. Her professional education and training have concentrated on EMDR, trauma, abuse, attachment, substance use, and the clinical challenges that arise when clients experience multiple overlapping concerns.

Megan Salar, MSW, EMDR-C, ACADC, CCTP-II, previously founded and operated an intensive outpatient treatment program serving people affected by trauma and substance-use concerns. Current publisher records state that the program received recognition for excellence in practice in 2019. That leadership background informs her understanding of direct clinical work as well as the organizational demands of delivering trauma-responsive behavioral healthcare.

Megan Salar, MSW, EMDR-C, ACADC, CCTP-II, now operates educational, coaching, consulting, and training services and is publicly identified as the owner and founder of The Mental Survivalist. Current professional profiles also identify her as a co-founder of the Institute of Traumatic Growth and Resiliency. These roles center on clinician development, trauma education, consultation, and the practical integration of EMDR-informed methods.

Megan Salar, MSW, EMDR-C, ACADC, CCTP-II, has developed training on EMDR foundations, complex trauma, addiction, attachment, children and adolescents, acute traumatic incidents, narrative techniques, ego states, internal parts, interweaves, and barriers that may interrupt memory processing. Her educational approach encourages clinicians to understand why an intervention is being used rather than treating bilateral stimulation as a stand-alone procedure.

Megan Salar, MSW, EMDR-C, ACADC, CCTP-II, is the author of The EMDR Workbook for Trauma and PTSD, published by New Harbinger Publications in 2023, and EMDR For Dummies, published by Wiley in 2024. New Harbinger also lists EMDR Workbook for Addiction as a forthcoming 2027 publication.

Areas of Expertise

EMDR Structure and Clinical Application. Megan Salar, MSW, EMDR-C, ACADC, CCTP-II, teaches EMDR as a complete, phased treatment framework rather than an eye-movement exercise. EMDRIA identifies eight phases: history taking and treatment planning, preparation, assessment, desensitization, installation, body scan, closure, and reevaluation. Her education emphasizes preparation, target selection, dual attention, monitoring, closure, and reassessment when treatment does not proceed as expected. Clinical Events’ guide to EMDR trauma reprocessing provides complementary background.

Complex Trauma, Attachment, and Clinical Pacing. Salar helps clinicians recognize that complex or developmental trauma may require additional preparation before direct memory work. Attachment history, dissociation, current safety, emotional tolerance, substance use, physical health, relational supports, and previous treatment experiences can all affect readiness. Her approach encourages therapists to slow treatment when greater stabilization, trust, or consultation is needed rather than interpreting every treatment barrier as client resistance.

Trauma-Informed Care. Trauma-informed treatment involves more than identifying traumatic events. It also requires attention to safety, transparency, collaboration, empowerment, cultural context, and the possibility that apparently unhelpful behavior developed as a protective adaptation. SAMHSA describes trauma-informed approaches as applicable across mental-health and substance-use services. Clinical Events’ evidence-based trauma-treatment guide places EMDR alongside other established and emerging approaches.

Addiction and Trauma-Related Coping. Salar’s ACADC background and former treatment-program leadership inform her education on the intersection of trauma and substance use. A person may understand the consequences of an addictive behavior while continuing to rely on it for temporary relief from memories, shame, physiological activation, loneliness, or emotional pain. Her teaching helps clinicians examine triggers, attachment patterns, urges, trauma-linked memory networks, relapse vulnerability, and the purpose served by the behavior without reducing addiction to weak motivation or character.

Ego States and Parts-Oriented Work. Her advanced education addresses internal parts, ego states, fragmented experiences, protective responses, and trauma-related conflicts that can become visible during EMDR. One part of a client may want change while another fears the consequences of becoming vulnerable. Parts-oriented assessment can help clinicians understand these conflicts compassionately, provided they avoid imposing labels or presenting a conceptual model as proof of a specific diagnosis. Clinical Events’ resource on IFS and ego states in trauma-informed work offers related clinical context.

Resourcing, Somatic Awareness, and Regulation. Salar teaches clinicians to strengthen present-moment stability before and during trauma processing. Resourcing may involve grounding, orienting, imagery, dual-attention awareness, supportive relationships, movement, sensory cues, or other individualized practices. Body sensations can provide useful information, but they should not automatically be interpreted as evidence of a hidden memory or particular trauma narrative. Clinical Events’ somatic therapy guide discusses grounding, interoception, movement, titration, and important clinical cautions.

EMDR Barriers and Interweaves. When processing loops, stops, or repeatedly returns to the same material, Salar helps clinicians consider whether the client needs additional preparation, a revised target, greater attention to protective parts, or a carefully selected cognitive, relational, somatic, or parts-oriented interweave. The purpose is not to force movement but to understand what the client’s system may require for treatment to continue safely and meaningfully.

Clinician Training and Consultation. Her professional education translates complex theory into case examples, decision-making questions, practical language, demonstrations, and adaptable tools. Salar’s work is intended to help clinicians strengthen existing competence, identify treatment limitations, and recognize when consultation, referral, or a different level of care is more appropriate than continuing with an intervention that is not serving the client.

Authored Publications

• The EMDR Workbook for Trauma and PTSD: Skills to Manage Triggers, Move Beyond Traumatic Memories, and Take Back Your Life
• EMDR For Dummies