EMDR training
Practitioner programs
Trauma training
EMDR Advanced Training
EMDR with Couples
Clinical Decision-Making and Protocol
Most therapists who do EMDR work with couples eventually hit the same wall. You know the protocol. You know how to facilitate reprocessing. But in the couple's room, the rules change. One partner floods while the other shuts down. Trauma responses look like relationship conflict. And the standard EMDR protocol, designed for individual work, doesn't have a built-in answer for what to do next.
This training fills that gap. In this full-day EMDR training with Dr. Grace Chen, PhD, LMFT, you will learn a Polyvagal-informed framework for adapting EMDR to the couples therapy room: how to assess relational readiness, how to move through the EMDR phases with two clients present, how to use conjoint witnessing as a vehicle for corrective emotional experience, and how to make the complex clinical decisions that standard EMDR training simply doesn't prepare you for.
Dr. Chen brings a rare combination of credentials to this work: an EMDRIA Approved Consultant, AAMFT Clinical Fellow, and a couples specialist whose entire clinical identity sits at the intersection of EMDR and relational therapy. This isn't adapted content. This is her actual clinical practice.
Practical Skills
Practical Interventions You'll Learn
In this EMDR couples therapy training, you will learn how to:
- Screen couples for EMDR suitability using a structured exclusion criteria framework, covering active domestic violence, affect tolerance, psychiatric stability, and willingness to engage in the process.
- Evaluate how the couple's relational dynamics, including attachment patterns, capacity for repair, and power dynamics, will either support or actively work against EMDR reprocessing, so you can make an informed clinical decision before beginning.
- Use your own autonomic nervous system as a physiological anchor to maintain multidirected partiality, providing co-regulation when a couple is locked in survival responses and neither partner can access their social engagement system.
- Conduct an Integrated Relational History-Taking process using the Gottman Relationship History Interview to identify significant attachment injuries, map a traumatic history of the relationship, and screen for exclusion criteria including active domestic violence and limited affect tolerance.
- Facilitate Relational TICES and State Naming in Phase 2, helping partners notice and name their physiological reactivity so that conflict can be externalized as an archaic survival response rather than an intentional attack.
- Implement Advanced Dyadic Resourcing techniques, including building internal nurturing relationships for partners with early trauma and creating Positive Pro-Attachment Timelines to stabilize the present relationship before addressing feeder memories.
- Navigate reprocessing setup in Phases 3 through 7, including the clinical distinction between conjoint witnessing and joint bilateral stimulation, and the use of relational interweaves when processing stalls.
- Apply Future Template work to reinforce adaptive information and address anticipatory anxiety around relational challenges such as communication patterns, co-parenting dynamics, and the facilitation of forgiveness.
What You Get
What's Waiting for You Inside This Training
Couples EMDR readiness screening
Use a structured exclusion criteria framework covering domestic violence, affect tolerance, psychiatric stability, and willingness to engage.
Polyvagal-informed framework
Bring Polyvagal Theory into the couples room as the bridge between EMDR and what is actually happening between two nervous systems.
Integrated Relational History-Taking
Apply the Gottman Relationship History Interview to map attachment injuries and the trauma history of the relationship.
Advanced Dyadic Resourcing
Build internal nurturing relationships and Positive Pro-Attachment Timelines for couples with early trauma.
Conjoint witnessing in Phases 3 and 4
Coach the observing partner to act as a Compassionate Witness during reprocessing, creating a corrective emotional experience.
Relational interweaves
Apply interweaves designed for the couples room when reprocessing stalls between two nervous systems.
Live training with on-demand access
Join Dr. Chen live on June 11th, then return to the recording with lifetime on-demand access.
Free community membership
Join TTI's shame-free community of practitioners for ongoing conversations, support, and resources. No cost, no catch.
Meet Your Trainer
About Your Trainer
Dr. Grace Chen
PhD, LMFT
Dr. Grace Chen is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, EMDRIA Approved Consultant, and AAMFT Clinical Fellow whose clinical practice sits entirely at the intersection of trauma and relational therapy. EMDR is her primary treatment model. Gottman's Method is her relational framework. Attachment theory is the foundation underneath both.
Dr. Chen specializes in working with individuals and couples navigating complex trauma, PTSD, anxiety, communication breakdown, and infidelity recovery. As a Taiwanese immigrant, she is a bilingual (English and Mandarin Chinese) and bicultural therapist with deep experience supporting immigrant couples and those navigating cross-cultural relationships. She brings both clinical precision and genuine relational warmth to everything she teaches.
Free Resource
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Take The Next Step
Ready to Begin?
Stop Improvising in the Couples Room
When one partner floods and the other shuts down, the standard EMDR protocol doesn't have a built-in answer. This training gives you the Polyvagal-informed framework, the dyadic resourcing techniques, and the clinical decision-making to do EMDR with couples in a way that holds the frame.