EMDR Advanced Training

Internal Family Systems (IFS) Informed EMDR

Trainer: Crystal Hines, LPC

On-Demand: Available with lifetime access for asynchronous learning. | This course was recorded on March 20th, 2025.

Do you encounter blocks and defenses that are impacting the client’s therapy work, and you feel lost in where to go next? Maybe you keep hearing about “parts work” being discussed in your consultation group, and it seems important to learn, but you’re left feeling confused – what are parts, and how do I start? Or perhaps you know a bit about “parts work”–you might have even used the dissociative table–but now find yourself unsure of how to integrate this with your EMDR practice and what the next steps are? Our IFS Informed EMDR Course is for you!

Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy offers us a helpful framework to navigate these complex blocks and defenses by honoring and welcoming these parts of self. IFS is a beautiful companion for EMDR. If you’re eager to dive deeper into how to practically use “parts work” and IFS along with your foundational EMDR skills – this course is for you.

I'm Ready to Help Clients Regulate and Heal

Why TTI

Built for Learning. Designed for Belonging.

Shame-Free Space for Learning™

Because the best learning happens when you feel safe. Ask freely, show up fully, and learn in a relational, non-judgmental environment built for practitioners like you.

Expert Clinical Training

Expect real case examples, clear guidance, and a teaching style that makes even complex topics feel approachable so you can confidently use what you learn in session right away.

Where Learning Meets Community

Join a community of clinicians learning side by side, sharing real case insights and peer support so you can grow your skills with confidence alongside your peers in meaningful connection.

Practical Skills

Practical Interventions You'll Learn

Internal Family Systems and EMDR are powerful on their own. When you weave them together, you give clients with parts work, attachment wounding, and structural dissociation a way through that the standard EMDR protocol on its own often cannot reach.

This on-demand training is built for EMDR clinicians who already know what it feels like to hit a wall in session: the client who flips into a protector the moment you approach a target, the part that refuses to let processing move forward, the exile that floods the system the second you make contact.

By the end of this training, you will learn how to:

Map a client's internal system using IFS language (parts, protectors, exiles, and Self) and translate that map into AIP-informed EMDR case conceptualization.
Identify which part is in the room before you choose a target, so you are no longer guessing why processing is looping, blocking, or shutting down.
Negotiate with protectors in ways that honor their role in the system, build trust, and earn permission to move toward exiles and trauma targets.
Use unblending and Self-energy interventions during EMDR preparation so your client can stay connected to Self while reprocessing, instead of getting taken over by a part.
Modify Phase 3 target setup for parts work, including how to identify a part as the target, hold the part in awareness during BLS, and track shifts at the parts level rather than the memory level alone.
Adjust pacing, BLS, and channels of association when a part becomes activated mid-reprocessing, including what to do when a protector steps in, an exile floods, or the client loses access to Self.
Recognize when to pause EMDR for parts work and when to return, so you are not abandoning either modality or forcing them together when the client is not ready.
Hold space for clients with structural dissociation using a parts-informed lens that supports stability, internal cooperation, and gradual access to traumatic material.

What You Get

What's Waiting for You Inside This Training

EMDR for Spirtitual Trauma and Religious Abuse

IFS foundations for EMDR clinicians

Build a working understanding of Self-energy, the 8 Cs, and the IFS healing process applied to EMDR work.

IFS across all 8 phases

Map where IFS concepts and techniques integrate with each phase of the EMDR protocol.

Recognizing protective parts in EMDR

Identify how the over-analyzer, perfectionist, and critic show up to block reprocessing, and respond accordingly.

Unblending and Self-energy interventions

Help clients stay connected to Self during reprocessing instead of getting taken over by a part.

IFS-informed interweaves

Use parts-aware interweaves during reprocessing when protective systems pull clients out of the work.

Modified Phase 3 for parts work

Identify a part as the target, hold the part in awareness during BLS, and track shifts at the parts level.

Lifetime on-demand access

Go at your own pace and return to the material whenever a client's parts work calls for it.

Free community membership

Join TTI's shame-free community of practitioners for ongoing conversations, support, and resources. No cost, no catch.

Is This For You?

Who Is This Training For

This training is designed for EMDR-trained clinicians who are ready to move beyond the standard protocol and bring a parts-informed lens into their work.

This is for you if:

You have completed EMDR Basic Training and are looking for a more nuanced way to work with complex, layered clients.
You sit with clients who have parts that block, derail, or shut down processing, and you want a clearer way to work with the system instead of around it.
You have read about IFS or done some training in it, and want a structured way to bring it into your EMDR sessions without losing fidelity to either model.
You work with attachment trauma, complex PTSD, or dissociative presentations and need more than the standard eight phases to keep clients safe and moving forward.
You have been guessing at parts work in EMDR and want a framework that takes the guesswork out of when to negotiate with a protector, when to access an exile, and when to return to the target.
You want CE credit while learning a clinically rigorous, integrated approach you can use right away.

This is not a fit if you are new to EMDR or have not yet completed EMDR Basic Training. The material assumes working knowledge of the standard protocol and the eight phases.

Meet Your Trainer

About Your Trainer

Crystal Hines

LPC

Crystal Hines is a licensed professional counselor, TTI trainer, and founder of Align Therapy and Consultation in Firestone, CO. Her clinical work focuses on complex trauma, and she brings expertise in both EMDR and IFS to her practice, consultation, and training.

Through Align Therapy, Crystal and her team support therapists moving from surviving to thriving, offering EMDR consultation, IFS consultation, LPCC supervision, therapy for therapists, and process groups for therapists. She brings a brain-body-heart approach to her clinical work, grounded in her own lived experience as a complex trauma survivor and her commitment to doing her own healing alongside her clients.

Crystal is known for her direct, compassionate facilitation style and her gift for connecting with the parts of people that do not often feel seen. She teaches IFS not just as a model to apply, but as a way of being with clients.

Additional Information

Course Details

Agenda

Introductions and Course Orientation
Overview of the Theory of IFS
Understanding Parts of Self
Be with Parts Meditation
Essential IFS Skills
Primary Approaches to IFS
Healing Steps of IFS
Review of the 8 Phases of EMDR and Limits to IFS and EMDR
Big Picture Discussion of how IFS and EMDR Overlap
Big Picture Discussion of how IFS and EMDR Overlap
Phases 1 and 2 Overlap with IFS
IFS-Informed Preparation Techniques
Phases 3 and 4 Overlap with IFS
IFS-Informed Interweaves
Phases 5 and 6 Overlap with IFS
Phases 7 and 8 Overlap with IFS
Demo of IFS-Informed EMDR Session
Debrief of Session
Wrap up lecture/Q&A

Learning Objectives

Apply the Internal Family Systems theory and techniques to the 8 phases of EMDR.
List the 8 Cs of self-energy and establish techniques to differentiate between self-energy and parts of self.
Identify two ways that protective parts of clients can block the EMDR process.
Analyze how the healing steps of IFS overlap with the 8 phases of EMDR.
Identify at least six IFS informed preparation techniques to reduce symptoms and promote client stabilization.
Describe two IFS-informed interweaves to utilize in EMDR reprocessing.

Prerequisites

EMDR Basic Training

Continuing Education

6 CEs are available upon completion of all course material.

Trauma Therapist Institute is an approved continuing education provider. ACE, NBCC, and EMDRIA CEs are available for this course. APA CEs are not available for this course.

Participants must complete the full training to receive credit.

ACE Approved Provider

Trauma Therapist Institute, #1869, is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: 1/16/25 - 1/16/28. Social workers completing this course receive 6 clinical continuing education credits.

NBCC Approved Provider

Trauma Therapist Institute has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7033. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Trauma Therapist Institute is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.

EMDRIA Approved Provider

Trauma Therapist Institute is an EMDRIA Approved Training Provider. TTI courses are individually approved. CE Certificate will contain course approval number.

Course Completion

To receive a CE certificate, participants must complete the entire course, complete the post-test with a score of 80% or above, and complete the course evaluation. You may retake the post-test as needed. Once completed, a CE certificate will auto-populate to your online account.

Cancellation Policy

Please reference our cancellation policy here (bottom section of this page).

Take The Next Step

Ready to Begin?

Stop Working Around Parts. Start Working With Them.

When a protector steps in, an exile floods, or a client loses access to Self, the standard EMDR protocol doesn't have a built-in answer. This training gives you the IFS-informed framework, the Phase 3 modifications, and the parts-aware interweaves to keep the work moving without losing fidelity to either model.