EMDR Advanced Training
EMDR for Anger, Shame, and Depression: Neuroscience-Informed Training for Trauma Therapists
Trainer:Â Joel Kouame, LCSW, MBA, CAMS
Live Training:Â Friday, July 17Â | 10:00 AM - 5:30 PMÂ Central Time | Available for synchronous, live learning
On-Demand:Â Available one week after the live event
Your client comes in dysregulated. Furious, withdrawn, or somewhere in between. You know something is driving it. But the anger is a moving target, the depression feels stuck, and underneath it all, there is something that looks a lot like shame. These three emotional states are not separate clinical problems. They move together. Each one can trigger the others. And for EMDR-trained clinicians, the gap in training is not EMDR itself. It is understanding the continuum these emotions form and how to navigate it across all eight phases.
That is what this training is built for. Joel Kouame, LCSW, MBA, CAMS, brings a neuroscience framework to the clinical reality of working with anger, shame, and depression in trauma treatment. Using the Adaptive Information Processing model, the triple network model, and an integrative approach to the EMDR phases, he maps how these emotions develop, why they resist processing, and what it actually takes to move clients through them.
This is not a shame training with some EMDR bolted on. It is a full-day, clinician-to-clinician look at one of the most common and most misunderstood emotional clusters in trauma work.
Practical Interventions You’ll Learn
In this training, you will learn how to:
- Map the anger-shame-depression continuum to guide EMDR treatment planning and target sequencing
- Use the EMDR 8-phase protocol to address shame as a core driver of symptoms, including ego-syntonic and ego-dystonic presentations
- Work with secondary emotions, including anger that masks shame or depression, cycling back into rage
- Apply cognitive interweaves during desensitization when clients become blocked by shame or dissociative parts
- Identify and target internalized negative beliefs and self-critical narratives using EMDR and REBT
- Address dissociated parts connected to overwhelming emotional experiences through Ego State Therapy and IFS-informed approaches
- Navigate preparation phase complexities specific to shame-based trauma, including safety planning, resource installation, and working with neurodivergent clients
- Recognize somatic expressions of anger in the body scan as indicators of clinical progress, not setbacks
- Install adaptive beliefs related to self-worth, safety, and relational trust in Phases 5 and 6
- Use the triple network model and gut-brain axis research to psychoeducate clients and deepen your own clinical conceptualization
What You’ll Learn in This EMDRIA Approved Advanced Training
By the end of this training, you will be able to:
- Describe the relationship between shame, rumination, and trauma-related psychological symptoms across the anger-depression continuum
- Explain how traumatic experiences disrupt memory processing and contribute to dissociation
- Identify how trauma and dissociation drive emotional dysregulation and contribute to complex trauma presentations
- Describe how large-scale brain networks, including the Default Mode Network, Central Executive Network, and Salience Network, contribute to emotional regulation and trauma responses
- Explain the neurological mechanisms underlying trauma processing and the therapeutic effects of EMDR
- Analyze the role of shame and self-conscious emotion in the development and maintenance of posttraumatic stress symptoms
Who is this course for?
This training is designed for licensed clinicians who are trained in EMDR and working with clients whose emotional presentations are not linear:
- You are EMDR-trained and want a deeper framework for working with anger, shame, and depression together
- You have clients who cycle between rage and withdrawal and are not sure how to target either
- You find that shame blocks reprocessing and you want clinical language and tools for working through it
- You work with clients whose depressive presentations feel stuck even when EMDR is progressing
- You want to understand the neuroscience behind these emotional states and how it applies to your EMDR case conceptualization
- You see complex trauma clients and want a more integrated, phase-by-phase approach to this emotional cluster
Prerequisites note:
Participants should have completed EMDR Basic Training. Prerequisite: EMDR Basic Training.
About Your Trainer, Joel Kouame, LCSW, MBA, CAMS
Joel Kouame, LCSW, MBA, CAMS, is a licensed clinical social worker, psychotherapist, adjunct professor, and the founder of JK Counseling, a New York-based virtual practice serving individuals, couples, and teens. Joel specializes in trauma, PTSD, anger management, and the intersection of emotional dysregulation and clinical identity. His integrative approach draws on EMDR, IFS, REBT, Ego State Therapy, psychodynamic theory, and CBT, and he is known for his ability to translate complex neuroscience frameworks into language clinicians can actually use in session.
He has presented for the New York Mental Health Counselors Association and Palo Alto University, and has been published in EMDRIA's blog and other clinical outlets. He is a regular contributor to mental health conversations that examine social and cultural dimensions of emotional experience through a clinical lens. Joel presented the Clinical Conversation 'Transforming Rage into Resilience: A Discussion About Emotional Healing' with Trauma Therapist Institute in January 2026.
