EMDR Advanced Training
EMDR for Autism and ADHD: Neurodiversity-Affirming Training for Trauma Therapists
Trainer: Caroline van Diest
Live Training: June 26th - June 27th | 10:00 AM - 2:30 PM Central Time | Available for synchronous, live learning
On-Demand: Available one week after the live event
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 Interventions You’ll Learn
In this EMDR neurodivergence training, you will learn how to:
- Identify and conceptualize neurodivergent presentations across autism and ADHD, including how these intersect with trauma and adverse experiences in ways that go beyond standard PTSD frameworks, so your case formulation reflects who your client actually is.
- Build EMDR case formulations using the NDI Formulation Tool, mapping neurodivergent characteristics, adverse experiences, present difficulties, and client strengths into a treatment plan that guides your work across all 8 phases.
- Adapt your Phase 1 history-taking for clients whose trauma timelines, communication styles, and relationship to narrative don't fit standard intake structures, including preverbal and non-language-based approaches for clients who cannot engage through words alone.
- Develop Phase 2 preparation strategies that actually work for clients with limited attention spans, sensory sensitivities, alexithymia, or difficulty with abstract language, including specific modifications to Safe Place, Container, and bilateral stimulation setup.
- Replace abstract EMDR language with plain language alternatives that land for concrete thinkers, covering common phrases across all 8 phases so you have exact language ready for the room.
- Apply the COFFA Protocol and the Neurodivergent EMDR Toolbox across Phases 3 through 7, adapting desensitization, installation, body scan, and closure for clients who process emotion, cognition, and somatic experience differently than neurotypical clients.
- Work with cognitions and the standard negative and positive cognition framework when clients struggle to identify or articulate beliefs about themselves, using concrete, accessible alternatives that maintain fidelity to the AIP model.
- Calibrate set length, pacing, and check-in frequency in real time based on each client's attention and arousal, so processing stays within the window of tolerance without you needing to guess.
- Stay genuinely adaptive across all 8 phases without losing your clinical footing in the model, because no two neurodivergent clients present the same way and a one-size protocol will not serve them.
What You’ll Learn in This EMDRIA Approved Advanced Training
Neurodivergent clients carry real trauma histories. This training gives you the framework to reach them.
This course will equip you to:
- Explain the relationship between neurodivergence, trauma, and the AIP model, including how ADHD and autism interact with adverse experiences, attachment, and nervous system development in ways that shape every phase of your EMDR work.
- Apply a neuro-affirming approach to EMDR that starts from client strengths and unique presentations, rather than from a deficit model that treats neurodivergence as a problem to work around.
- Differentiate between trauma presentations and neurodivergent presentations, including how to recognize when what looks like avoidance, resistance, or emotional flatness is actually a nervous system response that requires adaptation rather than confrontation.
- Use the NDI Formulation Tool to develop individualized EMDR treatment plans that account for neurodivergent characteristics alongside trauma history, attachment, and present-day goals.
- Implement phase-specific EMDR adaptations for autistic and ADHD clients that maintain fidelity to Shapiro's 8-phase model while genuinely fitting the client in front of you.
- Utilize the COFFA Protocol and the Neurodivergent EMDR Toolbox as structured clinical frameworks, not improvised workarounds.
- Make confident, informed decisions at each phase of the EMDR process when your client's neurodivergent presentation shifts the clinical picture.
Expect two half-days of practical, clinically grounded content with formulation tools, protocol adaptations, language guides, and real case examples you can bring directly into your next neurodivergent EMDR session.
Who is this course for?
This training is designed for EMDR-trained clinicians and trauma therapists who work with (or want to work with) autistic and ADHD clients and feel the gap between traditional EMDR training and what neurodivergent clients actually need in practice. It's a strong fit if you:
- Have autistic or ADHD clients on your caseload and feel uncertain about how to adapt your EMDR approach for them
- Have tried applying the standard protocol with neurodivergent clients and noticed it doesn't land the way it does with neurotypical clients
- Want concrete, phase-by-phase tools, not just an overview of neurodiversity, that you can bring directly into your next session
- Are looking for a training that takes a neurodiversity-affirming stance, not a deficit-focused one
- Want to earn 8 EMDRIA CEs in a live, interactive format with replay access
You do not need to specialize in neurodivergence to benefit from this training. You just need neurodivergent people on your caseload, and that's most of us.
Prerequisites note:
Participants should have completed EMDR Basic Training. Prerequisite: EMDR Basic Training.
About Your Trainer, Caroline van Diest
Caroline van Diest is a Senior EMDR Europe Accredited Trainer at Mindsync EMDR Training and Trauma Therapist Institute. She has spent over a decade training therapists in neurodivergence-informed EMDR across the UK and internationally, and is the chairperson of the Neurodivergence and EMDR Special Interest Group at the EMDR UK Association.
Caroline has published research on the use of EMDR with autistic clients, co-authored a chapter in Psychological Therapies for Adults with Autism (Spain et al., 2022), and presented at EMDR UK Conferences. Her training style has been described as highly effective, safe, informative, and energizing - grounded in clinical rigor and delivered with warmth and humor.
She brings both professional expertise and personal experience of neurodiversity to her teaching, offering herself as an exploratory colleague who is genuinely curious about what works for each unique client.
