Trauma Training
Trauma-Informed Couples Therapy Training: Polyvagal Theory, EFT, and Gottman-Informed Approaches for Therapists
Trainer: Grace Chen, PhD, LMFT
On-Demand: Available with lifetime access for asynchronous learning. | This course was recorded on December 11th, 2025.
Couples therapy is most effective when it is grounded in trauma-informed care, attachment science, and a clear understanding of how the nervous system drives relational behavior.
When partners are stuck in cycles of reactivity, pursuit, withdrawal, or shutdown, they are often not failing at communication. They are surviving. This training with Dr. Grace Chen, PhD, LMFT and EMDRIA-Approved Consultant, gives you a polyvagal-informed framework for understanding what is actually happening in the room and a concrete set of interventions drawn from EFT, Gottman Method, and attachment theory to respond to it effectively.
You will learn how to recognize neuroception cues of safety and threat in each partner, how to apply the Autonomic Blueprint to track state shifts over time, and how to reframe destructive relational patterns as protective autonomic responses rather than character flaws or communication failures. Whether you are working with high-conflict couples, relational trauma, or partners whose individual trauma histories are showing up in the relationship, this course gives you tools you can apply in your next session.
Practical Interventions You'll Learn
In this trauma-informed couples therapy training, you'll learn how to:
- Map neuroception cues of safety and threat in each partner to identify relational triggers and understand the autonomic state driving each partner's behavior in the room
- Apply the EFT pursuer-withdrawer cycle through a polyvagal lens, linking pursuit and withdrawal to sympathetic activation and dorsal vagal collapse rather than character or intention
- Use Gottman Method interventions within a polyvagal framework, including reframing criticism as sympathetic activation, reducing defensiveness through repair statements, addressing contempt as dorsal vagal collapse, and breaking stonewalling through co-regulation and grounding
- Implement Autonomic Blueprint tracking with couples to help partners monitor and document their state shifts over time and build shared language around their nervous system responses
- Reframe maladaptive relational patterns as protective autonomic survival responses, reducing blame and shame and increasing each partner's capacity for compassion toward themselves and each other
What You'll Learn
By the end of this training, you will be able to:
- Evaluate the interplay between romantic relationship dynamics and mental well-being, and identify how relationship distress triggers psychological responses in both partners
- Identify and assess the effects of relationship trauma on couple communication, trust, and intimacy, including how early attachment experiences shape current relational patterns and conflict cycles
- Apply the core concepts of polyvagal theory to relational trauma, using the framework to promote safety, co-regulation, and connection between partners in couples therapy
- Develop strategies for using polyvagal-informed principles to support self-regulation in the therapist and co-regulation within the couple, disrupting maladaptive interaction cycles and fostering more connected relational dynamics
Who is this training for?
This course is designed for therapists who are doing couples work and want a neurobiologically grounded framework for what is happening between partners when communication breaks down. It is a strong fit if you are:
- A trauma therapist who has started seeing couples and wants to bring your nervous system literacy into the relational space, with specific frameworks for how polyvagal states drive pursuer-withdrawer cycles, stonewalling, contempt, and defensiveness
- Trained in EFT or Gottman Method and wanting to understand the polyvagal science underlying those approaches, so you can use both models with greater depth and precision
- Working with couples where one or both partners have individual trauma histories that are clearly activating in the relationship, and wanting clinical language and interventions for addressing that intersection
- Finding that skills-based couples interventions are not landing because one or both partners are too dysregulated to access them, and looking for co-regulation strategies that create the neurobiological conditions for those skills to work
- Wanting to understand how to use your own nervous system as a clinical instrument in the couples room, including how to maintain your own regulation when the session escalates
- Seeking NBCC and ASWB/ACE continuing education in trauma-informed couples therapy in a flexible on-demand format with 4 CEs
No prerequisites required. This is not an EMDR training.
About Your Trainer, Dr. Grace Chen
Dr. Grace Chen is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, EMDR-certified clinician, and EMDRIA-Approved Consultant with extensive expertise in trauma recovery, couples therapy, and clinician development. She specializes in working with trauma survivors, particularly those with histories of childhood family trauma, and is passionate about supporting both individuals and couples in their healing journeys.
Dr. Chen currently maintains a thriving private practice in Andover, Massachusetts. She provides trauma-informed individual and couples therapy, integrating Attachment Theory, Polyvagal Theory, and EMDR therapy. She also offers both individual and group consultation for clinicians pursuing EMDR certification and clinicians who seek to integrate Polyvagal Theory in couples therapy. She is dedicated to training and mentoring new therapists, helping them build the confidence and competence needed for trauma treatment and systemic therapy.
With a PhD specialization in Marriage and Family Therapy from Michigan State University, Dr. Chen brings a strong academic foundation to her clinical work. She is an active presenter and thought leader in the field, most recently presenting “The Marriage of EMDR Therapy and Couple Therapy through Polyvagal Theory Lenses” at the Western Mass EMDR Network 2025 Conference and “Incorporating Polyvagal Theory into Couples Therapy: When Traumatic Experiences Get in the Way of Communication” at the New England Family and Systemic Therapy 2024 State of Therapy: Modern Coupling Conference. She is committed to integrating the latest research, including Polyvagal Theory, Couple Therapy, Attachment Theory, and advanced EMDR strategies, to empower both clients and clinicians to discover the transformative power within themselves.
