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Training with Talking Therapies UK


At Talking Therapies UK, we are passionate about equipping professionals with the knowledge, confidence, and compassion to support mental health across diverse settings. With decades of combined experience in clinical practice, public health leadership, and service transformation, our training programmes are rooted in evidence-based approaches and real-world application.

We specialise in delivering high-impact, trauma-informed mental health training tailored to the needs of health, education, social care, and voluntary sector teams. From safeguarding and suicide prevention to emotional resilience and therapeutic communication, our courses are designed to empower practitioners at every level—whether you’re frontline staff, a strategic commissioner, or part of a multi-agency partnership.

Our facilitators bring many years clinical expertise , and a deep understanding of the social determinants of mental health. We prioritise co-production, reflective practice, and inclusive learning environments that foster curiosity, empathy, and professional growth.

Whether you’re looking to upskill your workforce, embed mental health into your organisational culture, or meet statutory training requirements, we offer flexible delivery formats including in-person workshops, webinars, and bespoke consultancy.

Together, we can build psychologically safe, responsive systems that promote wellbeing, reduce inequalities, and improve outcomes for individuals, families, and communities. Let’s shape the future of mental health—one conversation, one training, one transformation at a time..

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Talking Therapies UK
Trauma-Informed Practice & EMDR Awareness · Advanced

Advanced EMDR: Complex Trauma and Specialisms

Complex presentations, protocols and populations

This advanced programme is designed for EMDR practitioners who have already achieved competence in the standard protocol and wish to extend their clinical scope to complex trauma presentations and specialised populations. Over ten CPD hours, participants will engage deeply with the theoretical and practical modifications required for complex and dissociative presentations, including phased, resource-focused approaches that prioritise safety and stabilisation before trauma processing. The curriculum addresses structural dissociation theory, ego-state mapping, and the nuanced application of resource development and installation (RDI) within the window of tolerance, ensuring that clinicians can titrate processing intensity while maintaining therapeutic alliance. Specialist protocols are examined in detail: the recent traumatic events protocol for early intervention, specific phobia adaptations, chronic pain protocols integrating somatic awareness, and complicated grief frameworks that incorporate meaning reconstruction. Work with children and adolescents covers developmental adaptations, storytelling, and play-based bilateral stimulation, while modules on military and emergency-services populations explore moral injury, operational stress, and the impact of organisational culture. The course also considers delivery within multidisciplinary teams and stepped-care systems, referencing outcome monitoring tools such as the PHQ-9 and GAD-7, and the importance of intersectional formulation using frameworks like Social GGRRAAACCEEESSS. Throughout, emphasis is placed on fidelity to the EMDR model, the role of consultation in maintaining protocol integrity, and strategies for clinician sustainability in the face of vicarious trauma and burnout. Participants will leave with a comprehensive toolkit for complex case formulation, enhanced decision-making regarding protocol selection, and a strengthened capacity for reflective practice aligned with current NICE guidance and EMDR Europe standards.
▶ See inside the digital classroom1 minute 36 seconds · how a course is laid out, how each lesson is taught, and how the tutor helps
Before you start

This is an Advanced course in the EMDR pathway. It assumes that you already work with the approach at Practitioner level and want complexity, process and supervision-level thinking rather than the method itself, which is what EMDR in Practice teaches. What it adds is complex presentations, comorbidity, ruptures and impasses, the research and process literature, and the judgement needed to supervise or lead the work; it revisits the foundations only as far as it needs to before building on them, so it does not repeat the course below.

A caution. Taking an Advanced course without the foundational understanding will make it harder to follow and to complete, and you will get less from it. If you are new to this approach, begin at Foundation; if you hold the foundations but have not yet used the approach with clients, begin with EMDR in Practice. Choose the level that matches your existing experience and knowledge.

The EMDR pathway. The model, the evidence and the eight-phase protocol of EMDR, then its practice and its use with complex trauma. These courses teach knowledge of the method; they are not accredited EMDR practitioner training and do not confer accreditation.

14 study hours14 CPD hours certified12 months of accessAI tutor in every lessonCertificate on completion (pass mark 70%)

What you will be able to do

✓Adapt EMDR for complex PTSD, including extended stabilisation and titrated processing
✓Use restricted processing protocols, including EMDr, deliberately
✓Work with dissociative presentations safely, including screening and fractionation
✓Apply EMDR to grief, phobia, pain and addiction presentations with protocol adaptations
✓Handle abreaction confidently, keeping dual attention alive
✓Integrate EMDR coherently within a broader therapy rather than as a bolt-on

What you will study

Module 1: EMDR for Complex Trauma and Dissociation
Covers advanced EMDR techniques for complex trauma, dissociation, stabilization, and interweaving parts.
  • EMDR with complex trauma Extended preparation
  • Dissociation and stability Screening for dissociation
  • Preparation and Resource Development for Dissociative Clients in EMDR Preparation must begin with a collaborative parts‑map to identify ANPs and EPs and their protective functions.
  • Phase 3 – Interweave and Reprocessing of Dissociative Parts in EMDR for Complex Trauma Interweave statements provide corrective, compassionate information that bridges dissociated parts to the client’s present experience.
Module 2: Advanced Stabilisation and Integration in EMDR
Explores resource installation, dual awareness, safe memory processing, consolidation, assessment, and treatment planning for dissociative presentations.
  • Resource Installation and Dual Awareness in EMDR for Dissociative Clients Dual Awareness allows the client to hold the target memory and a resource state simultaneously, preventing dissociation during processing.
  • Phase 2 – Stabilisation and Safe Memory Processing with Cognitive Interweave for Dissociative Clients Safe memories are selected using the S‑3 model to reinforce agency and self‑compassion.
  • Phase 4 – Consolidation, Integration and Rehabilitation in EMDR for Complex Trauma and Dissociative Presentations Phase 4 aims to integrate previously processed memories into a coherent autobiographical narrative, supporting identity cohesion and functional rehabilitation.
  • Assessment, Formulation and Treatment Planning for Complex and Dissociative Presentations in EMDR Comprehensive assessment must combine validated dissociation measures, affect‑regulation scales and a trauma‑informed interview to map structural dissociation.
Module 3: Specialist EMDR Protocols for Diverse Populations
Details early intervention protocols, perinatal trauma treatment, and fidelity strategies for varied client groups.
  • Specialist protocols Recent-event protocols
  • Populations, fidelity and sustainability Children and adolescents
  • Early Intervention with the Recent Traumatic Episode Protocol (R‑TEP) and Group Traumatic Episode Protocol (G‑TEP) R‑TEP adapts the standard eight‑phase EMDR model for events within three months, preserving adaptive information processing while shortening preparation and focusing on the most disturbing fragment.
  • EMDR for Perinatal and Postnatal Trauma: A Specialist Protocol for Birth‑Related Distress Perinatal trauma often involves a blend of sensory, affective and relational memories that are stored somatically, requiring body‑focused resourcing within EMDR.
Module 4: EMDR for Special Populations and Conditions
Provides protocols for phobias, chronic pain, grief, children, and substance use disorders within a phase‑oriented framework.
  • EMDR for Specific Phobias: The Phobia Protocol and Integration with In‑Vivo Exposure The phobia protocol adapts the eight‑phase EMDR model by prioritising a vivid phobic image, a helplessness‑type negative cognition, and a realistic positive cognition before bilateral stimulation.
  • EMDR for Chronic Pain: The Pain Protocol and Biopsychosocial Integration The Pain Protocol targets pain as a memory network involving the injury event and the current sensation, distinct from standard EMDR processing.
  • EMDR for Complicated Grief and Bereavement: An Advanced Specialist Protocol Complicated grief is conceptualised within the Adaptive Information Processing model as a maladaptively stored memory network that can be reprocessed with bilateral stimulation.
  • EMDR with Children and Adolescents: Developmentally Sensitive Protocols and Service Inte