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..
Trauma-Informed Practice & EMDR Awareness · Advanced
Advanced Trauma Work and EMDR Awareness
Dissociation, moral injury, EMDR's mechanics at depth, and the practitioner's own nervous system.
At the far end of trauma work wait the presentations that test everything: dissociative structures formed in childhood, moral injury that no exposure protocol touches, grief tangled through traumatic imagery, and the slow cost the work exacts from the clinician's own nervous system. This course meets them directly, for experienced trauma practitioners.
The first module works with the hard presentations: dissociation understood structurally rather than as an obstacle, parts-informed approaches used with clinical discipline, and moral injury and traumatic grief, where the wound is to meaning and mourning rather than to safety, and treatment must change shape accordingly. The second module examines EMDR at depth, its eight phases, its mechanism debates, what the dismantling studies actually show, so you can engage with it as an informed clinician, and closes with vicarious trauma: the realistic maintenance of the practitioner as instrument, beyond the usual self-care platitudes.
Extended written lessons with key points and supervision-level practice tasks, with a study tutor available for what this material raises. Fourteen hours of CPD, around a year of access, a final assessment, and a personalised certificate on passing.
▶ 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 trauma-informed practice 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 Working with Trauma 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 Working with Trauma in Practice. Choose the level that matches your existing experience and knowledge.
The trauma-informed practice pathway. How any practitioner works safely and well with trauma, whatever their modality: what trauma does and the trauma-informed stance, trauma in everyday clinical practice, then advanced trauma work with an awareness of EMDR. It is a way of practising, not a treatment protocol.
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
✓Formulate complex PTSD and developmental trauma, distinguishing them from adjacent presentations
✓Sequence long-haul treatment across phases with shifting priorities and setbacks
✓Describe EMDR's eight phases and adaptive information processing model, and what treatment involves, at awareness level
✓Work with shame, self-attack and perpetrator introjects in relational trauma
✓Manage vicarious traumatisation and your own limits as a matter of professional discipline
✓Critically compare the evidenced trauma therapies and reason about matching client to approach
What you will study
Module 1: Advanced EMDR for Dissociation and Moral Injury
This module covers adapting EMDR protocols for dissociative parts, moral injury, and trauma-related psychosis within a phase-oriented framework.
Dissociation and parts-informed workStructural dissociation: daily-life parts and trauma-carrying parts
Moral injury and traumatic griefMoral injury runs on guilt, shame and meaning, not fear
Adapting EMDR for Dissociative Parts and Moral Injury: Protocol Modifications and Integrated Case FormulationExtended preparation with parts‑mapping and resource installation is essential before any trauma processing in clients with structural dissociation and moral injury.
Trauma-Related Psychosis: Integrating EMDR within a Complex PresentationTrauma can underlie psychotic symptoms, with hallucinations often representing re‑enactments of unprocessed threat memories.
Phase‑Oriented Stabilisation and Resource Development for Severe Dissociation and Moral InjuryStabilisation precedes and shapes all subsequent EMDR work for severe dissociation and moral injury.
Module 2: Somatic, Existential, and Structural EMDR Integration
This module explores integrating somatic, existential, and parts-based approaches with EMDR while reviewing its core phases and debates.
Somatic Dysregulation and Embodied Trauma: Integrating EMDR with Body‑Focused InterventionsSomatic dysregulation narrows the client’s window of tolerance, impeding effective EMDR processing.
Targeting the Inner Critic and Self-Criticism in Complex Trauma and Moral InjuryThe Inner Critic in trauma often functions as a dissociated protector part that enforces shame to prevent the client from accessing positive resources or processing traumatic memories.
Existential and Spiritual Distress in Trauma: Integrating EMDR with Meaning‑Focused InterventionsExistential distress reflects a rupture in core assumptions about meaning, purpose and spirituality, often evident in moral injury and traumatic grief.
Working with Dissociative Subtypes in EMDR: Recognising, Assessing, and Safely Processing the Fragmented SelfClinicians must distinguish between dissociative subtypes (depersonalisation, derealisation, amnesia, identity confusion, identity alteration) before EMDR processing, as each subtype carries distinct safety thresholds and processing needs.
EMDR: the eight phases and the debatesEight phases form a complete protocol under the AIP model
Module 3: Practitioner Regulation and EMDR Mechanics
This module focuses on the neurobiological mechanics of EMDR, practitioner self-regulation, and advanced intervention techniques for stalled processing.
Vicarious trauma and the practitioner's nervous systemVicarious trauma shifts the practitioner's own schemas
Resource Development and Installation: The Mechanics of StabilisationResource Development and Installation (RDI) occupies a central place in the Advanced Trauma Work and EMDR Awareness curriculum because it operationalises the st…
Neurobiological Mechanisms of Dual Attention Stimulation and the Practitioner’s Arousal RegulationDual attention stimulation taxes working memory, reducing vividness and emotional intensity of traumatic memories.
The Interweave: Mechanics of Intervention in Stalled ProcessingWithin the advanced mechanics of Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), the interweave occupies a central position in the therapist’s repertoire …
Phase 8 Re‑evaluation, Consolidation and Long‑Term Maintenance in EMDRPhase 8 re‑evaluation verifies stability of SUD 0 and VoC 7 and uncovers hidden secondary targets.
Module 4: Attachment, Memory, and Advanced EMDR Strategies
This module examines attachment-informed practice, memory reconsolidation theory, and advanced strategies for managing dissociatio
