When you sign up you will receive access to the training portal. The first lesson will be released a week prior to the first session. You'll then meet every week with the next session's facilitator/s and your cohort. Please note, each session will be recorded for participants to reference between sessions. Each lesson has a resource materials (handouts), a pretest, a posttest, and an evaluation for you to complete.

What if I have to miss a session?

Participants should make every effort to attend each session. Absence from a session may place earning continuing education credit at risk. No make ups are permitted either virtually in another session or via watching recorded content.

Do I have to be trained in EMDR to join?

No, you don't! Any person in a clinical role (intern, provisionally licensed counselor/social worker, fully licensed counselor/social worker, psychologist) who wants to better understand trauma and how to prepare clients for trauma work will benefit from this training.

Can I get a refund if I don’t like it?

No refunds will be given. If you have any questions or problems, you can reach out to info@traumaspecialiststraining.com. Please see the TSTI policies here.

Am I able to receive continuing education credits for this training?

Trauma Specialist Training Institute has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7268. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Trauma Specialists Training Institute is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs. 12 Clock Hours. Trauma Specialists Training Institute, LLC maintains responsibility for all aspects of this program and its content. You will receive a certificate of completion after completion of the course and course evaluation via email. There is no recording of the live event available to participants in lieu of attendance and all participant information is confidential. Should you have a situation that comes up requiring a course transfer or makeup date, please contact us at info@traumaspecialiststraining.com to see if we can accommodate your request.

Do I have to be available the entire time?

Yes, you will need to attend the entire training. Your attendance will be tracked via Zoom. Please keep your webcam on during all live training sessions. This is the equivalent of “being in the room” for an in-person training and is required for continuing education hours.

What if I have other questions?

Please reach out to us at info@traumaspecialiststraining.com for any additional questions you may have. We may also be reached: By mail: Trauma Specialists Training Institute, 124 North Court Street, Frederick, MD 21701 By phone: 877-780-8784 Learn more by visiting our webpage at https://www.traumaspecialiststraining.com/

Fall 2026 Cohort · Live on Zoom

Foundation of Trauma Therapy

Eight weekly sessions on the stabilization phase of trauma treatment. The preparation work that comes before reprocessing, whatever modality you use.

This Cohort

October 20 - December 8, 2026

Tuesdays, 8:00-9:30 AM ET · Live on Zoom

$409 per person

8 Weekly Live Sessions Live Virtual No EMDR Training Required

See below for information about CE approvals

Register Now See the Eight Modules

Stepping stones leading across a calm lake at dawn

This Cohort

October 20 - December 8, 2026

Tuesdays, 8:00-9:30 AM ET · Live on Zoom

Where this training sits

A Training in the First Phase of Trauma Work

Trauma treatment moves through three stages, and each one depends on the one before it.

01 This training · 8 weeks

Stabilization

Safety, regulation, and the capacity to stay present. The groundwork that makes everything after it possible.

02

Reprocessing

Where EMDR and the other reprocessing modalities do their work, once a client is stable enough to hold it.

03

Reintegration

Life on the other side of the trauma work, organized around one question: who am I without the trauma?

Stabilization means a client can hold a baseline of functioning, tolerate both positive and negative feeling, and reach for coping skills that actually work. Janina Fisher's observation, which this course returns to, is that trauma survivors cannot teach themselves what safe and stable mean. They learn it from a clinician who can offer structure, information, and feedback. This training is about becoming that clinician.

It is open to any clinical role, from interns and provisionally licensed clinicians through fully licensed therapists and psychologists. No EMDR training is required, and nothing here assumes one modality. Whatever you use, or plan to use, for reprocessing, the preparation work is the same.

Week by week

The Eight Modules

One module per week, each led by the facilitator who knows that territory best. Every module carries its own considerations for working with children and neurodivergent clients.

Melissa opens the course with the research base: the ACE study, what prolonged stress does to a developing brain, and the structures trauma reshapes. The second half turns toward repair, how co-regulation, relational therapy, and attachment work help a nervous system move from fight-or-flight toward trust and safety.

Session objectives

•Participants will learn about childhood adverse experiences and its impact on brain development.
•Participants will be able to identify main parts of the brain that are impacted by trauma.
•Participants will learn how trauma impacts brain development on a cellular level.
•Participants will be able to define co-regulation, and understand how it can rewire the brain from flight/flight to trust and safety.
•Participant will learn how relational therapy and attachment work help to rewire brain
•Will address considerations of working with kids and neurodivergent individuals

Children and neurodivergent clients, in every module

Each of the eight sessions carries its own considerations for working with children and with neurodivergent clients. Adaptations run through the whole course as a thread, so the skills arrive ready for the caseload you actually have.

Built for practice

Sessions run live and interactive, with activities, demonstrations, and small-group discussion. Each module comes with handouts you keep, and each is recorded for reference between sessions.

Visit our TSTI Policies page for information regarding our Substitute Trainer Policy.

What you take back to your caseload

What Changes in Your Sessions

Eight weeks is enough time for the way you work to shift in specific, watchable ways.

How You Open a First Session

You gather a history in headlines rather than details, so a client can tell you what happened without reliving it. The biopsychosocial interview becomes something you do with a client instead of to them.

What You Do When a Client Leaves the Window

You recognize hyperarousal and hypoarousal as they happen, and you have state-shifting moves for both, including the quiet kind a dysregulated client never has to notice.

How You Explain the Work

You can walk a client through what trauma does to a brain and what your modality does about it, in plain language, at whatever depth they want. Informed clients advocate for themselves.

How You Pace

You read a client's affect tolerance and let it set the speed, dipping toes rather than flooding, and you know the difference between containment and compartmentalization when you see it.

How the Work Sits with You

Your own window of tolerance is in the room too. The course spends real time on the clinician's side of the work: knowing your triggers, noticing how you show up to session, and protecting yourself from secondary trauma.

The formal course objectives

1.Explain how trauma impacts the brain.
2.List the 3 stages of trauma treatment.
3.Identify at least 2 trauma informed intake interventions.
4.Describe at least 3 therapeutic interventions to assist in preparing clients for trauma reprocessing.

Four clinicians, one course

Meet Your Facilitators

Each module is taught by the facilitator closest to its territory. All four are practicing clinicians.

Katie Honeywell, LPCMH, NCC

Facilitator · Body Awareness

Katie has been working as a licensed counselor for 10 years, providing counseling in inpatient and outpatient settings. Katie is a National Certified Counselor and an EMDRIA certified therapist. As a counselor, she enjoys working with children, adolescents, parents and adults. In relation to trauma, she has a special interest in parenting, attachment, dissociation, parts work, postpartum health and perinatal trauma. Katie's style of consultation is based in a nonjudgemental environment that highlights learning strategies to implement theory.

Whitney Dahlberg, LCPAT

Facilitator · Mindfulness & Grounding

Whitney is a Licensed Clinical Professional Art Therapist. As an art therapist, she is trained in traditional counseling techniques with a specialization in art modalities.Through art making and dialogue, she pays special attention to the experiences of our mind-body connection utilizing a holistic, process-oriented perspective and works from an individualized, strengths-based, trauma-informed lens. She seeks to provide a visual channel through meaning-making to safely express and navigate obstacles to healing. Engaging in the process of art itself can improve self-esteem, increase emotional self-efficacy, and facilitate an individual sense of identity.

Whitney is an LGBTQIA+ affirming therapist who creates an environment of safety, trust, and respect for her clients. She has worked with individuals of all ages experiencing grief, depression, anxiety, medical diagnosis, and trauma. She is passionate about art as a tool for communication and the healing power of the creative process. Whitney is EMDR trained.

Cheyenne Bowman, LCPC

Facilitator · Stabilization, Initial Sessions, Affect Tolerance & Attunement

Cheyenne is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor with more than 10 years of experience supporting individuals through complex emotional challenges. She works with teens and adults who are navigating trauma, anxiety, and heavy life transitions, offering a steady presence and clear guidance along the way. Cheyenne’s approach blends curiosity, collaboration, and neuroscience. She helps clients understand how past experiences have shaped their nervous system and relationships, often reducing shame and confusion in the process. Her work is grounded in the belief that healing doesn’t require perfection—just a willingness to show up.

She is trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), draws from ego state therapy, Internal Family Systems (IFS), attachment theory, and person-centered care. Cheyenne is currently pursuing EMDR certification and also serves as a trauma consultant for the Trauma Specialists Training Institute.

Melissa Rivera-Smith, LPCMH, NCC

Facilitator · Trauma & The Brain

Melissa is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPCMH) and National Board-Certified Counselor (NCC). Melissa has almost 4 years of experience working with adults in community mental health, and as a college-based therapist. Melissa enjoys working with adults, teens, and couples. Melissa’s style of therapy is client-centered, empathic, and compassionate. As a client-centered therapist Melissa works to establish a trusting and dynamic relationship with clients to assist them with exploring current and past issues that impact their functioning. Melissa is experienced in working with a variety of mental health diagnoses, including anxiety, depression, anger management difficulties, interpersonal difficulties, personality disorders, and trauma. Melissa employs a variety of evidence-based treatment modalities to assist clients in exploring areas of concern, identifying root causes, and working towards putting down survival skills that no longer work. Melissa has had training in CBT, couples work, and is EMDR trained.

From past cohorts

What Past Participants Said

I recently had the opportunity to participate in the Foundations of Trauma Therapy training and it was truly transformative—both professionally and personally. The facilitators created a safe, engaging, and insightful learning environment that deepened my understanding of trauma and its impact on my clients. The training provided practical tools and strategies to approach care with empathy, sensitivity, and resilience-building in mind. I recommend this training to anyone interested in learning the fundamental tools required to support your clients needs in session. This training would be particularly helpful for new therapists and therapists interested in exploring more complex trauma trainings in the future.

Alan Weber, LSW

Mindful Soul Center for Wellbeing

I recently completed the course, "Foundations of Trauma Therapy Training: Master Stabilization in 8 weeks", and found it to be a helpful refresher on key trauma-informed principles. The content was well-organized, and many of the instructors provided clear, creative examples that helped reinforce the concepts. I’d recommend it for anyone starting out in trauma work or looking to build a foundational understanding of trauma-informed care.

Carlee Bellapigna, MA, LAC, NCC

Therapist (She/Her/Hers), Mindful Soul Center for Wellbeing

This trauma training exceeded my expectations. The content was not only extensive but presented in a way that made complex concepts truly accessible. I appreciated the use of relatable metaphors and real-world examples that I could immediately apply with my clients and integrate into the clinical growth of my team. The entire team and all presenters were knowledgeable, personable, and fully engaged throughout the process—making the learning experience both meaningful and supportive. This training didn’t just add knowledge; it equipped me with tools to strengthen outcomes for both my clients and the therapists I supervise.

Heather R. Gaudette, LICSW

Co-Founder, Wellness Within

The people behind the work

A community of trauma specialists

Training here is warm, human-centered, and relational. You acquire and hone the skills to treat trauma effectively alongside clinicians who do this work every day, in a community that extends across our sister practices in Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania and keeps going after the training ends.

Two Trauma Specialists clinicians laughing together at a team gathering

A group of Trauma Specialists clinicians together on a team outing

Three Trauma Specialists clinicians smiling together at a community event

For practice owners and groups

Thinking About Your Whole Team?

Some practices put several clinicians through this training together, so the language of stabilization, pacing, and the window of tolerance becomes shared vocabulary across a team.

Katie Honeywell teaches the Body Awareness module and also handles partnership and group arrangements at TSTI. If a group might fit your practice, she would be glad to talk through group rates and what rolling it out looks like. One conversation, with the person who teaches the material.

Talk It Through with Katie

Continuing Education Approvals

NBCC

Trauma Specialists Training Institute has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7268. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Trauma Specialists Training Institute is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs. 12 Clock Hours.

Trauma Specialists Training Institute, LLC maintains responsibility for all aspects of this program and its content.

Pricing & what's included

Register

The fall cohort meets Tuesday mornings, October 20 through December 8. If it fits your schedule and your caseload, we would be glad to have you in the room.

October 20 - December 8, 2026

Live Virtual — Weekly 90-min sessions · Tuesdays 8:00-9:30 AM ET

$409

per person

Register Now

Checkout opens on our secure member site.

What's Included

✓8 weekly live virtual training modules (Tuesdays 8:00-9:30 AM ET)

✓Access to experienced facilitators (5+ years clinical experience)

✓Connection with cohort of mental health professionals

✓Resource materials and handouts per session

✓Recorded sessions for reference

✓Pre/post assessments

✓Certificate of completion

✓CE documentation

Reschedule and refund details on our TSTI Policies page.

If eight weeks isn't the right next step

A Free Place to Start

If you'd like a feel for how we think about session structure before committing to a full training, we wrote a field guide on structuring a trauma-informed session. It's free, it stands on its own, and it asks nothing of you. Take what's useful and leave the rest.

Read the Field Guide

Inclusion & policies

Who This Training Is For, and How We Run It

We strive to honor the intersectionality of all our trainers and participants and include this lens in our training content and discussion. We actively welcome all races, religions, genders, sexual orientations, and abilities. Our trainers and facilitators are here to help you each step of the way.

Trauma Specialists Training Institute welcomes any clinician who is looking to offer the best trauma treatment you can to your clients. Our training environment is geared toward inclusivity and we welcome all ages, abilities, cultures, ethnicities, races, genders, sexual orientations, and religions.

Cancellation Policy: If you need to cancel your training, any funds paid may be applied toward a future Trauma Specialists Training Institute program within one year of your original registration date. Please note that training registration fees are non-refundable, including any rescheduling fees.

We want to provide equal access to our training. If you are in need of any kind of accommodation to attend this training, please reach out to us so we can work with you to set up any accommodations needed. Contact info@traumaspecialiststraining.com.

Confidentiality Statement: All participant identifying information will be kept confidential upon registration of this training. Each participant can choose what name and identifying information to present on their Zoom screen.

Trauma Specialists Training Institute, LLC maintains responsibility for all aspects of this program and its content.

There is no known commercial support for this program.

124 North Court Street, Frederick, MD 21701

877-780-8784 | Email: info@traumaspecialiststraining.com | www.traumaspecialiststraining.com

Frequently Asked Questions

Replacement Document Request Policy: At Trauma Specialists Training Institute, we understand that occasionally, important documentation may be lost or unavailable. To streamline the replacement process, we have established the following policy for requesting digital replacement documents.

Available Replacement Documents & Fees

We currently offer replacements for the following documents:

Certificate of Completion – $20

If you’ve lost your Certificate of Completion from a course you attended with us, you may request a digital replacement.

CE Documentation Support (for submission to your local/state board)

Trauma-Informed Training: $10

Advanced EMDR Trainings: $10

EMDR Basic Training: $25

How to Request a Replacement Document

Visit the page to request a replacement document.

Select the appropriate document type you are requesting.

Provide your current email address to avoid delays.

Complete payment and submit the form.

You will receive your digital replacement document via email within 10 business days of your order.

Important: If you request a replacement Certificate of Completion from Trauma Specialists Training Institute but did not attend training with us, your payment will be applied toward administrative research and will not be refunded.

Notes About EMDRIA Certification Letters

We are currently reviewing the process for requesting consultant letters for EMDRIA Certification and working to streamline this process.

At this time, participants are encouraged to contact their consultants directly, using the contact information provided in the EMDR Circle Dashboard. No fees apply to first time documentation requests.

The Cohort Starts October 20

Eight Tuesday mornings on the work that makes trauma treatment possible. If this training meets you where your practice is right now, we would be glad to have you in the room.

Register Now Have a Question? Contact Us

Not sure if it's the right fit? Email info@traumaspecialiststraining.com and a real person will be glad to talk it through with you.