By EMDR & Beyond | Last updated: September 16, 2026

Kenya Rocha thinks of September as a deep, vibrant blue. It’s the birthday month for many of her favorite people, so it has always carried connection and celebration for her, along with the way it gently starts the turn into fall. It brings her back into routine, reflection, and intention, the familiar rhythms that help clinicians feel grounded for whatever comes next.

Summer usually leaves more room to breathe, connect, travel, and play. Then fall arrives with schedules, school, and a renewed awareness of the work in front of us.

Back on track, with everything you’ve already built

That’s a good moment to remember that getting “back on track” doesn’t mean starting over. We bring everything we’ve learned, practiced, and come through with us. Our strengths and resiliency are already there. Sometimes what we need is the chance to reconnect with them, sharpen our skills, and get intentional about where we grow next.

This is also how adults learn. Malcolm Knowles, whose work on andragogy shaped how continuing education is designed, described adult learners as self-directed, drawing on years of experience, and most engaged by learning they can put to use on a real problem right away (Knowles, 1980). For clinicians, that problem is usually already on next week’s schedule. Good continuing education starts from the caseload a clinician already has.

What the AIP model says about clinical growth

EMDR therapy rests on the Adaptive Information Processing model, which holds that how we respond now is shaped by how earlier experiences were stored and linked in memory (Shapiro, 2018). Clinicians use that idea to understand their clients. It also describes their own development: new learning links into what they already know and makes that earlier learning more useful in the room.

EMDRIA builds the same expectation into its credentials. The EMDRIA Certified Therapist credential is granted for two years and renewed every two years (EMDR International Association, n.d.), so continued learning is part of holding it.

The research keeps moving as well. A 2025 meta-analysis in the Journal of EMDR Practice and Research combined 12 studies and 852 participants and found that EMDR’s reduction in trauma symptoms for adults with childhood trauma was still present at follow-up (Ajele & Idemudia, 2025).

This fall’s live trainings

EMDR & Beyond’s three live trainings this fall each support a different part of a clinician’s development: supervision that strengthens the profession, a somatic understanding of dissociation, and relational work with couples. Different topics, with a common purpose: building the clinical wisdom, confidence, and flexibility that let clinicians meet their clients well.

Clinical Supervisor Training in Iowa

Friday, October 16, 2026, 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM Central. Live virtual, or in person at MOSAIC Family Counseling Center in Urbandale, Iowa. 6 CE hours for Iowa licensure only.

Kenya Rocha, MS, LMHC, NCC, leads this six-hour training for Iowa clinicians who want to supervise others toward independent licensure. The day covers the supervisor’s role and responsibilities, the legal and ethical rules for supervision in Iowa, how to write a supervision plan that meets state requirements, and how to support supervisees at different stages of their development. Any clinician can attend, and EMDR training isn’t required. To be listed as a qualified supervisor in Iowa, clinicians also need at least three years of post-licensure clinical practice.

Bernard and Goodyear’s Fundamentals of Clinical Supervision, a standard text in the field, gives growing attention to how supervision affects client outcomes (Bernard & Goodyear, 2019). What a supervisor teaches reaches past the supervisee to every client that supervisee sees.

Clinical Supervisor Training in Iowa: details and registration

Updating Your Understanding of Dissociation Through a Somatic Lens

November 12 and 13, 2026, 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM Central both days. Live virtual. 8 CE credits (under review). This program does not carry EMDRIA credit.

Melissa Benintendi, MA, LPC, EMDRIA Approved Trainer & Consultant, teaches dissociation as an adaptive shift in how the nervous system handles overwhelm. Clinicians learn to recognize it across the full range, from brief changes in time sense or body awareness to complex dissociative presentations, and to work with it at the level a client can currently tolerate. The somatic focus reflects current research on how trauma disrupts the processing of bodily sensation (Kearney & Lanius, 2022).

The training is open to licensed clinicians at the master’s level and above, with no EMDR background required. Early-bird code UD2026 takes $30 off through October 30, 2026.

Understanding Dissociation Through a Somatic Lens: details and registration

EMDR COUPLES Framework: Deeper Connections II

December 3 and 4, 2026, 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM Central both days. Live virtual, or in person at MOSAIC Family Counseling Center in Urbandale, Iowa. 12 CE hours. Submitted for EMDRIA credit, approval pending.

Kenya Rocha teaches the COUPLES Framework and Six Constructs of Intimacy, models she developed to bring the Adaptive Information Processing model, EMDR therapy, and Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples together in relational treatment. In couples work, the relationship is the client, and this training builds on the standard EMDR protocol to treat that relationship directly. Emotionally Focused Therapy has a strong research record of its own: a review in Family Process concluded that it meets or exceeds the guidelines for an evidence-based couple therapy (Wiebe & Johnson, 2016).

EMDR Basic Training is required. Early-bird code CF26 takes $80 off through November 18, 2026, and anyone who registers by December 1 also gets Intro to EMDR with Couples at no charge.

EMDR COUPLES Framework: Deeper Connections II: details and registration

Choosing where to grow next

The full Training & Events calendar lists every live and on-demand course. If you’re working toward EMDRIA certification, the Consultation page covers individual, group, and Spanish-speaking options. If you haven’t started EMDR yet, Kenya’s upcoming Basic Training dates are on the EMDR Basic Training page.

Perhaps this fall, getting back on track is simply choosing where you want to grow next.

About the clinician

Kenya Rocha, MS, LMHC, NCC, EMDRIA Certified Therapist, EMDRIA Approved Trainer & Consultant, is the owner and director of EMDR & Beyond and the founder and clinical director of MOSAIC Family Counseling Center. Before EMDR, she built her career in developmental, foster care, and bilingual family services, and that developmental lens runs through everything she teaches. She has 21+ years of clinical experience, including 18+ years practicing EMDR, has held EMDRIA Approved Consultant status since 2012, and works in English and Spanish.

Accreditation

EMDR & Beyond is an EMDRIA-approved EC Provider (#15007).

EMDR & Beyond is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. EMDR & Beyond maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

Credit differs by training. Clinical Supervisor Training in Iowa carries 6 CE hours for Iowa licensure only and does not offer APA credit. Updating Your Understanding of Dissociation Through a Somatic Lens has been submitted for 8 continuing education credits (under review) and does not carry EMDRIA credit. EMDR COUPLES Framework: Deeper Connections II has been submitted for EMDRIA credit, with approval and final credit hours pending. Licensed professionals should contact their regulatory board to determine course approval.

This content is for professional education purposes and does not constitute clinical advice.

References

  • Ajele, K. W., & Idemudia, E. S. (2025). Long-term effects of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing on childhood trauma: A cross-national meta-analysis of adult well-being. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, 19, Article 0017. https://doi.org/10.34133/jemdr.0017
  • Bernard, J. M., & Goodyear, R. K. (2019). Fundamentals of clinical supervision (6th ed.). Pearson.
  • EMDR International Association. (n.d.). EMDRIA Certified Therapist application. https://www.emdria.org/emdr-training/emdr-certification-2/
  • Kearney, B. E., & Lanius, R. A. (2022). The brain-body disconnect: A somatic sensory basis for trauma-related disorders. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 16, Article 1015749.
  • Knowles, M. S. (1980). The modern practice of adult education: From pedagogy to andragogy (Rev. ed.). Cambridge Adult Education.
  • Shapiro, F. (2018). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy: Basic principles, protocols, and procedures (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.
  • Wiebe, S. A., & Johnson, S. M. (2016). A review of the research in emotionally focused therapy for couples. Family Process, 55(3), 390–407. https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12229