Certification · For clinicians & helping professionals working with trauma

The Resilient Heart™ — trauma-sensitive HeartMath® certification.

For a trauma survivor, being told to breathe and focus on the heart can be the opposite of calming. This certification teaches you to adapt HeartMath techniques for people whose nervous systems learned that stillness isn't safe— so you can offer regulation without triggering the thing you're trying to ease.

12+ hours of video | Self-paced, start anytime | Monthly live Q&A | Integrates with EMDR & somatic work | HeartMath® Certified Practitioner

Enrollment

Certification only

$299

The complete training — nine video parts, guidebook, and yourHeartMath® Certified Practitioner credential.

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Certification + Inner Balance CoherencePlus

$449

Everything in certification only, plus the Inner BalanceCoherence Plus sensor & app to put in clients' hands.

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Already have HeartMath technology? Choose certification only above.Self-paced, start anytime · Includes monthly live Q&A with the instructors.

Why this exists

The standard instructions assume a safe body.

"Close your eyes. Breathe slowly. Focus on your heart." For most people, that's an invitation to settle.For someone carrying trauma, each of those can be a doorway into activation.

What can go wrong

Regulation techniques can activate

  • Closing the eyes removes the ability to scan for threat
  • Slowing the breath can mimic the freeze response
  • Turning attention inward can bring up what the body has stored
  • A low coherence score becomes one more way to be failing
What you'll be able to do instead

Adapt, titrate, and stay in the window

  • Offer choice and consent at every step
  • Recognize activation early and respond to it
  • Titrate practice so the nervous system builds capacity
  • Use HRV feedback without it becoming a test to pass
What you'll learn

Skills you'll use in your next session.

"Close your eyes. Breathe slowly. Focus on your heart." For most people, that's an invitation to settle.For someone carrying trauma, each of those can be a doorway into activation.

  • How trauma changes the nervous system — and why that makes standard regulation instructions land differently.
  • Trauma-sensitive adaptations to Heart-Focused Breathing and QuickCoherence® — what to change, and why.
  • What to do when activation arrives mid-session, and how to close safely when it does.
  • How to read the window of tolerance in real time, and work inside it rather than past it.
  • How to introduce HRV feedback so it builds interoceptive awareness instead of performance anxiety.
  • How to protect yourself from vicarious trauma over a career, not just a week.
Curriculum

Eight parts, twelve hours — plus a bonus module.

Twelve hours across eight core parts, plus a bonus module on putting the technology to work. Self-paced video you can start any time, with a monthly live Q&A where you can bring your own cases.

Your capacity to care for others depends on how you care for yourself.

Heart-focused tools for building your own resilience, and an introduction to “HeartSpace” — which facilitates co-regulation and attunement between you and your client or patient.

Trauma leaves its mark psychologically, physiologically, and relationally — affecting health, well-being, and the ability to relate to others.

A review of the neurophysiology of trauma, and how to introduce HeartMath tools and techniques to clients for emotional self-regulation.

Regular practice of techniques for emotional and physiological regulation widens our “Window of Tolerance” and increases our resilience.

How bottom-up processing, heart rate variability, and coherence work together to establish a steadier baseline for the nervous system.

Coherence is an optimal physiological state arising from integration, and enables greater access to the intuitive self.

How integrating trauma builds coherence, and how that opens up clearer access to your own inner guidance.

HeartMath tools and techniques can be used as an adjunctive skill set in trauma-informed care.

How to integrate the HeartMath skill set into a variety of trauma-focused therapies, and across different client populations.

Trauma damages our connection to others — and to ourselves.

The relational impact of trauma, and how HeartMath techniques can create a bridge for trauma survivors to safely reconnect with themselves and others — fostering trust and relationships.

Whether you work with children, or with adults who used to be children, knowledge about childhood trauma and attachment is essential.

The signs of trauma in children and how attachment patterns shape their response to it. Then how to use HeartMath with children and parents, and how communities begin to heal intergenerational trauma.

Trauma is also a collective experience, and its effects reach further than the people who lived it.

The impact of collective trauma, how to facilitate and use HeartMath for group trauma processing, and the concept of post-traumatic growth and resilience.

Learn to integrate the HeartMath App and Inner Balance Coherence Plus sensor into in-person or remote clinical care.

How to use real-time HRV feedback for emotional self-regulation, follow client progress between sessions, and prescribe targeted multi-day journeys to reinforce client homework.

Eligibility & continuing education

Who can become certified

Certification is limited to health professionals who are licensed or certified and working with patients primarily on physical or mental health issues. Students in a formal health professional training program and those working under supervision are also eligible.

State, provincial or nationally licensed or certified professionals as listed below:

  • Licensed Mental Health Professionals
  • Licensed Medical Professionals
  • Certified Health Professionals (training must include consultation, mentoring, in-person training, or internship)
  • Students in a licensure-track medical or mental health educational program

Click here for a detailed listing of eligible professionals.

  • Achieve 80% or higher on the final exam — retake as needed until you pass
  • Upload proof of current licensure, certification, or student status
  • On certification, apply to be listed in the HeartMath Directory of Certified Professionals (listing at HeartMath's discretion)

If your modality isn't listed, or you have questions about your eligibility, book a short call and we'll confirm before you enroll.

12 CE credits

HeartMath has been approved to offer continuing education by the following: The Resilient Heart – Trauma-Sensitive HeartMath Certification course is approved by the National Board of Health and Wellness Coaches (NBHWC) for twelve (12) hours of CE credit for recertification. NBC-HWC #CEA-000379-2. Please contact info@nbhwc.org for more information.

Credentialed in another discipline? Many boards accept CE from an approved provider — check with yours before enrolling, and get in touch if you need documentation.
Your instructors

Taught by people who do this work.

  • Dr. Jorina Elbers, MD, MSc
  • Rollin McCraty, PhD
  • Steve Sawyer, LCSW, CSAC
  • Dr. Sara Gilman, PsyD, LMFT
  • Susann von Meijenfeldt, RSW, CPCC, CHT
  • Sheva Carr, MA, LAc, BCPP, RPP, RPE
  • Dr. Daniel Siegel, MD
  • Dr. John Gottman, PhD
  • Dr. Julie Gottman, PhD
  • Thomas Hübl

The research behind this training

The science taught in this certification comes from the HeartMath Institute — an independent nonprofit that has pioneered research on the heart-brain connection since 1991. HeartMath translates their peer-reviewed findings into the tools and training you use in practice.

We're here to help

Not sure if this is the right one?

Tell us about the people you work with and how you practice. We'll help you figure out whether this or one of the other clinical certifications fits better.

Prefer to talk it through?

Book a free 15-minute call

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