a força's Train-the-Trainer is a CRKBO-registered training in the three-axes methodology, for coaches and care professionals working with high-masking neurodivergence and trauma. With or without horses. Not another toolbox, but a different way of looking.
There is a limit to what you can achieve with a toolbox.
Certainly when you work with high-masking neurodivergent people, people with trauma-related symptoms or people who are chronically overstimulated, you need more than isolated interventions.
You need a methodology.
A methodology that understands what happens in the nervous system, why someone gets stuck, and how to work with that safely, precisely and congruently.
That is what this programme offers.
This methodology grew out of my practice with PTSD coachees and high-masking professionals. It was not designed at a drawing board; it grew from what actually worked in practice.
After every cohort the material is revised on the basis of what coaches and coachees bring back. Alongside that, I take training at the NICABM every year to keep the substantive and scientific grounding sharp.
The programme is available in two forms: with horses and without horses.
The methodology is the same. The certification is the same. Only the way in differs.
On this page you can read more about both tracks. For the theoretical background, continue to the going-deeper page.
This training is intended for professionals with a completed degree at bachelor's level or above who want to deepen their work methodologically.
You might be:
This is not a beginners' training.
The TTT builds on what you can already do and asks you to be willing to examine your existing way of working critically.
Study load: around 80 hours, spread over 4 to 6 months.
The core of both tracks is the same three-axes methodology. You learn:
why standard coaching methods fall short with high-masking neurodivergent people
how the nervous system works and what that asks of your way of guiding
what interoception is and why it plays a key role for many clients
how to build sessions that meet the client's nervous system rather than override it
In track 1 you additionally learn to read the horse as a co-coach, and what its behaviour makes visible about congruence, boundaries and regulation.
What you don't learn: to position yourself as a trauma therapist.
What you do learn: to work carefully up to the boundary of coaching, to recognise that boundary and not to cross it.You learn to recognise when referral or treatment is needed, and how to keep working carefully within your own professional role.
You can read more about the scientific basis on the going-deeper page.
All programmes are exempt from VAT thanks to CRKBO registration. Payment in two instalments is possible. Cancellation terms follow after the intake conversation.
In this track you work with the horse as a co-coach.
Horses respond subtly to changes in tension, direction, breathing, movement and behaviour. That allows them to make visible information that is not always directly available in language.
Within this methodology the horse is not a test, a judge or a truth machine.
Its behaviour is data.
You learn to observe what happens between coachee, coach, horse and environment, without interpreting or drawing conclusions too quickly.
This track is intended for horse-assisted coaches and for professionals who have access to a stable environment and want to use the horse as an integral part of their methodological work.
Hybrid programme (4 months)
Investment: €1,750
Intensive Portugal (8 days)
A full immersion at the quinta in Tomar, with plenty of practice time, direct guidance and a small group.
Start: from spring 2027
Investment: €2,395
This track offers the same three-axes methodology, but without a stable environment.
The bodily channel remains central.
You work with:
In this track the horse is not the carrier of the process.
That makes this programme accessible to professionals who want to integrate the methodology into an existing practice without working with horses.
Online programme (4 months)
e-modules
four online Q&A sessions of 1.5 hours
four individual conversations with Eefje of 45 minutes
recordings of the Q&As
workbook and platform access
Investment: €1,295
Level 1 — Foundation (both tracks, see above)
Level 1 forms the basis of the three-axes methodology.
After completion and assessment you can apply the methodology independently, within the limits of your existing professional role.
You learn to:
Level 1 is available in both tracks.
Level 2 — Practitioner (in development)
Level 2 focuses on further application of the methodology in your own practice.
Topics include:
Level 3 — Instructor (in development)
Level 3 is intended for professionals who want to teach others to work with the three-axes methodology.
The emphasis is on:
The TTT begins with Level 1.
Follow-on programmes are being developed in phases.
Each level has its own form of completion.
Depending on the level, assessment may consist of:
Certification does not follow automatically from taking part.
Only participants who meet the assessment conditions of the level concerned receive the corresponding certification or confirmation of completion.
Working with horses, trauma and high-masking neurodivergent coachees calls for a high standard of psychological safety. Many neurodivergent people, and certainly the high-masking group, have spent a lifetime experiencing that their boundaries were missed or that their way of being was reduced to a deficit. In this training we prepare professionals who do not repeat that experience. That means: working from congruence, respecting difference without romanticising it, reading behaviour as information rather than deviation, and taking responsibility for your own influence in the field.
We distance ourselves from the deficit model and from assumptions such as “we're all a bit autistic really”. Different neurocognitive profiles process information, stimuli, language and contact in fundamentally different ways. That is the starting point, not a footnote.
This training is delivered within what my own nervous system can carry. That is not a limitation, it is methodological. A training about congruence, regulation and boundaries cannot be led by a trainer who stretches her own boundaries to accommodate everyone. What I ask of participants, I ask of myself as well.
In concrete terms: a maximum of eight participants per cohort, clear agreements about when and how we are in contact, and fixed structures for substantive questions and peer supervision. Anyone looking for a trainer who is always available is in the wrong place. Anyone looking for a trainer who does what she teaches is in the right one.
Every candidate starts with a personal intake conversation. That is not an exam but a mutual calibration: does the training fit your background and your role, do you have enough of a basis to integrate the methodology, and can you work within the framework the training offers? We look together, and no is a valid answer for both of us.
We ask three things of participants.
Capacity for reflection. You are willing to examine your own reactions, assumptions and influence without automatically laying them at the door of the client, the horse or the group. Horses respond to small shifts in tension and direction; high-masking coachees register those too. You are part of the field.
Respect for the framework. Safety arises through clarity. Agreements, channels and the division of roles within the training exist to protect everyone, you included. The practical and administrative arrangements are discussed in the intake and set down before the start.
Willingness to unlearn. Working with this group asks not only for new knowledge, but also for letting go of coaching reflexes that do not fit: interpreting less quickly, helping less quickly, letting silence stand, not placing the body beneath language. We do not ask for perfection, but for professional willingness.
I'm Eefje Gilbert, founder of a força.
My background lies in linguistics, fieldwork in Africa, digital transformation and IT architecture. In the end all those worlds taught me the same thing: real change begins where people no longer have to perform.
I teach this TTT from my own reality as a high-masking neurodivergent woman. What I pass on here is not an abstract model, but a method tested from the inside.
The three axes of a força were not invented. They became visible along the way in my practice, in what coachees, horses, coaches and my own nervous system showed me again and again.
My practice is built on body-based insights into nervous-system regulation, interoception and the science of human–horse interaction. I specialise in high-masking professionals, neurodivergence and trauma. I keep the grounding sharp through current literature and training, including annually at the NICABM.
I also work faith-sensitively. If that is relevant to you or your clients, there is room for it.
Questions about the training? Email ttt@a-forca.com.
Can't find your question here? Book a free, no-obligation introductory call through my online calendar at the bottom of this page.
You need a completed coaching qualification at bachelor's level. Experience in a coaching setting with horses is an advantage, but not a hard requirement if you have body-based coaching experience.
No. The same methodology, the same certification. The horses add an experiential channel. Track 2 uses the body itself as that channel.
Yes. After successful assessment you work independently with neurodivergent clients and people with trauma.
At most two cohorts a year. The next start date is on request; you will hear it during the intake conversation.
Yes, if you have a bachelor's or university degree and experience with clients. In the intake conversation we discuss whether your background fits.
In time, yes. At the moment only the full Level 1 programme.
Click the calendar icon to schedule a free, no-obligation introductory conversation with me quickly and easily.
You're welcome to come to the office, or we can meet by phone or video call.
Prefer to email first? Write to ttt@a-forca.com.