EMDR for Anxiety: Basic EMDR Skills and Anxiety Modifications
Jennifer Sweeton was a difficult child at the dentist. Difficult enough that they would put her in a chair at the edge of the room and gas her before anyone came near her. What she noticed, lying there, was that the catastrophic thoughts did not go anywhere. They were going to rip her teeth out of her head. There was going to be blood everywhere. She had all of them. She simply could not bring herself to care.
The gas had produced a relaxation response in her body, and a body that cannot react makes a catastrophic thought survivable. Something like sixty to seventy per cent of an emotional experience lives in the body, which is why a client who tells you they need to stop thinking about dying in a plane crash is usually describing something physical. Her EMDR puts more weight on that than the classic protocol does.
Nine and a half hours across two days, and she starts from the assumption that you know nothing about EMDR beyond what you have heard. There is a lot of mystery around it, she says, and it can feel faintly magical, so she sets out to demystify it by tying every step to what is happening in the brain. She teaches Shapiro’s original eight-phase model in full, phase by phase, with worksheets for each, then moves into what changes for specific anxiety presentations. She is candid about the limits of the evidence as she goes, and clear about which studies are randomised trials and which are not.
You’ll walk away with
- The full eight-phase model taught from the ground up, with an overview first, then each phase in detail, then a recap, so it actually lands
- Anxiety in the brain: the main regions involved, what is going wrong in each, and what treatment needs to do about it
- The body’s part in anxiety, including the autonomic nervous system and why physical reactions drive more of a client’s distress than their thoughts do
- What bilateral stimulation is actually doing, explained rather than asserted, so you can answer the client who wants to know why this seems strange
- Why tactile stimulation often suits anxiety work better than eye movements
- The distinction between an anxiety presentation and a trauma presentation, and what it changes
- Modifications for OCD and phobias, which she treats as a pair because the approach is similar
- Modifications for generalised anxiety and social anxiety, treated as a second pair
- The three-pronged approach and the future template applied to anxiety rather than to trauma
- The neuroscience of the therapeutic alliance, which she includes in every EMDR course she teaches
- Worksheets for every phase, plus recorded demonstrations of the techniques and a resource list for going deeper into any single disorder
Watch the course trailer
CPD Information For Mental Health Professionals
Enjoy complete flexibility with 100% self-paced learning you can access anytime, anywhere, and on any device. This course is included with your Tatra Training membership, along with every other course in the library.
Please note: no prior EMDR training is needed. This course teaches the eight-phase model from the beginning.
Course Duration: 9.5 learning hours
Certificate and CPD hours: On completion you’ll receive a Certificate of Completion to support your CPD records. Your certificates are yours to keep.
Assessment: Complete a short quiz at the end (80% pass mark), which you can resit as many times as needed.
Revisit Anytime: Come back to the course as often as you like while your membership is active, whenever you want a refresher for practice.
CPD Eligibility: This program may be suitable for CPD for professionals such as:
- Psychologists
- Counsellors and Psychotherapists
- Social Workers
- Community Workers
- Mental Health Nurses
- General Practitioners (GPs)
- Occupational Therapists
CPD requirements vary between professional bodies, so please check with your association or credentialing body to confirm you can claim CPD hours/OPD points for this program and what evidence they require.
Course Content
Meet Your Instructor
Trauma survivors whose PTSD symptoms resist traditional therapy approaches - and clinicians struggling to understand how neuroscience can enhance treatment - may need more than generic trauma protocols to help create lasting healing. Jennifer Sweeton has spent her career bridging cutting-edge neuroscience research with practical clinical application, becoming an internationally recognised expert who has revolutionised how practitioners understand and treat trauma through brain-based interventions.
As a Stanford-educated clinical and forensic psychologist with doctoral training at Stanford University School of Medicine and a master's degree in affective neuroscience, Dr. Sweeton represents the pinnacle of scientific rigor applied to trauma treatment. Her Amazon #1 bestselling book Trauma Treatment Toolbox and recognition by Shortform as one of the "100 Best Trauma Books of All Time" demonstrate her ability to translate complex neuroscience into practical tools. Her recent completion of her JD from the University of Missouri-Kansas City adds crucial legal expertise to her forensic psychology practice, making her uniquely qualified for complex cases involving legal proceedings.
Dr. Sweeton's expertise spans PTSD treatment, the neuroscience of mental health, forensic assessment, women's issues, anxiety disorders, and legal aspects of mental health. Her approach integrates evidence-based trauma therapies with cutting-edge understanding of neuroplasticity and brain-based healing. She is the developer of Neural Desensitisation and Integration Training (NDIT), an evidence-informed modular psychotherapy for PTSD that specifically targets neuroplasticity in key brain regions. Her specialisation includes complex trauma presentations, forensic evaluations for legal proceedings, and cases where standard trauma treatments have been ineffective.
What sets her training apart is rigorous science combined with practical application. As a world-renowned trauma treatment expert, Sweeton doesn't just teach trauma techniques - she shows practitioners how specific interventions create measurable changes in brain structure and function. Her experience training over 60,000 mental health professionals worldwide demonstrates her exceptional ability to make neuroscience accessible to practicing clinicians.
For your practice, expect to gain brain-based trauma interventions, specific techniques for treatment-resistant PTSD, and forensic assessment skills for legal cases. Her approach particularly benefits clinicians wanting to integrate neuroscience into their trauma work, those dealing with complex forensic cases, or practitioners seeking advanced training in evidence-based PTSD treatment.
Quick Win: Sweeton's "neural pathway mapping" technique helps clients understand how trauma affects specific brain regions - helping to reduce shame and increase treatment engagement by showing that PTSD symptoms reflect brain changes, not personal weakness.
Qualifications
- PsyD, Clinical Psychology, PGSP-Stanford PsyD Consortium, 2012
- MS, Clinical Psychology, PGSP-Stanford PsyD Consortium, 2010
- MA, Personality Psychology (Affective Neuroscience), Stanford University, 2007
- BS, Cognitive Psychology, University of Kansas, 2004
- JD, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, 2025
- Licensed Clinical & Forensic Psychologist
- Training: Stanford University School of Medicine, Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, National Center for PTSD
Authored Publications
- Traumatic Stress Recovery Workbook (2025)
- Trauma Treatment Toolbox (Amazon #1 bestseller, Shortform's "100 Best Trauma Books of All Time")
- Eight Key Brain Areas of Mental Health and Illness
- Train Your Brain Card Deck: 100 Techniques to Heal Trauma and Build Resiliency
- Multiple book chapters and professional publications
Leadership & Teaching
- Founder/Co-owner, Kansas City Mental Health Associates (group private practice)
- Former President, Greater Kansas City Psychological Association & Oklahoma Psychological Association
- Adjunct Faculty, University of Kansas School of Medicine & University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center
- Developer, Neural Desensitisation and Integration Training (NDIT) for PTSD
Professional Experience
- Director of Behavioral Health, Clinton Service Unit, Indian Health Service, 2015–2016
- Telemental Health Psychologist, Oklahoma City VA Medical Center, 2013–2015
- Combat Stress Recovery Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center/Oklahoma City VA, 2012–2013
Training & Speaking
- Trained over 60,000 mental health professionals internationally
- Keynote speaker, trainer, and workshop leader worldwide
- Sought-after expert for legal, corporate, government, and community education events
- Developer of continuing education programs serving 50,000+ licensed mental health providers
Ready to integrate cutting-edge neuroscience with trauma treatment? Discover how Dr. Sweeton's brain-based interventions can transform your ability to help trauma survivors achieve lasting recovery through evidence-based approaches that target specific neural pathways.
Feedback & Reviews
This course includes:
- Lessons 2
- Topics 5
- Duration 9.5 hours
- Quizzes 1
- Language English