Eye Movements and Eye Placements in Psychotherapy – Fast Tools for Desensitization
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“As you talk about that, I want you to look over here.” Said out loud, in a session, it is a genuinely odd instruction. Most clinicians who have not trained in EMDR or brainspotting would feel faintly ridiculous saying it, which is part of why these techniques stay underused despite being quick to learn and quick to apply.
Jennifer Sweeton spends the first part of this course explaining why it is not ridiculous. What your eyes take in travels the oculomotor nerve to the thalamus, which routes it two ways: a short fast path down to the amygdala, and a longer path up to the cortex that takes roughly twice as long. The fear centre gets there first, and it operates outside conscious awareness and conscious control. That gap is the opening. Eye placement is a way into the lower limbic system without the rational, analysing part of the brain getting in the way first.
Three hours, and she is upfront that this was the first time she had run a workshop on the topic specifically. She originally planned it as an EMDR eye movement session, decided that overlapped too much with her EMDR training, considered making it brainspotting-adjacent instead, and settled on covering the use of the eyes in psychotherapy generally: movements and placements, where each came from, how they relate, and what to do with them. She demonstrates techniques during the session, and keeps the final hour open for questions on this or anything else in trauma treatment.
You’ll walk away with
- Two or more eye placement techniques you can practise and use immediately
- Two or more eye movement techniques, and the difference between the two families
- The thalamus, the two pathways, and why the fast route to the amygdala is what makes eye work effective
- The limbic regions involved in desensitisation, explained without requiring a neuroscience background
- Language for introducing an eye instruction to a client so it does not land as strange
- Where these techniques come from, who developed them and why, across EMDR, brainspotting and older traditions
- Demonstrations of the techniques rather than descriptions of them
- A sense of which clients and which moments these suit, and which they do not
- An open question session covering EMDR, brainspotting, cognitive processing therapy, prolonged exposure and trauma treatment generally
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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 or brainspotting training is needed. This course stands on its own.
Course Duration: 3 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.
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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.
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This course includes:
- Lessons 4
- Topics 0
- Duration 3 hours
- Quizzes 1
- Language English