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Connecting Eye Position, Emotions, and the Body
Sometimes you understand why you feel a certain way, yet that understanding doesn’t change what happens when you are triggered. Your body may tense, your thoughts may race, or you may feel distant and disconnected before you can explain what is happening.
Observed & Experiential Integration (OEI) and Brainspotting offer ways to explore these experiences through visual attention, emotional awareness, and bodily sensations. Talking remains part of the work, but you don’t need to put everything into words.
As a practitioner certified in both OEI and Brainspotting, I draw on these approaches within a broader therapeutic relationship. Together, we consider what you want support with and proceed at a pace that allows room for preparation, processing, and settling.
Observed & Experiential Integration (OEI) is a powerful therapeutic approach that helps individuals process and heal from trauma by integrating sensory and emotional experiences. Rooted in neuroscience and eye movement techniques, OEI engages the brain’s natural ability to reorganize traumatic memories, reducing distress and enhancing emotional resilience. Brainspotting, a more widely known technique, was later developed based on OEI’s foundational principles.
OEI works by alternately covering and uncovering the eyes while tracking a visual stimulus, which targets deeper parts of the brain associated with intense symptoms such as panic attacks, nausea, hyperventilation, and throat constriction. During psychological trauma, the eyes respond to visual stimuli, and intraocular muscles adjust to focus and regulate the pupil. When a traumatic memory is recalled, these same visual and physical patterns can resurface, carrying stored sensations and distressing emotions. By guiding the eyes through specific movements, therapists can identify tiny halts, skips, or “glitches” linked to unresolved trauma. This process gently re-accesses and releases stored multisensory experiences, reducing the intensity of triggers and promoting emotional integration.
OEI is particularly effective for trauma, PTSD, anxiety, emotional dysregulation, dissociation, addictions, and relationship conflicts. Through specific eye positioning and bilateral stimulation, clients can process stored traumatic experiences safely and effectively, leading to emotional relief and greater resilience. This technique fosters neural integration both across and within brain hemispheres, enhancing overall mental and emotional well-being. Whether used alone or alongside other modalities like EMDR, OEI provides a gentle yet transformative path to healing.
Reach out today to begin your OEI healing journey.
About Us
What Is Observed & Experiential Integration?
Observed & Experiential Integration uses visual techniques while attending to changes in emotions, thoughts, and bodily responses. These techniques may include alternately covering each eye, tracking eye movements, and exploring specific eye positions.
During this work, you might notice that a feeling or sensation changes depending on which eye is open or where you look. We use your feedback to guide the process, paying attention to both distress and experiences of steadiness or relief.
OEI provides an experiential way to work with responses that can be difficult to explore through conversation alone. It can be incorporated alongside approaches such as ACT, EMDR, mindfulness, and somatic-based therapy.
What Is Brainspotting?
Brainspotting uses a focused eye position alongside attention to your internal experience. Developed by David Grand, Ph.D., the approach involves identifying a point in your visual field associated with the concern or response you want to explore.
While resting your gaze at that position, you notice what arises—perhaps a sensation, emotion, image, thought, or change in how your body feels. I remain attentive to your experience and support you throughout the process.
Sometimes there is a lot to say; at other times, the work is quieter. There is no expectation that you produce a particular response or explain every detail of a difficult experience.
How Do OEI and Brainspotting Connect?
My training and certification in both approaches inform how I understand their connection. In particular, there is close overlap between Brainspotting and the focused eye-position work taught in Phase 2 of OEI. Both involve maintaining your gaze at a selected point while attending to emotional and bodily responses.
OEI also includes methods such as switching between the eyes and tracking eye movements. We can draw on these techniques according to your needs, comfort, and what emerges during our work together.
What Happens During a Session?
We begin by discussing what you would like to address and checking how you are feeling that day. Before working with distressing material, we establish ways to help you feel more grounded and identify signals that tell us when to slow down or pause.
Depending on the approach, I may invite you to cover one eye at a time, follow a visual target, or rest your gaze at a particular position. A pointer may help us locate a focus, but your feedback guides the work.
As we proceed, you may notice shifts in sensations, emotions, thoughts, or images. We check in and adjust as needed. If the experience becomes too intense, we can pause, change techniques, or return to grounding.
We also leave time to settle, reflect on the session, and discuss what support may be useful afterward.
