Accessible, evidence-based mental health support is in critically short supply. The clinicians who can provide it are burning out, waitlists run years long, and the frameworks we train on haven't caught up with the neuroscience.
Neural Circuit Integration (NCI) is Sara Hamilton's response to that gap — a neuroscience-grounded synthesis of EMDR, AF-EMDR, IFS, Polyvagal Theory, and somatic therapy, organized around memory reconsolidation and resourcing. We're building the training the field needs, and we'd like your input while there's still time to shape it.
NCI isn't being authored in a vacuum. We're explicitly inviting three groups to shape it — because the best training framework is one that's already been pressure-tested by the people who'll teach it, the people who'll use it, and the people whose work it's built on.
Therapists, counselors, and licensed practitioners who can tell us where the protocol breaks down in real sessions, what client presentations the curriculum misses, and which case-study patterns belong in the training.
Neuroscientists, clinical psychologists, and public health researchers who can sharpen the methodology, flag citations we should be engaging with, and help us draw the line between what's well-established and what's still hypothesis.
Faculty, supervisors, and consultants who already train the next generation of clinicians and know what "best in class" actually looks like — from sequencing to case material to consultation structure.
The curriculum below is our current draft. Cohort members get early access to materials as they're built, direct input on what stays and what changes, and a seat in the live working sessions where the framework moves through the modalities you already practice and into the between-session work your clients do in the vitalme app.
Somatic mapping, parts-aware grounding, resourcing the nucleus accumbens. The neuroscience of memory reconsolidation, why detailed trauma narratives are de-emphasised, and how to introduce the framework in intake.
How NCI extends Attachment-Focused EMDR's Super Resourcing — building inner figures of safety, care, protection, and the wise self. Multi-Sensory Stimulation (MSS) as the hemispheric-communication bridge.
Translating in-session work into a personalized between-session practice — guided meditations, gratitude journaling, collage/movie work, MSS calming scenes. Live case-consultation block on the final session.
Sessions are held on Saturday mornings on the West Coast — designed to fit around a working clinical week. Every session is recorded and available within 48 hours for collaborative members who can't attend live. Final dates lock once we hear from enough of you.
How the brain's two systems — threat detection and reward/wellbeing — shape the way trauma is held and resolved. Psychoeducation, intake framing, and an introduction to Multi-Sensory Stimulation. Live Q&A with Sara on integrating the framework into your existing intake process.
Working through resource figures — peaceful place, nurturing figure, protective figure, wise self — and the NCI install process (emotion + sensation + cognition). How the framework extends standard EMDR resourcing without disrupting the modality you already practice.
Curating in-app practices for your clients — daily integration, MSS calming scenes, voice description for somatic awareness, sleep-support meditations. Extended live case-consultation block: bring an anonymised case, get Sara's read on where NCI fits.
* Final dates locked by Aug 1, 2026; delivered as an online webinar series — open enrollment, no cohort cap. Participants who can't make a live session receive the recording and a written summary within 48 hours.
The collaborative is built for licensed mental-health clinicians — and the researchers and educators around them — who want to deepen their practice with a structured, neuroscience-grounded framework, and who'd genuinely like to influence what gets taught. You don't have to abandon your primary modality. NCI is designed to layer on top of it.
Sara is a psychotherapist with nearly two decades of clinical experience treating trauma with EMDR, parts work, somatic therapies, and other evidence-based modalities. She co-developed Neural Circuit Integration with Dr. Phillip Alvelda to extend, refine, and unify disparate mental health practices under a consistent neuroscience framework — and to give clinicians something practical they can layer on top of the modality they already practice.
Q3 2026 clinician cohort · online webinar · waitlist now open
Watch for an invitation to the first working session — your input will shape what we build. Email will come from clinicians@vitalme.ai.
Co-develop with Sara. Shape the framework. Help give the field something it can actually use.