Brainspotting:

What is Brainspotting?

Brainspotting (BSP) is a talk therapy that reveals a client’s unprocessed traumas through fixed eye positions.

Specific eye positions each link to their own “brainspot,” an area of the mind that retains thoughts and emotions. Clients fixate on troubling brainspots to uncover hidden mental challenges.

BSP therapy is based largely on modified methods from other therapies:

• Somatic Experiencing (SE)
• Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)
• Acupuncture (but without needles)

Together, these work to diagnose and treat potential roots of your trauma

“We are traumatized alone, but we heal together”

Brainspotting locates points in the client’s visual field that help to access unprocessed trauma in the subcortical brain.

“Where you look affects how you feel”.

Brainspttong makes use of this natural phenomenon through its use of relevant eye positions.

This helps the Brainspotting therapist locate, focus, process and release a wide range of emotionally and bodily-based conditions.

Who does Brain Spotting work with?

We believe that BSP taps into and harnesses the body’s natural self-scanning, self-healing ability. When a Brainspot is stimulated, the deep brain appears to reflexively signal the therapist that the source of the problem has been found. BSP can also be used to find and strengthen our natural resources and resilience. BSP is designed as a therapeutic tool that can be integrated into many of the healing modalities.

Brainspotting can unpack deep traumas linked to the root of your depression, anxiety, blocks, or addictions

If you’ve felt at a standstill with your progress in manifesting, or in your emotional healing, brainspotting can dig deeper, and it does this in a way that is not retraumatizing. 

The role of brainspotting is similar to EMDR in mental health therapies, but it is not the same, and it is similar to Somatic Experiencing, but again, it is not the same.

Brainspotting allows clients to guide themselves through their own subconscious.  They choose what issue they’d like to start with.  Then, they explore in and around it with only light guidance by their therapist.  This method uses fixated, steady eye positions.

EMDR, (Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing)  also tackles client’s deep traumas.  The therapist over stimulates the client’s senses to reduce the emotional weight of the chosen issue.  EMDR usually uses rapid, repetitive eye motions, whereas the brainspotting techniques keeps the eyes in a fixed and steady position.

Hypnosis, again takes on the deeper traumatic issues stored in a client’s mind, but here, the therapist has a more active role by creating the hypnotic state for the client, and the client has a more passive role.  The therapist tells the client what to focus on, acting as the main direction for sessions.

Difference Between Brainspotting, EMDR, Hypnosis, and SE

Brainspotting, EMDR, SE, and hypnosis cause similar brain states, or brainwave states, in clients, but each method specializes differently for each persons unique needs.

Brainspotting can help you if:

• Had trouble reaching a significant breakthrough in previous therapies.
• Are in addiction therapy.
• Feel intense anxiety, depression, or other emotions that don’t improve.
• Have relapsed on multiple occasions due to overwhelming situations.
• Can’t move on from toxic situation

Brainspotting is ideal in trauma therapy treatment when a client needs more freedom to confront their traumas.  You may find that with more control over your own therapy, you’ll have a more meaningful and rewarding experience. Brainspotting is beneficial for clients who have discovered manifesting techniques, such as the Law of Assumption and Neurolinguistic Programming, but has failed to make progress.

The basic process of brainspotting boils down to the following:

• Revealing repressed traumas via guided brainspot-searching sessions.
• Physical and mental healing by allowing unprocessed trauma to be released.

Additional methods can also be applied to assist your healing.  You can continue to attend regular therapy sessions, and you can continue any LOA practice that you have.

Format of a brainspotting session:

 Based in psychotherapy, aka talk therapy.  The therapist primes the client to explore their subconscious, then guides them to sift and sort through baggage and guides the client in mending and healing of the specific brainspot

Structure of a session:

Led by the client.  While the client’s vision is directed into a challenging brainspot, they are allowed to fixate and dive into this mental area as much as they choose to.

Length of treatment:

Can range from 2 or 3 sessions to many more.  This depends on the severity of one’s mental trauma. 

Skills Learned in Brainspotting

• Overcoming fears of vulnerability
• Overcoming tightness and pain in the body
• Embracing change to thoughts and feelings
• Becoming more self-aware
• increasing self confidence
• Familiarity with the power of emotional release, without the out-of-control feelings of “purging”
• Becoming mindful of how you hold stress in your body, and how to instantly release it