Brainspotting is a somatic (body-based) therapy based on concepts from neuroscience, mindfulness, and other body-based therapies. Brainspotting therapy uses eye position and bilateral stimulation to access and release memories, feelings, and sensations that are stuck because of traumatic or highly distressing experiences.
One of the reasons Brainspotting for trauma is so effective is that it integrates all aspects of our lived experience: body, feelings, and thoughts. And it uses a simple access point—the eyes—to enter into healing work in deeper regions of the brain, partly the limbic system (Read How Does Brainspotting Work? for more about the science). Dr. David Grand, who discovered Brainspotting in 2003, says, “Where you look affects how you feel.” When you find a brainspot, you’re essentially locating a direct pathway to where emotional material is stored in your brain to transform how past experiences affect the present.
There are a few different aspects of how Brainspotting therapy works to understand.
Brain-body connection. When something traumatic or highly emotionally charged happens, those feelings are stored in the body as well as the mind. As we say in the psychology field, the body keeps score. When the brain can’t process and integrate experience and memories, there are emotional and physical effects. In Brainspotting, you can focus on the way you experience those effects in the present day with as much success as if you were to focus on a specific memory.
Eye position. Eye position helps access a file folder (the metaphor we use for stuck emotions, memories, bodily experiences, recurring thoughts or beliefs) located somewhere in the subcortical region of the brain. Our eyes and brain are deeply connected: There are many sensory receptors in the eyes, so visual information travels to many parts of the brain. Because vision uses such widespread neural networks, where you look and how you move your eyes can seemingly tap into different mental and emotional states. Maintaining eye position helps you access and process whatever is in that particular file folder.
Dual attunement. The first attunement is between the client and their experiences—this is a form of mindfulness, paying attention to the present moment. I call this staying with the edge of awareness. The second attunement is between the therapist and client. The therapist stays present with the client’s experience and supports that first attunement throughout the session.
Bilateral stimulation. In Brainspotting, we use music for bilateral stimulation. A soundtrack pans from one ear to the other. This engages both hemispheres of the brain, which supports cross-brain communication and information processing that trauma may have interrupted. It can also calm the amygdala to help not re-traumatize you during therapy. (EMDR also uses bilateral stimulation, usually in the form of eye movements or tapping.)
Client-led. Brainspotting therapists embrace a positive stance of not-knowing. We trust the client’s mind to find what needs to be processed and to bring mindfulness to whatever surfaces. This is based on the idea that the brain, and our clients, know what they need to heal.
Neuroplasticity. The brain is able to reorganize itself and form new neural connections. In trauma work, this ability helps clients change neural pathways that contribute to trauma symptoms, like stress responses, undesired coping mechanisms, or painful thought patterns. Repeated therapy can help the client literally rewire their brain to release the emotional, physical, and cognitive effects of distress and create new, healthy neural pathways.
Brainspotting is great for healing trauma, but it has other applications. It can be used for anything that is stuck—unintegrated—in your mind. So this form of therapy can also effectively treat anxiety spirals, ongoing depression, grief, maladaptive attachment strategies, concerning substance use, and performance or creative challenges (for athletes, artists, and so on), among other issues.
Are you looking for a Brainspotting therapist in MN? Send me a message to talk about if this form of somatic therapy is right for you.
