Brainspotting and IFS are both transformative ways to work with the effects of trauma and distressing experiences. Each of these modalities supports clients in attending to, rather than avoiding, the present-day pain caused by past traumas. Doing so helps liberate us from that pain.
A recent article by another IFS therapist, Max Littman, “Finding and Focusing: The Neural Roots of IFS,” brought to mind some other similarities in the theory and practice of these two models.
He explored an early stage of IFS practice (finding and focusing on a part) from a neuroscientific lens. Describing our inner system as a type of organic neural network, he wrote:
“I like to imagine our inner systems as a vast root system beneath the ground. At the root system’s origin is a seed, which in IFS terms is the burden—a raw imprint of powerlessness, shame, or fear. That seed lives inside of our exiles. Over time, roots [and limbs] grow outward from that seed. … The limb we notice in the present—a tension in the body, a thought, a sudden protective impulse—is just one extension from the same seed.”
What Littman describes as the seed—the pain to be released—is much like a brainspot. Noticing a limb is like when I ask a Brainspotting client to notice their level of activation/dysregulation around a certain topic.
In Brainspotting, we follow the intensity of our own phenomena (sensations, feelings, etc.) to the brainspot, a neural location connected to unresolved suffering. Similarly, in IFS, “A single limb leads us to where the root begins, and attention itself becomes a conduit for healing.”
The flow of therapy in both IFS and Brainspotting starts with sensing into the present moment to tap into a larger network of experience.
Neural pathways of healing
Attention is key in this flow. Referencing Dan Siegel, Littman wrote:
“‘Where attention goes, neural firing flows, and neural connection grows.’ The mind, as [Siegel] describes it, is an embodied and relational process that regulates the flow of energy and information. Attention is the mechanism that directs this flow. By choosing where and how to focus, we shape not only the experience of this moment but also the patterns of neural firing that will ripple into our future.”
In both Brainspotting and IFS, we use our attention to provide a therapeutic framework for energy (mental, emotional, somatic) that has been trapped to flow out.
We describe a brainspot as a file folder in the subcortical brain (an area responsible for emotion and memory). This folder holds painful content. The practice of Brainspotting is to mindfully notice whatever emerges from that folder so that it can be released.
The goal of tracing the neural limbs and roots to the seed, as Littman describes, is the same. The extensions from the seed vary: some are critical, shaming, or avoidant (protective parts). Others are open, calm, and compassionate (parts that carry self energy). When we focus on pain with curiosity, compassion, and care, rather than criticism and rigidness, we shift the protective energy around the seed so that we can access it directly.
The content released from the brainspot integrates into existing neural networks that manage emotion and memory, joining the general timeline of our existence. The energy in that file folder is dispersed and the pain leaves us.
In IFS, we unburden—release what’s in that seed—by sending the painful energy back into the world, often giving it up to the elements. Burn it, bury it, something else. Whatever makes sense to the client.
In each model, we witness the pain calcified in our systems. Sustained attention loosens that pain and helps shift neural pathways in the direction of well-being.
