Have you ever heard of Brainspotting? It’s one of my favorite types of therapy to guide people through and my favorite I have experienced as a client myself.

When I began to see the need for alternative approaches to traditional talk therapy and the need to address root causes of our mental health struggles, I started one of my neurodivergent deep dives into all types of brain-body or neurobiological focused therapies. I decided I wanted to experience Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and Brainspotting (BSP) as a client to help with some of my own struggles and to help me decide what I wanted to get trained in to offer my clients. 

No shade to EMDR, but I fell in love with BSP and I’m now five years into being certified and offering this to my clients! 

What is Brainspotting?

BSP is a gentle and powerful brain-body therapy, developed by David Grand, PhD, that helps process stored trauma, stress and emotion through relational connection, focused mindfulness and eye positions. 

The true spirit of brainspotting is in the steadfast belief that your brain and body have the natural ability to heal themselves. Your facilitator’s job is to help guide and encourage you to notice and trust this process. 

EMDR is a trauma therapy that uses the neuroscience of eye movement to reduce stress from traumatic memories. Brainspotting was born from EMDR but uses the neuroscience of fixed eye positioning, focused attention, and somatic processing to help our brains and bodies come back to a place of safety and rest. 

Who can Brainspotting Help?

Brainspotting can be helpful for everyone! The benefits and healing that can happen with trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is what you will hear most people talk about. However, BSP was initially developed related to sports and creative performance to enhance skills and deal with anxiety. 

The general idea of BSP is that it quickly helps reduce activation and stress felt in the body – much quicker than talk therapy. If you feel like you have ever gotten “stuck” on an issue in your life, BSP is a good option. BSP is considered a more gentle somatic approach than EMDR or other therapies – if you have found those too intense BSP may be a good option for you. 

Here’s a list of things BSP has been shown to be helpful with:

• PTSD & Trauma
• Anxiety, Chronic Stress, Anger Struggles
• Chronic Pain, Chronic Illness, & Chronic Fatigue
• Sports & Creative Performance
• Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
• Substance Abuse
• Phobias
• Grief & Loss

What is a Brainspot?

“Where you look affects how you feel.” – David Grand

Have you ever noticed someone lasered-in on a specific spot – just staring intently? What about when you were having a difficult conversation with them? Socially we are taught it’s rude to not look someone in the eyes. But what if this is just a natural, neurological process allowing us to access a specific part of our brain? 

That’s what a brainspot is. A specific, set eye position connecting us physically and emotionally to a corresponding emotional or traumatic experience. Think of it like pulling a book off a bookshelf and opening up that experience within your brain and body. While focusing on this spot and processing the somatic and emotional experiences that come along with it, we are able to use our body’s natural ability to heal and regulate. 

What Does a Brainspotting Session Look Like?

Brainspotting does not look or feel like a traditional talk therapy session. I know I was nervous the first time I tried it out and my clients tend to be too! But one of my favorite things about BSP is the open, flexible, and curious approach. There is no one right way to do it and I am able to adjust to my client’s needs. 

There is a general framework or order that is the foundation of a session:

1. Setting Intention – You choose something you’d like to “brainspot” – a memory, current struggle, physical sensation. It can be anything that “activates” or bothers you.
2. Find a Brainspot – I guide you to an eye position that feels most connected to this experience or struggle with my handy little pointer.
3. Notice & Follow – Your job now is just to attune and notice what comes up – sensations, emotions, thoughts, memories – continuously following whatever you notice. I know, it sounds too simple. 
4. Trust Your Brain – We remember your brain and body are capable of handling the emotional waves that come and that your brain is showing you these things for a reason. 
5. Close and Ground – I’ll guide the session to end at the “bottom of a wave” of emotion and then guide you to ground and reconnect with the present moment. 

That’s it! Think of this like a guided mindfulness lasered in on specific issues in a safe environment. Sessions tend to be an hour long but some bodies need more or less. 

What’s my Therapist Doing During a Session? BSP is very different from top-down approaches and many other somatic approaches. Remember we are trusting your brain and body, and your therapist is not going to assume that she knows what is going on in there! There is minimal talking and I am not directing you which way to go. I am encouraging you and guiding you to notice what is going on. I am focused on being an attuned, safe and supportive presence. Sometimes I go 30-40 minutes without talking during a session! 

Bilateral Music: BSP can be enhanced through listening to bilateral music – music listened to through headphones that gets louder on the left and then the right side in a rhythmic pattern. This can help deepen your processing, rewire your brain, and ground you during a session. Everything is your choice in a BSP session – some clients prefer the music and some don’t.

The Neuroscience of Brainspotting

Top-Down vs Bottom-up

Have you ever felt like you “rationally” get something but it just doesn’t “feel” true or that you just can’t apply it? Many people with trauma feel this way – they know they are logically safe but their bodies are responding differently. The top-down/bottom-up concept may help you understand.

Traditional talk therapy and psychology focuses on what we call “top-down” approaches – focusing on our mind and thoughts first. This engages our prefrontal cortex – the part of your brain just behind your forehead. 

This part of our brain is in charge of rational thought like planning, decision-making, problem solving, etc. 

“Top-down approaches” strive to use the mind and higher cognitive functions to bring rational information to deeper areas of the brain to change behaviors and symptoms. Any type of talk therapy – Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Narrative Therapy, etc. – are mostly top-down approaches. 

BSP is considered a “bottom-up” approach – therapy that focuses on helping our body find balance to reduce the symptoms we experience, helping to rewire our brains. These types of therapies engage sensory neurons throughout your body and “limbic system” – the emotional center of your brain. 

The “limbic system” includes several areas deep within the brain that are in charge of motivation, emotional processing, memory, etc. Bottom-up approaches start with the body, feelings, and our automatic, biological responses to trauma. Therapies like Somatic Experiencing, Polyvagal, and Brainspotting are all bottom-up approaches. 

The creator of BSP, David Grand, would say that “everything is bottom-up” – meaning that everything we experience starts in the body and lower parts of our brain. Grand believes, and I agree, that all top-down are “secondary loops” – meaning they happen after we have already gone from the bottom up in our processing.

Subcoritical Processing

Your “neocortex” is the outer, wrinkly part of your brain – the part that we all imagine when we think of a brain:

Your “subcortex” is what is underneath the neocortex – the inside of your brain: 

*minus the brainstem* 

Neuroscience shows that trauma is held in the limbic system – the deeper parts of our brain. BSP bypasses your neocortex so you can do “subcortical processing” – allowing you to engage all the parts of your brain that hold onto trauma rather than only the neocortex. 

There’s More!

We could go even deeper into neuroscience, but I find that too much information can overwhelm my nervous system and neuroscience can do that really quickly! Maybe I should do an entire blog on the brain science of this stuff. Keep an eye out for that if you’re curious! 

Curious to Try Out Brainspotting?

I absolutely loved BSP as a client and have seen so much growth with my own clients through this therapy. The three C’s of safety are context, connection and choice. My hope is that this blog has helped you get more context to be able to move into some more curiosity! If you’d like to get started or get some more context or connection – schedule your free consultation with me! 

Resources & Research

Are you someone that likes to do deep dives too? Do you need more context before reaching out? I’ve got some more resources & research that you are welcome to explore!

Brainspotting.com

Research

Videos

The Brainspotting Podcast – “What is Brainspotting?”

Blogs

A Comprehensive Guide to Brainspotting

Difference Between EMDR & Brainspotting”

Turning the Spotlight on Brainspotting