What is Brainspotting?
Brainspotting is an advanced talk therapy that allows clients to rebalance their nervous system. It aids in healing by providing a simple and effective pathway of zeroing in on troubling memories, thoughts, physical sensations, emotions, and reactive behaviors (think: fight, flight, freeze) that interfere with daily life due to events stored in the brain and body as unprocessed trauma. Most people find the process empowering and surprisingly effective. The therapist’s role is to guide, support, and provide the how-to; patients are the “expert” and are always in charge of the pacing, intensity, and progression of their experience.
The technique was developed by David Grand, an EMDR and Somatic Experiencing trauma therapist who noticed that when processing distressing memories, his clients (many who experienced 9/11) typically settled on a fixed eye position that was associated with a traumatic experience stored in the brain and body. By inviting them to stay gently focused on their “brain spot” while remembering thoughts and noticing physical sensations, they were able to find a new stabilization that wasn’t accessible with other standard therapies.
Brainspotting is one of the few modalities, like EMDR, that addresses the root cause of psychological/emotional stress and trauma. It is often used along with CBT and other therapies for improving anxiety and depressive disorders; anger issues; daily stress and post-traumatic stress (PTSD); fears and phobias; chronic pain, fatigue, and somatic disorders (significant focus on physical symptoms); and addictive and habitual behaviors. While EMDR follows a specific protocol, Brainspotting is more organic and follows a more fluid “framework.”
HOw does it work?
While actively thinking about troubling memories and physical sensations, clients fixate visually on a “brainspot,” an area in their visual field that corresponds to their distressing symptoms. Put into simple, experiential terms, clients let their gaze naturally settle on spots in their visual field while thinking and talking about a traumatic memory and noticing associated body sensations. Sometimes the memory (emotional and/or physical) is well-known and understood; other times they will emerge as the process takes place. Either way, the experience is typically effective and provides relief to the patient in a few sessions.
EMDR OR BRAINSPOTTING?
EMDR & Brainspotting create similar brain states which lay the foundation for trauma resolution. Both are “bottom-up” therapies that focus first on relieving the physical stress of the body which, in turn, alleviates emotional stress. With EMDR, the therapist intensifies the client’s feelings and physical sensations about their chosen issue which allows the bilateral eye-movement desensitization & reprocessing (EMDR) to take effect. The therapist uses a set protocol of steps that, along with the back-and-forth eye movements, are purported to reduce the heightened emotional experience and lighten the emotional load of the specified trauma.
In contrast to EMDR, Brainspotting (BS) uses fixed, steady eye positions that allow clients to guide themselves through their unprocessed traumatic memories (“freeze” states). Clients choose what issue they’d like to work on, then let their mind wander through memories and physical sensations with minimal guidance from their therapist while they're gazing upon a focused “Brainspot.”
One of the claimed benefits of Brainspotting over EMDR is that clients do not need to “relive” the trauma in order to facilitate its release from the body, though both modalities involve discussing painful memories and feelings. More research has been conducted on the use of EMDR, however, one study* found Brainspotting to be more effective than either EMDR or CBT, and patients continued to improve after the completion of treatment. At a 6-month follow-up, the study showed that patients’ symptoms returned with all other modalities.
*Hildebrand A, Grand D, Stemmler M. Brainspotting – the efficacy of a new therapy approach for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder in comparison to eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. Mediterranean Journal of Clinical Psychology. 2017;Vol 5:No 1 (2017). https://doi.org/10.6092/2282-1619/2017.5.1376
If you’d like more information, please check out: https://brainspotting.com/about-bsp/what-is-brainspotting/ and check out my page on EMDR (link in menu above).