What is brainspotting? Is it right for me?
Sometimes you hear talk of "stuck feelings" when you're hurting and looking for relief. Therapists or therapy blogs will ask you to think about what keeps you stuck, held back, or reliving the pain of the past.
Perhaps you feel that sense of "stuckness" now, or you have worked hard for too long to push past that feeling with little success. Fortunately, you aren't alone, and you don't have to stay stuck.
Your brain is perfectly capable of healing itself. It just needs a bit of help. Brainspotting is a tool that has demonstrated its effectiveness.
Brainspotting: What It Is
Introduced by David Grand, expert, and founder of the approach, the technique is fairly new, first offered in 2003. The primary aim of brainspotting is to help you locate difficult points in the past safely. Brainspotting research asserts that where you fix your gaze influences how you feel. Essentially, our bodies hold trauma and misfortunes that can be discovered, reprocessed, and completely released.
Brainspotting is sometimes confused or conflated with EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing). Both methods employ eye movements to locate distressing memories and inaccurate or unprocessed thoughts. Brainspotting therapists, however, help participants position their eyes in one direction to target the source of their problem. In other words, brainspotting focuses on the use of one precise spot. EMDR focuses on a continual series of eye movements to aid healing.
Why Brainspotting Might Be What You Need
Resolving trauma on your own isn't working.
Sometimes, you need a guide. You don't have to go it alone. An experienced brainspotting therapist can help you find, unlock, and support the release of physically stored trauma.
Complete trauma recovery from post-traumatic stress is long overdue.
Again, most people refer to brainspotting as trauma therapy. Stuck inside, the fight or flight reaction repeatedly reactivates. Brainspotting accesses the trauma, resolves the triggers, and aids your ability to break free of related negativity safely and finally.
Here's what that looks like:
We'll help you relax first. How? We may encourage you to use breathing techniques or listen to music.
Then, your therapist directs your eyes to a relevant "brain spot." How? You follow a guiding item, often in a left-to-right motion. Your therapist then looks for bodily reactions or cues that indicate a "brain spot." This is simply a physical reaction or facial expression occurring at a particular eye position. This is the natural stuck response to emotional distress called “frozen maladaptive homeostasis.”
Next, you'll access deeply held emotions, sensations, and memories together. How? While holding the brain spot, you express how you feel. The therapist helps you access your subconscious via specific brain regions such as the hippocampus, amygdala, and frontal cortex. These areas deal with your more primal reactions, as opposed to the higher levels of emotional processing and integration managed in other parts of the brain.
Finally, you’ll discuss how and where your feelings are stuck. How? You'll take steps to process the entire trauma or distressing experience, your perceptions, and what it means to you.
All told, the aim of brainspotting is to help you soothe your nervous system. This reduces the primal reaction and allows for higher-level examination and processing.
There are concerns about ineffective or intrusive therapy.
Traditional talk therapy doesn't work well for everyone. That's okay. Brainspotting can be a productive option that avoids re-traumatization. Brainspotting is highly effective and does depend on a trustworthy, trained professional to help you receive care. However, it's important to understand that the brainspotting process does not take away your personal control. You retain control over the amount and pace of your care. Your qualified, compassionate therapist collaborates with you, customizing your sessions to meet your needs accordingly.
You need relief from grief.
Often, grief isn't resolved completely, and sufferers move on too quickly. If you feel stuck in that pain, you aren't alone. Brainspotting can help you reprocess that loss. The technique may assist you in acknowledging your grief, accepting the loss, and finding meaning and purpose.
You want to contain your anxiety.
Because brainspotting concentrates on the mind-body connection, it is an ideal treatment for reducing or eliminating anxiety symptoms. Brainspotting helps determine the root of your anxiety and informs your nervous system accurately. Soon, physical reactions and sensations will show up properly when the danger is real and current.
Brainspotting presents a host of additional challenges, too.
Whatever you're suffering from, brainspotting may be able to help. The technique also aids recovery in the following situations:
Post-traumatic stress
Treating panic disorder
Recovering from mental and physical abuse
Physical injury and accident recovery
Anger management
Chronic pain, or chronic illness
Racial trauma
Addiction
Attention-deficit
Stress and burnout
War trauma and natural disaster recovery
Why wait any longer to seek help? You don't deserve to stay stuck. You do deserve a way forward and the support to make the changes you want.
Take the next step.
Brainspotting therapy can support your healing. As skilled and compassionate therapists, we're here to help. Commit to releasing your emotional pain. Reach out to schedule a free consultation. In Colorado, we offer both online and in-person counseling.
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