What is Brainspotting Therapy?
Brainspotting therapy (BSP) is a targeted treatment method to reduce emotional and physical pain.
Brainspotting is a powerful brainbody therapy that can help improve your sleep and reduce stress.
BSP is based on the idea that the brain stores traumatic memories in both the cognitive and emotional parts. When we try to process these memories through traditional talk therapy like CBT therapy, we may only be able to access the cognitive part of the memory. This can make it difficult to fully process and heal from the trauma.
BSP accesses trauma in the subcortical brain, the area of the brain responsible for motion, consciousness, emotions, and learning.
Brainspotting relies on the relationship between client and therapist in order to identify eye placements (brainspot) that hold trauma and pain. A brainspot is a point in your visual field that activates a memory or emotion that you are working on. Once the brainspot is located, you’ll focus on it while processing the memory or emotion. A brainspot can also hold joy, connection, and hope, which allows us to work from a spot that feels supportive, too.
The benefits of Brainspotting include:
Healing from trauma and PTSD
Reducing anxiety and depression
Better sleep
Less chronic pain
Improved relationships
Enhanced creativity and performance
What a Brainspotting session looks like:
We’ll start by making sure you’re in a comfortable spot, and use mindfulness, breathing, and bilateral music to help you relax.
Once you’re feeling settled, I’ll ask you to identify a place in your body where you feel the most distress. This may be a physical sensation, such as a tightness in your chest or a knot in your stomach, or it may be an emotional sensation, such as sadness or anger. Once you have identified this area, you’ll rate your distress on a scale of one to ten.
Next, I’ll help you to locate a brainspot. This is a point in your visual field that activates the neural network associated with the distress that you have identified. I’ll use my pointer to guide your eyes.
As you focus on your brainspot, you may begin to experience a range of emotions. It's important to stay present with whatever comes up, even if it’s uncomfortable. I’ll help you to process whatever arises.
After a period of time, we’ll explore the feelings that have come up. Hopefully, you’ll notice new insights into your experiences and develop new coping mechanisms.
At the end of the session, you will again rate your distress level. Typically, it will be lower than it was when you started.
Some people report feeling a sense of release, either mentally or physically. It is also normal to feel exhausted or more emotional than usual after a Brainspotting session.
We will have a plan in place for handling difficult feelings after a session. During the next session, we will check in on the issue and continue processing if needed.
Brainspotting can take relatively few sessions to process trauma compared to talk therapy.
Negative brain spotting reviews are similar to other trauma therapies. Trauma therapy can be uncomfortable, but should never leave you feeling more overwhelmed than you began.
