Brainspotting

Brainspotting is a gentle, powerfully effective approach to healing trauma.

There is increasing evidence that trauma is “stored” in the body and that it can alter the way the brain works. Trauma can, for example, have an effect on emotions, memory, and physical health.

Brainspotting is an innovative holistic therapy that activates the body’s innate ability to heal itself from trauma by helping you to reprocess negative events and retrain emotional reactions.

Brainspotting is primarily used in trauma therapy and for the treatment of PTSD. It has also been shown to assist in injury recovery and help treat physical illness, inattention, stress, and low motivation. Other, seemingly unrelated psychological issues like explosive anger, procrastination, and difficulty concentrating, among others — can be caused by trauma. Therefore, brainspotting might be a particularly effective form of therapy for those individuals who wish to address one or more of these concerns.

I use Brainspotting as a vital part of my individual therapy sessions.

What is Brainspotting?

How Brainspotting works with the deep brain to heal trauma

In Brainspotting, a person’s brain-body activation around a particular issue is paired with a relevant eye and orienting position, called a Brainspot. Brainspots access the systems in the deep brain that hold emotional and/or physical experience in an often wordless but felt form of memory. With the help of a highly attuned therapist, accessing a Brainspot appears to open these memory “files” allowing the brain-body system as a whole to re-regulate and re-orient in an adaptive manner to the present. When this happens, the traumatic response eases; the person feels and functions better.

How it works in a session

When we meet, we begin by talking until you identify an issue that you want to focus on. I will then help you to identify a visual focal point that resonates with the issue at hand and the associated body sensations and emotional experience. Together we will then use focused mindfulness, sometimes accompanied by specially engineered music, to stimulate your brain and body to begin to organize and reorganize itself, releasing the upsetting material. As you work, you may find that you want to talk, or that it feels right to simply be silent and observe what is happening. Each person processes different and I simply follow your lead.

Research

In a recent study of individuals impacted by the Sandy Hook tragedy, Brainspotting was found to be the most effective mode of therapy. This study looked at 16 different approaches and used the respondent’s self-report.

As research in Brainspotting continues, we are discovering that it works deep in the brain, helping the client feel more balance in their brain-body connection in a way that promotes clearer thinking and a more creative in their life.

Brainspotting works effectively with all cultures and populations since it is focused on the body’s innate wisdom to heal itself.

Want to know more?

Here are a few videos and articles for you, to introduce you more to Brainspotting and why I work with the brain and body rather than just the conscious mind.

As a client, why choose Brainspotting? (3-minute video)
vimeo.com/187493121

What is Brainspotting? (11-minute video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcqvyDfpxfM&t=1s

What is Brainspotting? with David Grand, Brainspotting founder (23-minute video)
brainspotting.com/site/interview-with-david-grand-regarding-what-is-brainspotting/

Turning the Spotlight on Brainspotting (Psychotherapy Networker article)
http://www.psychotherapynetworker.org/article/turning-the-spotlight-on-brainspotting/

The (Easy) Science Behind 3 Brain-Based Therapies (article)
http://www.vivapartnership.com/optimal-living/the-easy-science-behind-3-brain-based-therapies/

To Heal Trauma, Work with the Body (blog post)
http://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/workings-well-being/201708/heal-trauma-work-the-body