Brainspotting – Effective trauma healing from the comfort of your home
What is it?
Brainspotting is a therapeutic approach that helps individuals process and heal lingering emotional wounds (trauma). Developed by a long time EMDR practitioner, Brainspotting has been shown to be more effective than EMDR in clinical trials. Unlike EMDR, which follows a manualized protocol, Brainspotting centers the relational attunement between therapist and client as one of the central aspects of the work.
How does it work?
Brainspotting starts with noticing a feeling and related sensations in the body. We then locate a gaze point in your visual field connected with the feeling. Gazing at this spot catalyzes your brain’s ability to process. You allow your consciousness to drift, following the flow of what arises, with attuned support from the therapist every step of the way. In this way, the brain is able to reprocess traumatic memories, reducing their emotional charge.
Bilateral stimulation
Like EMDR, Brainspotting may be accompanied by bilateral stimulation (receiving sensory information on both sides of the body). In Brainspotting, this occurs through listening to relaxing audio sounds delivered through a headset. This part of Brainspotting is optional, but many clients find it helpful and supportive.
Wait – you’re telling me that gazing at a spot can make my trauma go away? Can this be for real?
Believe me, I get it. Parts of me were skeptical too at first. But after experiencing it myself, and seeing my clients’ breakthroughs, I came around.
I have used Brainspotting with most of my clients now, and together we have healed wounds ranging from traumatic pet loss to spiritual emergency to career uncertainty.
Are you curious to learn more about how Brainspotting works? If so, read on!
Do you have something you’re aching over that you’d love to be able to release?
The science behind Brainspotting
Human beings are resilient. Under optimal circumstances, when human beings experience stress, the nervous system undergoes a natural process to complete the stress cycle. Unfortunately, rarely are circumstances optimal to give our bodies and brains the space they need to undergo this natural process.
More often, under stressful circumstances, we experience too much, too fast, too soon, while having not enough support, connection, or resources to allow the body’s natural healing process to complete, leading to trauma.
But here’s the good news. Even long after the incident, the brain retains its self healing potential.
Brainspotting taps into the brain’s natural ability to heal by helping access deeper areas where stress and trauma are stored—parts of the brain that aren’t easily reached through talking alone. By focusing on specific eye positions, or “brainspots,” the therapy gently activates these deeper emotional and body-based networks, allowing the brain to complete the processing of experiences that were not effectively integrated at the time when they occurred. (Hence, they got “stuck”.)
This process helps different parts of the brain—those involved in memory, emotion, and regulation—work together more smoothly. Over time, this can lead to a noticeable decrease in emotional intensity and physical tension, and an increased sense of calm, clarity, and resilience.
As a Brainspotting therapist offering Brainspotting telehealth sessions in California, I guide clients through this process.