Brainspotting: A New Therapy for Rapid & Effective Change

What is Brainspotting? How does it work? Would this be a good treatment for me?

Artistic Expression of a Woman with Brain Spots

What is Brainspotting: Is This Technique Right for You?

While some people experience only brief passing emotional storms, others find themselves stuck in a torrential downpour. Brainspotting – or BSP – is a new kind of therapy designed to help people cope with negative feelings, pain, and emotional trauma. Discovered in 2003 by David Grand, Ph.D., the methodology has been since used the world over.

How Brainspotting Works

Brainspotting is a tool designed to locate, focus, process, and release experiences out of reach of the conscious mind and it's cognitive and verbal capacities. During a brainspotting session, a therapist will guide a person’s eyes in ways that allow them to target sources of negative emotion. The term brainspots refers to eye positions that activate painful emotions and traumatic memories.

Through the years, research has revealed the ways in which the body stores trauma. It can impact our emotions, memories, and our physical well-being. Brainspotting works by activating our body’s innate abilities to heal itself from trauma.

EMDR vs. Brainspotting

If you suffer from anxiety or trauma, you may have stumbled upon information about EMDR in your research. Also known as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, this therapy has been around since the 1980s. It relies on eye movements to trigger bilateral stimulation in the brain. This helps to reprocess trauma and difficult emotions. It helps by tapping into the parts of the brain where nonverbal information is stored.

Brainspotting, on the other hand, does not use eye movements. Instead, this therapy relies upon fixed eye positions. This is a more flexible form of therapy that can be customized for each individual client. Brainspotting tends to work more quickly and yields deeper results than EMDR.

Who Can Benefit from Brainspotting?

Anyone who has suffered physical or emotional trauma may benefit from brainspotting. It’s been shown to be effective in treating anxiety, substance abuse, phobias, attention deficit disorder, chronic fatigue and chronic pain. That’s because many of these issues are rooted in trauma. By addressing the underlying causes of anger or anxiety, for instance, you can truly begin to heal.

While brainspotting is a relatively new methodology, it’s brought countless people peace and recovery. If you’re eager to get help with your mental health, consider giving brainspotting a try.