Lets Talk Brainspotting
Brainspotting is a powerful, brain-body based therapy that taps into the brain’s natural ability to heal from trauma and emotional distress. Developed by Dr. David Grand, it operates on the principle that "where you look affects how you feel," using eye positions—or “brainspots”—to access subcortical areas of the brain where trauma is stored. Not only is trauma a psychological experience but a deeply physical one- where survival energy is stored in subcortical regions of the brain, at a sensory, visceral, and often nonverbal level in our implicit memory. These deep brain regions, responsible for survival responses, emotion regulation, and implicit memory, are not easily accessed through traditional talk therapy, which primarily engages the thinking, verbal parts of the brain.
By locating and mindfully focusing on a brainspot while tracking bodily sensations, Brainspotting bypasses the cognitive mind and allows the body to process and release what’s been held beneath conscious awareness. This creates space for the nervous system to return to balance—activating the brain’s innate capacity to move toward healing, integration, and self-regulation. Brainspotting helps you feel your way through it—allowing the nervous system to finally complete and resolve what’s been frozen or overwhelmed. Only then can memories and experiences be unsuspended from implicit (unconscious) memory and be fully discharged.
Brainspotting isn’t just limited to addressing trauma; it has also emerged as a powerful tool for fostering personal growth and enhancing overall wellness. By facilitating deeper access to the subcortical brain, where emotions and memories are stored, Brainspotting enables individuals to unearth and process layers of their experiences that they may not even be consciously aware of. This introspective process helps to break down barriers to personal development, laying the groundwork for profound self-awareness. By tuning into this body/mind connection, people can develop a more intuitive understanding of their bodies and emotions, allowing for more precise self-regulation and stress management.Helping individuals reconnect with their inner selves creates a space for meaningful transformation, providing powerful tools for exploring and overcoming deeply rooted challenges.
Some key Components of Brainspotting
Dual Attunement Frame
This framework involves the therapist being fully present and empathetic, attuning to the client’s emotional experience, and creating a safe and non-judgmental space for exploration. As humans, we need connection as much as we need food and shelter. The presence of a safe and empathetic witness is an integral part of healing trauma.
Bi lateral Stimulation
At its core, bilateral stimulation involves alternating stimulation between the left and right sides of your body to get both hemispheres of your brain talking. Think of it as creating a bridge between the parts of your brain that process logic and emotion, helping them work together to reprocess stuck memories, feelings, and beliefs.
Brain Body Processing
Because trauma is stored not just in the mind but also in the body and nervous system, healing requires more than cognitive insight—it requires somatic processing. This integration of brain and body makes the healing process more holistic and effective.
How does brainspotting work?
Initial Discussion and Goal Setting
Client and therapist begin this process by identifying an issues that the client wants to transform and heal.
Tapping into Body Awareness and Activation Levels
The therapist guides the client to focus on their bodily sensations while discussing their focus for the session, with an aim of locating where the emotion manifests physically. This can show up as tightness in the chest or a pit in the stomach. Recognizing these physical cues is crucial for identifying the connection between the body and emotional experiences
Identifying the Brainspot
Next, we will identify the eye position or ‘brainspot’ assoaicated with the issue. This is achieved by having the client move their eyes across their visual field while focusing on the issue, with the therapist observing for reflexive responses, which can include an eye twitch, facial tic, brow furrow, pupil dilation/constriction, swallows, yawns, coughs, foot movement, or body shifting. These reflexive responses often happen outside of the client’s consciousness and are communications from the deep brain that a brainspot has been found. Remember that a brainspot is not just one spot in the brain but rather an active network in the brain that lead to a deep releasing of the issue where it is stored in the mind and body.
Think of the spot as a doorway into all of the stored, stuck survival energy from the past.
Focused Mindfulness and Processing
You will maintain focus on the brainspot by holding your eye position. As you focus on this issue, we will identify how your mind and body respond to it. It is common for the therapist to use bilateral auditory stimulation, such as alternating sounds, to engage both hemispheres of the brain during processing.
The pointer becomes a resource anchor that provides a sense of stabilization and safety. Consequently, it allows the brain to stop scanning externally for threats and instead internally self-scan to identify and maintain its presence on the deeper unresolved issue. Why is this important?
As part of our survival instinct, our brain is constantly scanning our environment and adjusting accordingly to ensure our safety and equilibrium. The pointer along with the presence of the therapist refocus this self-scanning tendency from external to internal. From here we can use the massive power of our brain to self-scan, identify, and heal unresolved imbalances.
Integration and Reflection
As the session concludes, the therapist assists the client in integrating the insights and emotional shifts experienced during the processing phase. This may involve discussing any realizations, assessing changes in distress levels, and ensuring the client feels grounded and supported before ending the session.
Your brain is truly incredible and knows how to heal itself when we allow it the opportunity!
Common Questions
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The brainspot is the eye position that connects to the implicit traumatic memory capsule containing the traumatic experience and brings it from a more unconscious state into a fuller explicit awareness where it can be processed and healed. As the brainspot is sustained with focused mindful attention, the information in the traumatic memory capsule is released and the body and mind move towards greater equilibrium. As implicit (unconscious) memories are brought up into explicit (conscious) awareness they can be dealt with and moved into a part of the brain that allows us to move forward in our lives.
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Unlike traditional talk therapy, which primarily engages the neocortex—or "thinking brain"—Brainspotting works with the deeper, subcortical parts of the brain where emotions, trauma, and stress are actually stored.
Talk therapy, which uses a top-down approach, can be helpful for gaining insight and developing coping strategies, but it often doesn’t reach the parts of the brain where unresolved experiences live. Brainspotting allows us to bypass the cognitive mind and access these deeper layers directly, supporting more embodied and lasting healing.
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Many traditional therapies work from a top-down model where thoughts are used to change feelings, behaviors, and experiences. This model relies on the upper part of the brain (neocortex) which is also the newest part in our evolution, to manage and alter the inner and more primitive parts of the brain.
Brainspotting follows the bottom-up model where the inner brain sends information and experiences up through the limbic system for release and into the neocortex for processing. It bypasses the limitations of conscious awareness and engages the deeper layers of the brain and body, facilitating profound healing and transformation. As more information comes up and out, more room is created for new insights and expansion.
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You do not need to do anything in particular to prepare for your brain spotting session. However, It can be helpful to identify areas you would like to work on and heal. You do not have to have specific memories or incidents in mind yet- just try to be aware of how trauma continues to show up in your body and your therapist will help you through the rest
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People report having deeper and more profound releases with Brainspotting as compared to other brain-based, body based, talk therapy and traditional types of therapy. The brain is re-stabilizing, resourcing, and rebooting itself during Brainspotting and the processing often continues to occur after the session has ended. A doorway has been opened and information will continue to come up and out for releasing and healing. Given much of this information is sensory and nonverbal, it is common to not be able to put into words all that has happened. What often occurs are new insights emerge, internal shifts happen, and the issue feels neutralized. This may happen over the course of the session or in the hours, days, weeks or even years that follow.