Brainspotting

Brainspotting Therapy assists you in calming your nervous system at a different level than talk therapy can reach.

Brainspotting Therapy reaches the subcortical region of the brain where unprocessed trauma can be stored. It can also assist in creativity and performance enhancement. In combination with talk therapy, Brainspotting can be an effective, quick way to resolve issues like Depression and Anxiety.

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Brainspotting therapy in Denver with Rachel Webb, LPC

What Is Brainspotting Therapy?

Brainspotting therapy is a relatively new technique in the world of mind body therapy for trauma. This type of advanced brain-body therapy is designed to assist you in overcoming trauma and the negative emotions associated with it, such as anxiety. This powerful therapy for emotional stress is designed to assist patients in calming your nervous system at a different level than talk therapy can reach.

Simply put, Brainspotting is an advanced mind body therapy that puts a focus on identifying past trauma(s), processing them, and releasing any mental imbalances and/or residual emotional stress associated with the trauma(s). This unique brain body technique reaches the subcortical region of the brain where unprocessed trauma can be stored and has the potential to assist in creativity and performance enhancement. Brainspotting in combination with traditional talk therapy can be a powerful, quick way to resolve mental health issues such as depression, emotional stress, and anxiety.

This advanced brain-body therapy was discovered in 2003 by psychotherapist David Grand, who believed that where you look has an effect on how you feel. Brainspotting is based on this premise by Dr. Grand and the idea that eye movement is correlated to the unconscious, emotional experiences we are holding onto. This type of advanced mind body therapy reaches parts of the brain that are generally not accessible through traditional talk therapy practices.

Brainspotting vs. EMDR: What Is the Difference?

In the past few decades, researchers and clinicians have been working on new therapies that help reduce trauma, anxiety, and negative emotional responses to past events and feelings. You may have heard of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) developed by Francine Shapiro in the 1980’s? Where you attend to painful memories with brief images or talking, and then follow a light with your eyes, unlocking coping mechanisms in the brain?

Brainspotting was developed by David Grand, Ph. D., out of his EMDR work. What he found is that Brainspotting can be used when traditional talk therapy just isn’t enough. Brainspotting is a “power therapy” similar to EMDR, but much more flexible. And, it is also gentler, which is important for people who find themselves easily overwhelmed. Instead of following a light, like in EMDR, Brainspotting Therapy involves the client and therapist finding the brain spot together (the area of the brain that triggers the painful feelings) and focuses there to activate healing, creativity, and mental health.

Both Brainspotting and EMDR support the processing of any negative emotions, such as anxiety, associated with past trauma and help to retrain emotional reactions in the patient. Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) is typically done as a mind body practice on its own, but Brainspotting can be used as a therapy on its own or in addition to other therapies, such as traditional talk therapy.

Brainspotting Is No-Talk Therapy

What’s neat about this type of therapy is that it can look and feel different for every person. And, as ironic as it sounds, there is often zero talking in Brainspotting Therapy. Yep. Relieved already? This type of counseling is great for people who just don’t want to talk it out. Or, those who have tried talk therapy and didn’t get the results they wanted, or felt uncomfortable during the process. Additionally, Brainspotting Therapy can yield faster and deeper positive therapeutic results than traditional talk therapy.

Read more in No-Talk Therapy: How Brainspotting Works Without Talking.

What Happens in a Brainspotting Session?

Typically, your therapist will help guide to the brain spot (think: eye position) that corresponds with the past traumatic memory or experience. From there, your therapist simply lets the brain do its job, letting it create the connections it needs to continue processing the event, thereby healing and positively coping with it. The results can be quite amazing.

Every psychotherapist or psychologist will practice Brainspotting therapy slightly differently, but each session is focused on the “brainspot.” The brainspot is the specific position of the eye that is connected to the part of the brain holding the traumatic experience(s) and brings that experience into a patient’s conscious awareness where it can be reprocessed and healed. The continuous mindful attention to the brainspot allows the trauma to be released, therefore bringing both the mind and the body closer to equilibrium. As these unconscious memories associated with traumatic experiences are brought into our conscious awareness, these experiences can be dealt with in a healthy way and moved into a different part of the brain that allows for the patient to move forward with their life.

A typical Brainspotting therapy session usually begins with the therapist asking their patient questions relating to traumatic brain injuries, drug or alcohol abuse, and familial history. Next, the therapist will ask the patient to briefly explain the past traumatic experience and/or any related scenarios. The next step involves the therapist asking the patient to think about the experience(s) to the fullest extent, including any emotions associated with it, such as discomfort, pain, sadness, and/or anger.

The third step is to identify where in your body you are feeling anxiety, pain, anger, or any other emotions associated with the past traumatic experience(s). Some typical places people hold trauma are in the jaw, chest, stomach, and neck. The fourth step in a brainspotting session is to maintain these negative emotions and over analyze them. While you are consciously thinking about these negative emotions, the therapist will encourage you to say whatever thought comes to mind even if they don’t make sense. These negative thoughts are the ones being stored deep in your unconscious brain that the therapist is aiming to expel.

The fifth step in this advanced mind body therapy for trauma is listening to bilateral sounds or music through noise-cancelling headphones. The final step in this advanced brain-body therapy involves the therapist asking the patient to follow the end of a pointer with your eyes while consciously thinking/rethinking about the traumatic experience you are working toward healing.

Brainspotting Therapy for Trauma

Trauma Defined (and Un-Defined)

Let’s start off by defining trauma. Most people have been victims of some sort of trauma. It is defined as an emotional (and often physical) response to a terrible event. The most common traumatic events include natural disasters, accidents, rape, war, racism, abandonment and abuse. Yet trauma can also come from repeated, subtle occurrences, or simply from others never understanding you, loneliness, being ostracized, poverty, giving birth, motherhood, and any number of experiences in our lives.

How Does Brainspotting Therapy Help Heal Trauma?

Research has proven that someone’s feelings reflect in the direction people look or gaze.

Brainspotting Therapy is a neurobiological tool that supports the clinical healing relationship. This tool helps therapists locate, focus, process, and release experiences and symptoms that we’re maybe not aware of or out of reach from the conscious mind along with its cognitive and language capacity.

It works deep in the brain and body through direct access to the autonomic and limbic systems within the body’s central nervous system. This physiological tool/treatment has profoundly positive psychological, emotional, and physical consequences.

During a BSP session, the therapist guides people to train their eyes in ways that encourage them to target sources of negative emotion. Brainspots refer to eye positions that activate traumatic memory or painful emotion. Brainspotting activates the ability to heal the body from trauma.

What Else Can Brainspotting Help With?

Brainspotting Therapy is good for people who have experienced trauma, but also for those who are anxious, have ADHD, anger issues, phobias, substance abuse, chronic pain, impulse control issues, and sports performance issues. These can all be products of trauma as well.

Many people also find it helpful for anxiety, low self-esteem, caregiver burnout, and the stress of a separation or divorce, especially when talking things through hasn’t been enough on its own.

Does Brainspotting Really Work?

This advanced brain-body therapy might seem too good to be true, but a lot of people with past trauma have found relief from this type of psychotherapy. It is already known that trauma lives in the personal experience of a traumatic event, but not in the actual event itself. When a traumatic event happens to a person, their bodily systems get overwhelmed and as a result they are not able to process it. When this happens, our primitive brain takes over and if we are not able to escape the situation, our body shuts down in order to survive. As a result, we hold traumatic experiences in our implicit memory, unable to be processed if we do not actively try to re-process and heal from these experiences. Considering that brainspotting activates both the brain and the body at the same time, it is a lot easier to re-process these traumatic events and eventually heal from them.

More resources on Brainspotting Therapy:

Brainspotting Therapist in Denver, Colorado

Rachel Webb, LPC is a licensed Brainspotting therapist and the founder of Inner Light Counseling, PLLC. She offers Brainspotting and counseling for trauma, anxiety, self-esteem and caregiver burnout, with in-person sessions in the Denver metro area and telehealth anywhere in Colorado. If you are curious whether Brainspotting is a fit for you, request a free consultation.

Brainspotting Resources:

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