What is Brainspotting?

Brainspotting is a somatic-based therapeutic approach that uses a “bottom-up” approach. This means that, unlike traditional talk therapy, Brainspotting accesses the activation in your body related to your challenges.

 This body activation travels up from your peripheral nervous system (in the body) to your brain, allowing the processing of trauma in your midbrain. The midbrain is crucial to regulating emotions and is the part of your brain that houses the survival responses, traumas, feelings, memories, and motor coordination you wish to work on. 

How does brainspotting work?

Brainspotting utilizes eye positions to locate, access, and discharge stuck material held in the brain and body. Our eyes are an extension of our brain, and where we look affects how we feel. The eyes are connected to the midbrain (where trauma, emotions, survival responses, and memories live) via the optic nerve. Brainspotting uses the eyes to connect to and find information inside the brain and body. 

In a Brainspotting session, the therapist will guide you through finding the eye position connected to what you wish to work on/process. Gazing at this spot (called a brain spot) will allow access to the neural networks holding the information you are thinking/experiencing at that given moment. This allows the brain to activate its capacity to bring homeostasis to dysregulated emotional states. Brainspotting sessions vary greatly based on what each individual brings to the session. You may experience intense emotions (calming, challenging, and everything in between), bodily sensations, memories, or thoughts. 

Clients frequently find that this type of processing goes deeper, eventually leading to an increased sense of relief and well-being that they may not have been able to access through talk therapy alone.