Brainspotting therapy may helpful you if:

• You feel stuck around an issue and aren’t able to “think” yourself through it.

• You get activated easily and go on downward thought spirals that just increase the activation further. 

• You experience overwhelming emotions such as anxiety, shame, guilt, jealousy, anger and fear and you’d like to find ease once again. 

• You experience trauma responses, such as fight, flight, freeze or dissociation and would like to learn more about building regulation for your nervous system to help you get back on track.

What is Brainspotting?

Brainspotting was developed in 2003 by Dr. Grand, as an advancement of his work in EMDR therapy and somatic experiencing. Brainspotting is a simple yet effective form of therapy that can be integrated into therapy sessions to help clients deepen processing, get past stagnancy in therapeutic growth and support regulation of the nervous system. 

How does it work?

Indigenous healing practices were perhaps the first to recognize how helpful it can be for people to have fixed gaze points to facilitate internally processing. Building on this understanding, a common belief in Brainspotting is that “where you look, affects how you feel”.  A traditional brainspotting set up includes fixed eye gaze positions with bilateral music. This is combined with gentle guidance to notice a particular somatic sensation and feeling, as you are bringing up a difficult or challenging issue. This brainspotting set up is designed to integrate body and mind processing into traditional talk therapy. While engaged in brainspotting, it is completely up to you how much or how little you may want to talk. Regardless of how much you talk, I will be present with you each step of your internal journey. 

Brainspotting is built on the foundational belief that the body has a resilience and ability to heal, and one way to access this resilience is through fixed eye positioning. It is theorized that BSP taps into and harnesses brain/body self-scanning to locate, hold in place, process and release focused areas that are in a “maladaptive homeostasis”. The goal of all psychotherapy is to move clients from dysregulation into regulation. Brainspotting aims to engage the regions of the brain that are engaged in regulation (limbic system/subcortical brain) and bypass the regions that are not (neocortex or thinking brain). 

Can you explain what eye positioning has to do with my mental health?

Research shows that the extraocular muscles of the eyes, which Brainspotting is designed to engage, are involved in regulating the nervous system. The extraocular muscles are the six muscles that control the movements of the eye. These muscles are highly tuned and contain many reflexes. According to research by Merrill D. Bowan, O.D., the Oculocardiac Reflex, which utilizes these extraocular muscles, directly activates the vagus nerve and the parasympathetic nervous system, slowing the heart rate and other metabolic processes. This is why utilizing near and far fixed gaze points in people having panic attacks is a very effective regulating technique. Brainspotting integrates this understanding of human neurobiology with other therapeutic techniques to help boost regulation while processing through difficult experiences. 

As a clinician, my job is to support your body in its natural ability to process challenging and stymied emotional experiences, including those resulting from trauma. I hope to make you feel comfortable in therapy sessions and invite you to look wherever you may naturally want. From time to time, I will remind you of this invitation, to notice where your gaze may naturally want to go, in order to counteract societal pressures to maintain eye contact and deepen somatic resourcing.

To learn more about Brainspotting and if it is a good fit in your treatment plan, contact me for a free consultation.