Heal Your Body, Mind and Spirit with Brainspotting

A Revolutionary Therapy

What is Brainspotting?

Brainspotting (BSP) is a therapy developed 20 years ago By Dr. David Grand, designed to help individuals access, process, and overcome trauma, negative emotions, and pain, including physical, stress-related, and psychologically induced physical pain. The main goal of this technique is to help the brain regulate and achieve balance through reprocessing negative experiences and rewiring emotional responses. Brainspotting was developed through Dr. David Grand's work with survivors of trauma. Many mental health professionals utilizing the approach have found it to be an effective treatment for various mental health concerns.

How Does Brainspotting Work & How Can It Help Me?

During Brainspotting, therapists help people position their eyes in ways that enable them to target sources of negative emotion. The nerves in your eyes are connected to the vagus nerve, which extends throughout your entire brain and body, and plays a key role in the stress response 'Activation-and-Regulation' and the relaxation response 'Rest-and-Digest.'

With the aid of a pointer, trained brainspotting therapists slowly guide the eyes of people in therapy across their field of vision to find appropriate “brainspots,” that activate a traumatic memory or painful emotion. It allows you and your therapist to safely access your emotions on a deeper subconscious level and target the physical effects of trauma. Trauma “stored” in the body can alter the way the brain works. For example, trauma can affect emotions, memory, and physical health, causing you anxiety, depression, or being physically ill.

Brainspotting activates the body’s ability to heal itself from trauma. It allows you to access negative emotions' physical and emotional “locations” and release the ties. Brainspotting works on the limbic system, a collection of brain structures that play a role in emotion, long-term memory, cognition, motivation, impulse control, and several other psychological factors that can affect well-being. Brainspotting seems to bypass your brain's “thinking” cortex and is thought to directly access the deep parts of your brain involved in emotional regulation. By identifying a brainspot, you target an area of focused activation in your brain directly related to the issue you are working on.

While you focus on that brainspot you’re made aware of bodily sensations associated with the memories. You can process negative emotions to help rewire your brain to more positive associations and feelings. This processing is done using headphones and listening to music that rhythmically goes back and forth from left to right side. Engaging both hemispheres of your brain with this music, called auditory bilateral stimulation, has a very calming effect on your nervous system. This aids your brain in reprocessing negative emotions by focusing on your body-based sensations.

Deeply Heal From Whatever Is Holding You Back

Have you had stressful or traumatic experiences as a child or as an adult?
Do you suspect that these experiences may be unconsciously causing you mental or physical unwellness?
Are you feeling stuck or unable to break through these blocks?
Does it feel like something is keeping you from reaching your goals or potential?

Perhaps you grew up with a lack of nurturing or were exposed to judgment, critique, pressure, bullying, rejection, or shame. You may have experienced an accident/injury, illness, loss, assault, natural disaster, war, poverty, social turmoil, abuse (physical, emotional, verbal, etc.), or neglect as a child. Maybe the wounds these experiences have caused are getting in the way of your well-being, influencing the way you feel (physically and emotionally), think, or act (toward yourself or with others).

Brainspotting therapy can help you heal Trauma and Post Traumatic Stress symptoms in the mind and body.

Psychological Trauma Impacts Our Mind and Body

Only 20 percent of what is stored in our brain actually enters our thoughts (cognition/awareness), which is what a lot of therapeutic work is about - because trauma, emotional stress, habits, and sensory experiences are stored much deeper.

Painful or stressful experiences are stored “unprocessed” in the body whenever the brain cannot comprehend and record them in explicit/conscious memory at the time of the events. Therefore, psychological trauma impacts our brain and bodies, affecting our mood, behavior, and physical functioning. It shatters our sense of security and makes us feel vulnerable, isolated, and powerless.

Revitalize Health and Wellness offers Brainspotting, a powerful, transformative yet gentle treatment that can access the areas where psychological trauma is stored in the body and brain and promote deep healing from the inside out.

The Development of Brainspotting

Dr. Grand developed this technique after an individual dealing with both physical and emotional symptoms of trauma experienced significant, rapid improvement following a session in which a locked eye position enabled a cathartic expression of memory and emotion. Dr. Grand eventually developed formal training, and today therapists are trained in the brainspotting approach, which is a successful fast-growing area in the field of psychology.

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How Effective is Brainspotting?

Brainspotting therapy helps those in therapy reprocess negative events and retrain emotional reactions. Reported to help with various psychological concerns, brainspotting is mostly used in trauma therapy and for treating Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It has also been shown to assist in injury recovery and help treat physical illness, inattention, stress, and low motivation. Psychological issues—such as anger, procrastination, and difficulty concentrating, among others —can be caused by trauma. Therefore, brainspotting is a particularly effective form of therapy for those individuals who wish to address one or more of these concerns.

To Brainspot or To Talk?

Brainspotting is easily incorporated with other therapies and can even be used in addition to regular talk therapy. Some clients have one Brainspotting session, and then we go back to talk therapy to discuss things that came up in the Brainspotting session. Others have done several Brainspotting sessions with talk therapy mixed in. Some have switched solely to Brainspotting. How we use this mode of therapy is up to the client.

Can Brainspotting be Done Online?

Brainspotting doesn’t involve the need for physical touch. It builds on the strength of the connection between you and the therapist. This makes the treatment process very well suited to online therapy because you don’t have to be in the same room as the clinician physically. The relational connection that’s needed for this form of treatment can be achieved just as easily through video conferencing sessions since

the therapist’s focus will be mainly on your eyes and face. The therapist is just as able to track your eye movements and micro facial responses online. Without the distance of physical space, your face is only inches away from the computer screen, and this is easily achieved.

How Many Brainspotting Sessions Are Needed?

Brainspotting can be a rapid, effective type of therapy. In contrast to ongoing talk therapy, you can expect to see results with Brainspotting faster. Some clients find their trauma resolved after just one or two Brainspotting sessions. Others find Brainspotting to be more adjunctive and use regular talk therapy to further process and enhance the progress made in Brainspotting sessions. Many clients choose Brainspotting for ongoing mental hygiene, like exercise for the mind (similar to going to the gym to exercise the body). You can discuss your particular needs with your therapist. Brainspotting can be tailored to every individual.

How Do I know the Brainspotting Worked?

This question often comes up at the end of the first Brainspotting session with a client. The answer is quite simple - it worked because you did it! Most issues won’t be resolved with just one Brainspotting session, just like most issues aren’t resolved with just one (any other) therapy session. Clients do, however tend to experience any of the following after a Brainspotting session:

Increased awareness of how stress /trauma has affected them
Increased awareness of when/how they are holding tension in their body
Increased insight into how they want their life to be
Some movement or progress related to the issue they had been stuck on
Reduced stress and anxiety related to past issues when confronting and letting go of the hold the memories have
Their bodies begin to heal
A new sense of peace

How clients respond to a Brainspotting session is, of course, individualized. Each issue is different, and how you will respond will be different.

What Happens After the Brainspotting Session?

After a Brainspotting session, some clients feel completely calm and relaxed, others feel tired and say they are going home to take a nap. Some report not feeling any different but find themselves thinking about things over the next day or two with changing outlook. Others say they were more irritable or moody, or on edge for a few days as they allowed memories to come up for healing. Some have dreams related to the issue we worked on. While others have unrelated thoughts pop up.

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References:

About BSPI. (n.d.). In Brainspotting International. Retrieved from http:// www.brainspottinginternational.org/about-bspi
Beneficial Uses of BSP. (n.d.). In Brainspotting International. Retrieved March 30, 2015, from http://www.brainspottinginternational.org/about-bspi/beneficial-uses-of-bsp
Grand, D. (2013). Brainspotting: the revolutionary new therapy for rapid and effective change. Boulder, CO: Sounds True, Inc.
Rigley, C. (2009, March 25). Eye see you Brainspotting: a cure-all for psychological trauma or parlor trick? New Times, 23(34). Retrieved from http:// www.newtimesslo.com/news/2253/eye-see-you
Terrell, D. (2009). What is Brainspotting? How does it compare to EMDR therapy?. In San Diego Trauma Therapy. Retrieved from http:// www.sandiegotraumatherapy.com/emdr-articles/terrell-brain-spotting.htm
What is brainspotting? (n.d.). Brainspotting. Retrieved from http:// www.brainspotting.pro/page/what-brainspotting