What is Brainspotting?

Brainspotting (BSP) is a relatively new type of therapy for overcoming trauma. It was developed by David Grand while he was working on people with trauma using EMDR.

How Does Brainspotting Work?

According to David Grand, the direction in which people look or gaze can affect the way they feel. Using a pointer a brainspotting therapist can guide people's eyes to find relevant ‘brainspots’ – places that activate a traumatic memory or painful emotion. It allows the therapists to access emotions on a deeper level and targets the physical effects of the trauma.

During brainspotting, therapists help people position their eyes in ways that enable them to target sources of negative emotion. 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,” with a brainspot being an eye position that activates a traumatic memory or painful emotion.

Practitioners of the procedure believe it allows therapists to access emotions on a deeper level and target the physical effects of trauma. Brainspotting can be enhanced with BioLateral sound/music, which stimulates both sides of the brain.

The ‘brainspots’ can be located through either one or both eyes and are observed from either the “Inside Window” of the client's felt sense and/or the “Outside Window” of the client’s reflexive responses (i.e., blink, eye twitches, pupil dilation, quick breaths and subtle body shifts).

There is increasing evidence that trauma is stored in the body, and it can alter the way the brain works. There is some evidence that brainspotting works primarily on the limbic system. Brainspotting therapists use a process of ‘dual attunement’ – a process in which the therapist attunes to the therapeutic relationship as well as the brain-body response of the client.

Brainspotting can be integrated into ongoing treatment, including highly dissociative clients and is adaptable to almost all areas of specialisation. It provides therapists with powerful tools to enable their patients to quickly and effectively process through the deep brain sources of many held traumas, emotional, somatic and performance problems for example, with athletes.

For more information about Brainspotting or to integrate it into your current therapy speak to Dr Danielle Baillieu