Brainspotting
Brainspotting (BSP) is a somatic, relational, and experiential therapy that helps emotions and experiences that feel stuck become more fully processed and integrated. It is particularly useful for trauma and PTSD, including experiences that may be difficult to put into words. Our nervous system can continue to hold the effects of past experiences long after we consciously know they are over, showing up as stress, anxiety, emotional dysregulation, overwhelm, physical tension, reactivity, or disconnection.
During Brainspotting, your therapist uses dual attunement and co-regulation, staying deeply attuned and present with you while helping you notice where your eyes naturally focus and what happens in your body, emotions, and nervous system. This relational connection can help create the safety and steadiness needed to access and process experiences that may be outside of conscious awareness or difficult to explain.
You’ll be gently guided to slow down and notice what arises, without needing to have all the words or explain everything. A growing body of research shows promising early findings, particularly for trauma and PTSD, with research also exploring Brainspotting for anxiety, depression, stress, chronic pain, performance, and other emotional concerns. Brainspotting should be performed only by clinicians specifically trained in the method.
“Brainspotting locates points in the client’s visual field that help to access unprocessed trauma in the subcortical brain.
“Where you look affects how you feel.”
It is the brain activity, especially in the subcortical brain that organizes itself around that eye position…Brainspotting gives us a tool, within this clinical relationship, to neurobiologically locate, focus, process, and release experiences and symptoms that are typically out of reach of the conscious mind and its cognitive and language capacity. Brainspotting works with the deep brain and the body through its direct access to the autonomic and limbic systems within the body’s central nervous system.
Brainspotting is accordingly a physiological tool/treatment which has profound psychological, emotional, and physical consequences”.
(About Brainspotting - Brainspotting, 2024).
For more information: About Brainspotting