Ever feel like your mind and body are holding onto things your words can’t express? Trauma, and the impact of racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, and other isms, or even the daily grind can lodge themselves deep within us, creating blocks that talk therapy alone sometimes cannot reach. That’s where Brainspotting comes in, a powerful, insightful therapy that taps into your brain’s innate wisdom to heal.
So, what exactly is Brainspotting?
Developed by Dr. David Grand, Brainspotting is a brain-body based therapy built on a fascinating premise: Where you look affects how you feel. It recognizes that traumatic or distressing experiences aren’t just stored as memories; they’re held in the deeper, subcortical regions of your brain and manifest physically in your body. Think of it like this: When you experience something overwhelming, your brain can struggle to fully process it. This unprocessed energy gets “stuck,” influencing your nervous system, emotions, thoughts, and physical sensations. Brainspotting helps you find and release this stuck energy. The core mechanism? Identifying “Brainspots.” These are specific eye positions (found with the help of a trained therapist using a pointer or your own natural gaze) that correlate with the activated emotional or somatic charge of an issue. Holding your gaze on this spot, while mindfully attuned to your internal experience, gently and naturally activates your brain’s inherent self-scanning and healing capacity.
How Brainspotting Naturally Connects Your Neural Networks
The beauty of Brainspotting lies in its gentle facilitation of your brain’s own natural processes: Accessing the Deep Brain: By bypassing the more analytical, language-centered parts of your brain (the neocortex), Brainspotting directly accesses the deeper limbic system, brainstem, and body where trauma and stress are held. It speaks the language of your nervous system.
2. Activating Self-Scanning: Holding the Brainspot isn’t about forcing anything. It’s like giving your brain a quiet, focused space. This activates your Deep Brain Access Network (DBAN), essentially your brain’s internal search engine for locating and processing unprocessed material. Your brain knows what needs healing; Brainspotting helps it find the pathways.Reconnecting Neural Pathways: As you hold the Brainspot with mindful awareness, your brain naturally begins to reprocess the stuck material. It forms new, healthier connections between the neural networks holding the distress and the networks containing resources, resilience, and adaptive solutions. This happens organically, often with profound shifts in perspective, sensation, and emotional charge.
The Essential Mind-Body Bridge: Brainspotting fundamentally understands that the mind and body are inseparable. You don’t just think about the stress of racism and other forms of oppression; you feel it in your gut, your shoulders, your breath. Brainspotting works through the body. By noticing physical sensations (tightness, heat, tingling, release) while on a Brainspot, you directly engage the somatic component of your experience, allowing the body to discharge trapped energy and complete the physiological responses that were overwhelmed during the original event or ongoing stress.
What Can Brainspotting Help With? The Scope is Wide Because it works with the deep brain and body, Brainspotting is remarkably versatile for issues where talk hits a wall: Trauma (Big T and Little t): From single-incident accidents and abuse to complex developmental trauma, attachment wounds, and PTSD. Brainspotting helps process the implicit memories stored in the body. The Impact of Racism & other forms of systemic Oppression: The chronic stress, hypervigilance, microaggressions, and internalized messages associated with racism create profound dysregulation and trauma. Brainspotting provides a way to:Process the physiological impact and nervous system dysregulation. Release the embodied rage, grief, and fear. Access and strengthen internal resources and cultural resilience. Reprocess internalized negative beliefs.Everyday Stressors & Performance: Feeling overwhelmed, stuck in anxiety, struggling with creative blocks, or wanting to enhance athletic or artistic performance? Brainspotting helps regulate the nervous system, release underlying anxieties, and access deeper states of calm and focus. Anxiety, Phobias, & Panic: Calming the overactive fear response at its source. Chronic Pain & Illness: Addressing the emotional and stress-related components that often exacerbate physical conditions. Grief and Loss: Processing the deep somatic ache of loss.The Experience: Gentle, Profound, Empowering A Brainspotting session feels different. There’s less talking about the problem and more focused, internal exploration with the problem. Your therapist acts as a skilled, attuned guide, helping you find your Brainspots and holding a safe, supportive space for your brain and body to do their healing work. Shifts can feel subtle (a deep sigh, a sense of warmth) or profound (sudden clarity, significant emotional release, lasting reduction in physical tension). The pace is always yours.
Is Your Brain Ready to Process without Words? If you’re seeking healing that goes beyond words, that respects the deep connection between your mind, body, and lived experiences (including the weight of oppression or the grind of daily stress), Brainspotting offers a powerful pathway. It harnesses your own biology’s wisdom, gently unlocking your nervous system’s potential for resilience, regulation, and profound change. It’s not about forcing healing; it’s about
trapped energy and complete the physiological responses that were overwhelmed during the original event or ongoing stress.
What Can Brainspotting Help With? The Scope is Wide Because it works with the deep brain and body, Brainspotting is remarkably versatile for issues where talk hits a wall: Trauma (Big T and Little t): From single-incident accidents and abuse to complex developmental trauma, attachment wounds, and PTSD. Brainspotting helps process the implicit memories stored in the body. The Impact of Racism & other forms of systemic Oppression: The chronic stress, hypervigilance, microaggressions, and internalized messages associated with racism create profound dysregulation and trauma. Brainspotting provides a way to:Process the physiological impact and nervous system dysregulation. Release the embodied rage, grief, and fear. Access and strengthen internal resources and cultural resilience. Reprocess internalized negative beliefs.Everyday Stressors & Performance: Feeling overwhelmed, stuck in anxiety, struggling with creative blocks, or wanting to enhance athletic or artistic performance? Brainspotting helps regulate the nervous system, release underlying anxieties, and access deeper states of calm and focus. Anxiety, Phobias, & Panic: Calming the overactive fear response at its source. Chronic Pain & Illness: Addressing the emotional and stress-related components that often exacerbate physical conditions. Grief and Loss: Processing the deep somatic ache of loss.The Experience: Gentle, Profound, Empowering A Brainspotting session feels different. There’s less talking about the problem and more focused, internal exploration with the problem. Your therapist acts as a skilled, attuned guide, helping you find your Brainspots and holding a safe, supportive space for your brain and body to do their healing work. Shifts can feel subtle (a deep sigh, a sense of warmth) or profound (sudden clarity, significant emotional release, lasting reduction in physical tension). The pace is always yours.
Is Your Brain Ready to Process without Words? If you’re seeking healing that goes beyond words, that respects the deep connection between your mind, body, and lived experiences (including the weight of oppression or the grind of daily stress), Brainspotting offers a powerful pathway. It harnesses your own biology’s wisdom, gently unlocking your nervous system’s potential for resilience, regulation, and profound change. It’s not about forcing healing; it’s about
creating the conditions for your brain to heal itself.
Ready to explore what your brain naturally knows how to do? Consider connecting with trained Brainspotting therapists to begin this deeply resonant journey.