Brainspotting

Brainspotting is a trauma-informed therapy that helps people process deep emotional pain, trauma, and stress by using the connection between the brain, the body, and eye position. The core idea is simple: Where you look affects how you feel.

Certain eye positions appear to be connected to how the brain stores emotional and traumatic experiences. These eye positions are called brainspots. When a person focuses on a brainspot while staying attuned to their internal experience, the brain can access and process material that may be difficult to reach through talking alone. Brainspotting allows the brain to do its own healing work, at its own pace.

Brainspotting is typically calm, focused, and less structured than some other trauma therapies. In a session:

• The therapist helps you find a brainspot by slowly moving a pointer or their finger across your visual field
• You notice where you feel the strongest and most comfortable emotional or body response 
• You gently hold your gaze on that spot while allowing new connections, understanding, and relation to experience to arise
• The therapist works with you in the Brainspotting session to allow the mind and body to find safety and balance in relation to challenging thoughts and events
• You observe whatever thoughts, emotions, images, or physical sensations arise

You do not need to explain or analyze what comes up. Long stretches of quiet processing are common. The therapist stays present and attuned, offering support but not directing the experience.

Many people describe Brainspotting as deep but gentle, with insights and shifts happening naturally.

Brainspotting is a newer therapy than EMDR, but there is a growing body of research and strong clinical support behind it.

1. Brain–Body Connection: Trauma is stored not just as memories, but also in the nervous      system and the body. Brainspotting works directly with this brain–body link, helping the nervous system release stored activation.
2. Access to Subcortical Brain Areas: Brainspotting is thought to access      deeper, non-verbal parts of the brain involved in survival responses (such as the midbrain and limbic system). These areas often hold trauma that is      hard to reach with talk therapy. Brainspotting works with the optic nerve which is tightly linked to the subcortical brain networks that is connected to trauma and memories.
3. Focused Attention Promotes Processing: Holding attention on a brainspot while      staying present allows the brain to process unfinished experiences, similar to how the brain naturally heals when given the right conditions.
4. Attunement and Safety: The strong emphasis on therapist attunement helps the nervous system feel safe enough to process. Feeling deeply seen and supported      enhances emotional regulation and healing.

Brainspotting is particularly helpful for experiences that feel deep, preverbal, or body-based.

• PTSD and complex trauma
• Developmental and childhood trauma
• Medical trauma
• Attachment wounds
• Anxiety and panic
• Depression
• Chronic stress
• Dissociation
• Emotional numbness
• Sports performance
• Creative blocks
• Chronic pain
• Psychosomatic symptoms
• Tension and stress-related conditions
• Addictions 
• Suicidality

• It is not hypnosis
• You remain fully aware and in control
• You don’t have to relive trauma or talk through details
• The therapist does not interpret or force meaning

By holding your gaze in a specific place, your brain is given access to deeper healing pathways and allowed to release what it’s been holding. The process is led by your brain and nervous system, not by the therapist.