What is Brainspotting Therapy?

The Nature of Brainspotting for Behavioral Health Treatment

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A technique called Brainspotting therapy is an interesting method that can help deal with unprocessed trauma in the brain. Individuals dealing with various types of traumatic memories may benefit from utilizing this type of therapy with the help of a qualified professional.

Traditional talk therapy is highly effective but doesn’t always get to the heart of what is needed to achieve true emotional healing. For that, other techniques are sometimes required, and research has shown that Brainspotting therapy works for many people. We’ll take a closer look at this topic on this page so you can understand what the technique offers and whether it might be a useful tactic for the emotional stress you are experiencing.

To get started with treatment for generalized anxiety disorder or any other mental health issues you are facing, contact Icarus Wellness & Recovery today. Our team is always available to receive your call and discuss our treatment options.

What is Brainspotting?

Brainspotting was developed in 2003 by Dr. David Grand. That history makes it one of the younger treatments that is used in trauma therapy. The fundamental concept behind this technique is that the direction you look can help you access emotions and stored traumatic memories deeply rooted in the brain.

Talk therapy typically uses verbal communication and processing to get at these traumatic memories. With brainspotting therapy, finding the right eye position to locate traumatic memories opens up a new part of the experience. Finding “brainspots” can activate traumatic material in the subcortical brain and lead to meaningful breakthroughs in therapy.

When working properly, brainspotting therapy can tap into the brain’s natural healing abilities and operate on a level below the conscious mind. Sometimes, the brain works too analytically and gets in the way of dealing with emotional pain or emotional distress. Brainspotting is an alternative therapy that can help eliminate this hurdle and help people who have a hard time verbalizing their trauma.

How a Brainspotting Session Works

Brainspotting sessions typically follow a general outline for the client and therapist to work through. The starting point is identifying an issue to work on. There are many possibilities, including anxiety, depression, or PTSD.

It’s the chosen target of the session that will inform the therapist of where to tell the client to look. Qualified mental health professionals are trained on how to help the client gaze in precisely the right direction.

The client is instructed to maintain focus on the specific eye positions that they have been directed to use. During this time, the therapist may use bilateral sound to help the brain process trauma and continue the healing journey.

You should know before your first Brainspotting therapy treatment that these sessions can be rather intense. Releasing emotional distress is overwhelming at times, as distressing memories will come up and chronic pain that has been holding your mind back may arise. This kind of psychological healing may be long overdue and you might leave your first experience with Brainspotting techniques feeling lighter and more relaxed.

Like many other healing modalities, you can go through sessions with a brainspotting therapist in person or online. This flexibility makes it easier for people to fit treatments into a busy schedule while working on improving depression symptoms and improving their brain body connection.

A Number of Conditions Can Be Treated with Brainspotting

As a therapeutic technique, Brainspotting is quite versatile. It has been shown to be effective in dealing with the challenging symptoms that come from many different types of mental health issues. The list below highlights some of the conditions that can be targeted with Brainspotting.

Anxiety and Panic Disorders

One of the most common mental health issues, anxiety can be improved through Brainspotting with the help of a trained therapist. The kind of focused mindfulness that takes place during a brainspotting therapy session helps to reduce chronic worry, racing thoughts, and other issues associated with anxiety and panic disorders.

Depression

Past emotional experiences that are buried deep in the brain can often be connected to symptoms of depression. Brainspotting works to address depression by bringing these to the surface and allowing the healing process to truly begin. It may be possible to achieve a deeper level of healing when Brainspotting is employed as opposed to using traditional clinical psychology techniques alone.

Addiction and Substance Abuse

Many people facing addiction struggles have unresolved trauma that has led them to substance abuse. If Brainspotting is able to help them work through the mental and even physical discomfort they experience related to past trauma, it could play a key role in finally breaking the cycle of addiction.

Grief and Loss

There are many tough emotions connected to grief and loss in life. Eye movement desensitization through Brainspotting sessions can help the individual confront those emotions and find a way to move forward effectively.

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Growing Scientific Support

There is not as much of a history for Brainspotting as there is with traditional talk therapy and other treatment modalities. As a result, there isn’t as much scientific study in place to support the system that Dr. David Grand created when he developed Brainspotting, but research continues and findings often point to meaningful value in this technique.

Emerging science seems to support the idea that the brain and body store trauma in ways that can be accessed through eye position and body awareness. Brainspotting takes the understanding that traumatic memories are physiological as well as cognitive and uses that knowledge to help people access those memories more readily.

In addition to the scientific research, there are many anecdotal reports from clinicians around the world. Those who use this powerful therapy regularly with patients find that it leads to significant improvements in many cases. No therapeutic practices are successful across the board, but this seems to be one that can deliver important progress when the right brain spot is located.

More study is needed to better understand how Brainspotting works and what situations it is best at treating. Those studies are ongoing, but in the meantime, this remains a treatment that is utilized by countless therapists, psychologists, and social workers to help patients get the help they need.

Is Brainspotting Right for You?

By this point, it should be clear that Brainspotting has a lot of potential, and has delivered meaningful results for countless people. It’s been seen as a revolutionary new therapy by many, but does that mean it’s right for you?

It’s best to lean on a professional to determine what types of therapies should be utilized in your case, but the list below touches on some indications that Brainspotting might be appropriate.

You Have Trauma That Feels Unresolved

This gets to the heart of what Brainspotting is all about. Trauma that hasn’t been dealt with thoroughly in any other manner makes a great target for Brainspotting therapy. This technique can help you access that trauma and the emotions that it contains.

Of course, that experience might be difficult or painful in the moment, but it’s all part of the healing process. If Brainspotting is able to help you get to that trauma, deal with it, and move on feeling freer than you have in years, the effort will have been more than worth it.

You Have Trouble Expressing Yourself in Traditional Therapy

Traditional talk therapy works great for many people. But it doesn’t effectively serve everyone in every situation. You might find that it is hard to accurately express what you are feeling when talking to a therapist.

Brainspotting could allow you to get over that hurdle and finally get down to the bottom of what has been plaguing you from a mental health perspective. If you feel like you have been trying to work through trauma in traditional talk therapy sessions over and over again with no luck, switching to Brainspotting might allow you to have a breakthrough.

You Are Dealing with Chronic Anxiety or Depression

For some people, anxiety and depression are conditions that feel like they are going to be life-long burdens. It doesn’t have to be that way, however. If you have long ago accepted that you are going to be dealing with degrees of anxiety and depression forever, it might be time to give Brainspotting therapy a try. With this fresh approach, you could dive into emotions that have been hidden and may have been dragging you down all along.

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Trauma therapy can be difficult, but it has the potential to deliver rapid and effective change that can improve your life moving forward. As soon as your first Brainspotting therapy session is completed, you may start to notice subtle improvements that become greater over time.

It’s never too early to start with trauma treatment. At Icarus Wellness and Recovery, our admissions team is always ready to take your call and talk about the situation you are facing in life. Let’s work together to overcome your underlying emotional issues and put your life on a positive path moving forward.