Brainspotting Therapy is a Powerful Modality for Healing Trauma and Emotional Stress

Brainspotting therapy gets to the root cause of trauma, emotional issues and addictions.

If you…

• feel stuck or that you have plateaued in your healing
• are tired of talking about issues and still dealing with symptoms
• have tried other approaches without lasting results
• feel there is more to explore and uncover but don’t know how to get there

Brainspotting therapy is one of the most effective therapies for changing unhealthy habits, healing trauma and resolving emotional issues.  Clinical outcome studies and emerging research suggest brainspotting may significantly reduce symptoms of PTSD, anxiety, and depression with some studies showing meaningful improvement in as few as five sessions.

Table of Contents

In this article we are going to share how Brainspotting can support you on your healing journey. We will answer questions to help you better understand Brainspotting such as:

Brainspotting is a brain-based, trauma-informed therapy that helps people process and release unresolved trauma, emotional pain, and chronic stress by identifying specific eye positions linked to stored experiences in the brain and body. It works directly with how the brain and nervous system process trauma. 

As a form of alternative therapy, it offers a unique and powerful approach to trauma therapy, particularly for individuals who have not found relief through traditional methods. This is significant given how emotions are stored in the body, not just the mind. Based on the premise that “where you look affects how you feel,” Brainspotting uses specific eye positions that correlate with unconscious, emotional experiences stored deep within the brain. By focusing on an eye position linked to a distressing issue, individuals can access and release the emotional and physical stress held within that memory. This method reaches parts of the brain that are not typically accessed in traditional talk therapy or most other forms of therapy, allowing for deeper healing.

Brainspotting therapy supports the reprocessing of negative experiences and helps retrain emotional reactions, which is essential for improving overall mental health. The process integrates bilateral stimulation, compassionate attunement, and brain-body processing, facilitating profound shifts in how traumatic memories are held and experienced, ultimately promoting emotional regulation, resilience, and long-term healing.

Brainspotting, developed by David Grand in 2003, has roots in EMDR, somatic experiencing, relational and insight-oriented therapy. It supports the reprocessing of negative experiences and retrains emotional reactions. Both approaches include bilateral stimulation, compassionate attunement and brain-body processing.

According to trauma expert and neuroscientist Robert Scaer, aspects of the trauma become stuck or frozen in time contained in an implicit memory capsule in the brain waiting for a safer time to be processed and dealt with. When in implicit memory we have a built in protective mechanism that keeps these memories outside of our conscious awareness to minimize the overwhelming interference in our lives. This is similar to trying to hold a beach ball underwater. It puts a lot of stress on the mind body system, is exhausting and inevitably is not sustainable. Consequently, nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety, depression, irritability, phobias, panic attacks, isolation and other uncomfortable issues tend to arise. These symptoms are not easily associated with the original trauma and thus it can be confusing as to where they are coming from. Adding to this confusion is the fact that the outside world is generally obsessed with what happened and recalling the details of the events but this is not where trauma lives. It lives in the response not the event, in the sensory experience not verbalized cognitions. This is another reason why people feel ashamed, isolated, confused and even crazy following trauma. Equally it is why talking about it won’t make it go away.

Brainspotting may be especially helpful for individuals who feel emotionally stuck, overwhelmed, or unable to fully resolve symptoms to talk therapy alone. It is often a strong fit for people who experience trauma or stress at a nervous system level rather than primarily through thoughts alone.

Brainspotting may be a good option If you:

• Feel triggered or emotionally reacted without knowing why

• Have difficulty talking about your experiences, but still feel their impact

• Experience, physical sensations, tension, or pain linked to emotional stress

• Have tried cognitive or talk based therapies with limited or short-term relief

• Want a brain-body approach that works gently and at your own pace

Brainspotting has been shown to be highly effective in a wide range of settings and issues both personally and professionally.

Clinical studies And practitioner outcome data suggest brainspotting may reduce trauma related symptoms, such as hypervigilance, anxiety, chronic stress, emotional dysregulation, and chronic stress.

Brainspotting is frequently used with individuals who have experienced single incident trauma, repeated trauma or long-term emotional neglect. Because it does not require a detailed verbal retelling of traumatic events, it can be especially supportive for trauma survivors, who feel overwhelmed by traditional exposure based or analytical approaches.

Brainspotting may support trauma survivors by:

• Reducing hypervigilance and nervous system overactivation
• Helping the body release stored traumatic stress
• Supporting emotional regulation and grounding
• Allowing trauma processing without reliving events in detail

Brainspotting is why they use performance settings to help individuals move through mental blocks that interfere with focus, confidence, and execution. This includes upbeats, executive, performance, creative, and public speakers.

Performance related issues brainspotting may help address:

• Performance anxiety or stage fright
• Mental blocks or fear failure
• Perfectionism and self sabotage
• Loss of focus under pressure
• Difficulty accessing peak performance states

• Together we will identify an issue that you want to transform and heal.

• As you focus on this issue, we will identify how your mind and body respond to it.

• From here we will identify the eye position or ‘brainspot' associated with this issue. A brainspot is not just one spot in the brain but rather an active network in the brain that leads to a deep releasing of the issue where it is stored in the mind and body. The brainspot acts like a doorway into all the stored, stuck baggage from the past.

• You will focus on the brainspot by holding your eye position. The focused eye position allows the brain to stop scanning externally for threats and instead internally self-scan to identify and maintain its presence on the deeper unresolved issue.

• When a brainspot is activated, stored trauma energy begins to release, rebalance and heal. You will often feel these visceral, unconscious and reflexive movements. These movements come from deep regions of the brain, outside of our conscious, cognitive and verbal awareness.

• The attuned, mindful presence of your Brainspotting therapist further allows the brain to feel safe in releasing stored trauma energy. Research shows the compassionate presence of another person is key to healing trauma.

Brainspotting is a revolutionary therapy developed by Dr. David Grand that offers a rapid and effective change in how the brain and body process trauma, making it a powerful tool for addressing psychological trauma, complex trauma, and PTSD symptoms. Unlike traditional talk therapy, which may not fully reach the deep brain regions where traumatic memory is stored, Brainspotting works by using a somatic cue, typically a specific eye position, linked to a painful memory or emotional experience. This eye position, combined with mindful awareness and focused attention on the present moment, helps access the body’s central nervous system, where physical discomfort and emotional pain are often held. Brainspotting allows for deep processing of traumatic events by guiding the client to stay with the “felt sense” of the issue, promoting the release of both mental and physical stress tied to the trauma.

By engaging brain-body awareness and leveraging bilateral stimulation, Brainspotting taps into the brain’s natural ability to process trauma at a profound level. This approach often leads to significant relief in just a few sessions, making it highly effective for people struggling with unresolved painful memories. As an alternative therapy, Brainspotting is especially effective for individuals who haven’t found success with more conventional trauma therapy methods like talk therapy alone or even EMDR therapy. It supports the reprocessing of traumatic memories, retrains emotional responses, and reduces symptoms such as anxiety, hypervigilance, and emotional numbing. Through compassionate attunement, deep emotional presence, and precise access to where trauma is held in the brain and body, Brainspotting helps clients move toward healing and improved mental health.

These symptoms are not easily associated with the original trauma and thus it can be confusing as to where they are coming from.

Adding to this confusion is the fact that the outside world is generally obsessed with what happened and recalling the details of the events, but this is not where trauma lives. It lives in the response not the event, in the sensory experience not verbalized cognitions. This is another reason people feel ashamed, isolated, confused and even crazy following trauma. Equally, it is why talking about it won't make it go away. As long as the memories or experiences are suspended in implicit (unconscious) memory they cannot be fully let go.

• Another way brainspotting helps move from dysregulation to self-regulation is through the mindful presence of the therapist. Research shows that the safe, caring support of another person moves us into the part of our brain-body connection for healing. Brainspotting’s dual attunement frame activates regulation by supporting an individual to reconsolidate traumatic energy and memory and move into greater homeostasis. It is through the safety and compassionate presence of the therapist that implicit memory becomes activated and can be moved into explicit memory.

• It is further theorized that through the use of the pointer, traveling down the optic nerves, individuals access the visual layer of the superior colliculi in the midbrain. The pointer becomes a resource anchor that provides a sense of stabilization and safety and allows the brain to stop scanning the room.

• As part of our survival instinct, our brain is constantly scanning our environment and adjusting accordingly to ensure our safety and equilibrium. The pointer along with the presence of the therapist refocus this self-scanning tendency from external to internal. From here we can use the massive power of our brain to self-scan, identify, and heal unresolved imbalances.

• Cognitive based approaches, aka talk therapy, activate the part of the brain associated with higher order thinking called the neocortex or granular isocortex which is not associated with regulation. Question asking, processing, and analyzing are part of the executive processing systems of the neocortex. Although these functions have their place in therapy, Brainspotting is concerned with information found in the midbrain and nervous system. This is where trauma, emotional stress, habits, repetitive patterns and sensory experiences are stored.
• The midbrain, in fact, drives the frontal lobes or the neocortex and is at the root of why we do what we do as well as our overall health. Like a tree, unresolved trauma stresses the roots and dramatically impacts the health of the trunk, branches, and leaves. If you pull all the leaves off or chop the branches down, it will not stop the tree from growing back from its trauma infused roots. It is thus vital to access the roots of the tree to stop its growth.

• The midbrain is the seat of changing any habits, patterns, and traumatic experiences. This is especially important given 80% of the information coming into the brain is sensory or rooted in our five senses and void of language, cognition, and verbalized experience. Only 20% is based on what is already stored in our brain and able to be processed with our thoughts and cognition. This is one reason cognitive approaches are limiting and why mind-body or brain-body based approaches are vital to healing. Cognitive approaches do not allow us to access the majority of what is happening in the brain and how we store our experience.

According to a 2023–2024 randomized controlled study brainspotting was statistically more effective than cognitive therapy alone. The study “Brainspotting: A Treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder” found that;

PTSD

• PTSD symptom scores (PTSDSS) dropped from 61.91 to 34.44, a 44% reduction in just 5 sessions of Brainspotting.

• Symptom relief was sustained at the 1-month follow-up, VS. the Cognitive therapy group showing a slight regression.

Depression

• Depression scores improved from 29.56 to 18.74, a 37% reduction after Brainspotting sessions.
• This improvement remained statistically significant at follow-up (p = .01).

Anxiety

• • Anxiety dropped from 26.33 to 15.80, a 40% reduction, with statistical significance over time (p < .001).

Brainspotting and EMDR are both brain-based trauma-informed therapies, but they differ in structure and process. EMDR uses a standardized, protocol driven approach with bilateral stimulation (such as eye movements) To help re-process traumatic memories. Brainspotting, developed by David Grand, is more flexible in client lead, using specific eye positions (brainspots) to access and process deep emotional and somatic experiences without requiring a set script. Compared to other somatic therapies, brainspotting places a unique emphasis on visual focus, and therapist attunement to the nervous system, allowing processing to unfold at the client's own pace rather than directing the experience step-by-step.

Brainspotting allows you to process unresolved issues, transform unwanted habits, breakthrough addictions, heal pain, forgive and release hurts, regulate your nervous system and let go of unwanted patterns. It can be helpful to identify areas you would like to work on and heal. You do not have to have specific memories or incidents in mind, yet be aware of the patterns or issues you want to work on. Your practitioner will help you to clarify what's important for Brainspotting at the beginning of your session.

Brainspotting is a powerful therapy that helps process and unravel stuck and unresolved issues. It can bring up feelings to express, sensations to release and sometimes memories to process. It often leads to powerful insights, revelations and new perspectives on old issues. It is not a therapy that one does on their own. In fact, it works because of the compassionate support and presence of the Brainspotting practitioner. After Brainspotting the therapy continues to work during the hours, days and weeks to follow. Expect to continue to feel the unwinding and unfolding of the process as the mind and body integrate the experience. Many people notice key insights coming through in the days following that they bring to the next session for processing.

Brainspotting is very effective online over the telephone or video session. The same steps are followed in the brainspotting session whether online or in person. There are many benefits to doing online Brainspotting such as:

• The convenience and comfort of being in your own space
• The flexibility to work with a specialist certified in Brainspotting that may not be in your area
• The ability to work with a Brainspotting practitioner of your choice that has been referred
• Saving time and energy traveling to and from appointments

Brainspotting is used to address a wide range of emotional, psychological, and somatic concerns. It is frequently applied when symptoms are rooted in unresolved trauma or chronic nervous system dysregulation.

Common conditions treated with brainspotting include:

We have found Brainspotting can bring about positive changes and results with a host of issues. We appreciate its diversity, flexibility and power to get to the heart of what is stuck and unblock it in an organic and intuitive manner.

Brainspotting is used across clinical, performance, and trauma-informed settings to support individuals whose symptoms are rooted in nervous system regulation rather than conscious thought alone.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)

https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/index.html

Brainspotting: Recruiting the midbrain for accessing and healing sensorimotor memories of traumatic activation

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030698771300114X?via%3Dihub

Brainspotting: Sustained attention, spinothalamic tracts, thalamocortical processing, and the healing of adaptive orientation truncated by traumatic experience

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306987715000493

Polyvagal Theory

https://www.stephenporges.com/articles