WHAT IS BRAINSPOTTING?

Brainspotting is a new therapeutic modality created by Dr. David Grand who trained me (2006) in both basic and advanced theory and practice. It is a powerfully focused treatment method that works by identifying, processing and releasing core neurophysiological sources of emotional/body pain, trauma, dissociation, and a variety of challenging symptoms. Brainspotting is a simultaneous form of diagnosis and treatment that is deep, direct and powerful, yet focused and containing.

 

HOW DOES BRAINSPOTTING WORK?

Brainspotting identifies activated eye positions designated as Brainspots. These locations can be observed from either outside of the clients’ reflexive responses, such as blinks, eye twitches, quick breaths and subtle body shifts or from the inside of the client’s felt sense of activation.

 

WHEN BRAINSPOTTING OCCURS, WHAT HAPPENS?

Brainspotting dismantles the trauma, symptom, somatic distress and beliefs at the core, a deep, unconscious body brain that is out of our awareness as is our respiration, circulation and digestion. Brainspotting is a body-to-body approach. The distress is activated and located in the body that then leads to the locating of the brainspot based on eye position.

 

WHY DOES BRAINSPOTTING WORK?

The brain is a supercomputer with one quadrillion (a million billion) connections that are responsible for the ongoing monitoring and adjustments of all of our bodily and mental functioning. Our conscious awareness of this vast inner space is limited, just as when we gaze at a star-filled night sky and see a scintilla of the vast universe. However, our supercomputer is constantly downloading information to us in the form of body sensations, emotions, insights, thoughts, reflexive actions and reactions. When our conscious mind does not understand the communication to it by our deeper brain, we feel lost, confused, blocked and threatened.

 

The brain is a genius. The brainstem is the true mind/body connection. Everything that travels from the body to the brain and back, passes through this portal. The bridge between the physiological and psychological–represented by being, knowing, doing, meaning, instinct, spirituality, and energy is where we live and breathe.

 

BRAINSPOTTING can be employed on Skype and has the potential to minimize and possibly eliminate conditions such as:

 

ADD, Dyslexia, Stuttering, Perceptual Problems, Performance Anxiety, Pain, Rage Disorders, Addictions (especially cravings,) Fear, Depression and Panic. The symptoms are dismantled, it’s as if you can’t quite access the memory of the symptom and it loses its former juice or energy.

 

A BRAINSPOTTING EXAMPLE

Joshua, A 16-year-old figure skater couldn’t master the triple loop, despite having met the more challenging triple axel. Using Brainspotting and targeting the moment his jump went awry, released a torrent of raw, highly emotional traumatic material. This was related to his abandonment by his mother, his parents’ divorce when he was eight, and many injuries on the ice. The next day the young skater performed a flawless triple loop in practice for the first time.