“Where you look affects how you feel”

This blog is for you, if…

• You’ve tried different kinds of therapy and it just hasn’t fully worked. 

• Other trauma approaches have felt destabilizing, too intense, or retraumatizing. 

• Talking about your trauma appeals to you about as much as running across hot coals. 

• You’re ready to address your trauma, but don’t want to commit to months or years of therapy.

What is Brainspotting?

Brainspotting is a therapeutic approach to trauma treatment that uses eye position to access and release buried, stuck, or unprocessed trauma.

• This is a powerful yet gentle approach combining intense focus and free-flowing processing—which can be entirely non-verbal. 

• It works by identifying, processing, and releasing core neurophysiological sources of emotional/body pain, trauma, and dissociation. 

• Brainspotting uses a fixed eye position that connects to the brain networks which store trauma.

What is a Brainspot?

Just as the eyes scan the outside environment for information and signals, they do the same in our inside environments, scanning inside our brains for areas where trauma is stored. Essentially, when we talk about trauma, the brain scans itself to reveal where that trauma is being held. Reflexive cues—seen in the eyes—tell us when the brain has found something important. Brainspotting notices and follows these cues to find where the brain pointing to—where that trauma is stuck. This place is called a Brainspot. 

Brainspot: An eye position that correlates with a physiological trauma capsule that holds traumatic experience in memory form.

How trauma gets stuck

• Trauma overwhelms the brain’s capacity to process and integrate experiences. This means that many traumatic experiences are very difficult to process. For anyone who’s been frustrated that they just haven’t been able to “get over” painful experiences, this might be why.  

• The more difficult it is to process, the more likely it is that trauma becomes trapped in the subcortical brain, where trauma is stored. 

• When the brain is overwhelmed and unable to integrate trauma, it does the next best thing it can: it bubble wraps that trauma so you don’t have to feel it all the way. 

If you’re living with trauma, then you know that this protective bubble wrapping doesn’t entirely protect you from the memories, nightmares, fears, sadness, anxiety, or other aftershocks from that trauma. It still shows up.  

Brainspotting uses the field of vision to find out where we are holding these traumas in our brain. Processing from this “Brainspot” is like unwrapping a bandage and treating the wound directly.  

Why talking doesn’t always work

• Because trauma is stored in the subcortical, or deep brain, talking it out may not help because talking means staying in the neocortical brain, the part of the brain that we use for reasoning, judgment, and also conversational engagement. 

• Also, some trauma is stored in other areas of the brain that don’t involve language. Other interventions are essential to reaching these types of trauma. 

How is Brainspotting different than EMDR?

Much could be said about the similarities and differences between Brainspotting and EMDR. This is a highly simplified snapshot.

• Both approaches use bilateral stimulation but in ways unique to each approach. (In Brainspotting, this is primarily auditory)

• Brainspotting is visually focused (rather than requiring eye movement), unearthing trauma capsules that hold unknown collections of bodily memories and experiences.

• Brainspotting sessions tend to be more flexible than traditional EMDR sessions that utilize specific protocols (although you may be interested to learn how we do EMDR differently at Woven). 

• Both approaches have been found effective in treating trauma. There are many paths to healing, and it’s important to find one—or more—that fits for you.

Are you interested in trying brainspotting? I have a few slots available for new clients. You can book a consultation with me below.

At Woven we provide online therapy and also offer many different types of trauma therapy groups including our Women’s Trauma, Religious Trauma, and Queer Trauma groups. All of our therapists specialize in trauma informed care, and informed trauma therapy.