Brainspotting is a intervention technique that uses your eye position or focal point to address the barriers held in our lower brain functioning. This model can be used to identify areas of traumatic stress that can be causing physical pain, performance blockages, or overall just decreasing your quality of life. Discovered during a session of EMDR, Dr. David Grand has shared this model to support our communities, using the same brain science as other bottom up therapeutic interventions.
Anytime you are working with a clinician there are different types of interventions that can be used to access different areas of the brain. Top down methods are the more well known, traditional therapeutic approaches, like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and narrative therapy. These methods ask the client to change the thought - which will then change the way that you feel. Use of top down methods are excellent, except when an individual has experienced trauma - which will often shut down the rational (frontal lobe) areas of the brain that CBT methods target. This can be why traditional approaches have not worked for those who have tried CBT because this area of the brain that is a focal point for CBT interventions is not functioning the way that it should be.
Bottom up approaches work differently, they begin with the survival area of the brain, which is usually activated in people who have experienced trauma or attachment wounds. These methods, such as EMDR, somatic therapy, or Brainspotting - allow the client to first focus in on their bodily response then move upward to form new thinking patterns regarding that feeling. These stress responses can be reset and these automatic processing challenges can be reduced. This allows clients to find greater joy in relationships, employment, and social interactions.
Sessions will begin with addressing what ever issue or memory that the client desires. The clinician will check in with the clients level of physical activation and find the 'brainspot' that is correlated with the physical sensation. Once the spot is found, the client will process the physical sensations, memories, and thought patterns that arise. This allows for the rational and emotional brain to increase communication and hopefully relieve the traumatic stress that is occurring in the clients life. Sessions can be scheduled 60, 90, to 120 minutes depending on the clients need. Clients are not required to discuss their problem or memory at length, just encouraged to identify and gauge their bodily responses that come up during session. Bi-lateral music is also used to support new connections to be formed in the brain during processing.
Brainspotting is only about 10-years old and there are many large studies that have incorporated Brainspotting that do show positive responses. There are many active research studies still collecting data and some completed peer reviewed articles can be found here:
https://brainspotting.com/about-bsp/research-and-case-studies/
You can start by calling our office line (530.545.0891) and obtaining a free consultation with our office to see if this intervention is right for you. We provide a demonstration during the consult so that you can get a feel for what a full session will feel like.
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