You have done the work. You have told the story in therapy more than once, named what happened, traced it back to where it started. And still, something stays stuck. Your body flinches at things your mind has long since “processed.” The fear lives somewhere words have not been able to reach.
Brainspotting was created for this. Brainspotting is a body-based therapy that helps you process trauma and distress that cannot be processed by talk therapy alone. It works from a simple observation: where you look affects how you feel. Certain eye positions, called brainspots, seem to connect to the parts of the brain holding unprocessed experience. By gently holding your attention on one of those spots while you stay with what you feel, your nervous system gets a chance to do what it could not do in the moment the pain happened. It can finally move the experience through.
How Brainspotting actually works in a session
There is no script to follow and nothing you have to perform. We start with whatever you are carrying, a memory, a sensation, a knot of anxiety you cannot quite explain. As you notice where that feeling lives in your body, we find the eye position where it feels most present. Then we slow down. You stay with the feeling, I stay with you, and we let your brain set the pace.
It is quieter than people expect. Often there are long stretches of simply noticing. What shifts tends to shift gradually, the charge around a memory softening, the body relaxing and the grip of the memory loosening. Many people describe it as less effortful than talk therapy, because you are not explaining or analyzing unless you want to. You are letting your system process in a style and pace that matches how you process.
Brainspotting and EMDR: how I think about the two
You may know me first for EMDR, and EMDR remains central to my work. Brainspotting is a related approach; it grew out of EMDR, and I offer it for two kinds of situations.
Some people try EMDR and find the structured back-and-forth does not suit them. The pace feels too fast, or too externally directed, or it simply does not click. Brainspotting offers a gentler, more open-ended alternative that still works at the body level. For these clients, it is a genuine second door into the same room.
For others, Brainspotting works alongside EMDR rather than instead of it. Different material sometimes responds to different approaches, and having both available means we can match the method to what you are actually working on, rather than forcing everything through one protocol. For example, we can use brainspotting to help you prepare for EMDR processing. The two modalities blend beautifully together.
However, I want to be honest with you about where Brainspotting stands. It is a newer approach, developed in 2003, and its research base is still growing. Early studies are promising, particularly for trauma, anxiety, and depression, but it does not yet have the depth of research behind it like EMDR or CBT. Many trauma therapists, myself included, have seen it help, and the careful, honest answer is that the evidence is encouraging and still developing. You deserve to know that going in, and you deserve a therapist who will tell you the truth rather than oversell.
How Brainspotting can help with common presenting concerns
For chronic illness and chronic pain, Brainspotting meets you in the body, which is exactly where this kind of distress lives. When your nervous system has spent years braced against pain, flares, and uncertainty, a body-based approach can address what talk therapy can’t resolve alone
For medical trauma and medical gaslighting, so much of this harm is not expressed with words (i.e., the panic in a waiting room and the fear and deep fatigue of not being believed). Brainspotting can reach those responses without requiring you to narrate every detail again.
For trauma, CPTSD, and PTSD, when a memory stays activating no matter how often you have discussed it, Brainspotting offers another route to processing it, one that does not depend on finding the right words.
For anxiety and overwhelm, by working directly with where tension and fear register in the body, Brainspotting can help your nervous system find its way back toward steadiness.
A note for the women I serve
For BIPOC women, and for women of faith carrying experiences that were minimized, dismissed, or never safe to name aloud, a therapy that does not depend on perfect articulation can be a relief. You do not have to make your pain legible to anyone before it deserves care. Brainspotting honors what your body already knows; this work can hold your faith in the experiences you've been carrying with you.
Is Brainspotting right for you?
The honest answer is that it depends on you, what you are working on, and how your system responds. The best next step is a conversation. We can talk through what has and has not helped before, whether Brainspotting fits, and whether it makes sense on its own or alongside EMDR.
I am trained in Brainspotting (Phase 1) and am continuing my training in the approach. I offer it as part of my trauma-focused work, both on its own and alongside EMDR.
