What is Brainspotting?
#5 in the series Doing the Work of Trauma-Based Healing
To answer this week’s question, “What is Brainspotting (BSP) therapy?” I have asked my friend Lisa Floyd to step in with her expertise (see her bio below). Lisa contacted me shortly after I published Brave and has been a wonderful support to me as she continued to develop her professional skills as a therapist. I appreciate her not only sharing information, but also parts of her journey in this piece. My therapy did not include the use of BSP, though I have been able to understand the power of the therapy through various training venues and found it to be extremely effective. Thank you for sharing with us Lisa!
What is Brainspotting?
Author: Lisa Floyd, MA, LMHC, NCC
Brainspotting (BSP) is a powerful, brain-based therapy that uses the visual field to locate, process, and release sources of emotional and physical trauma held deep in the brain and body. BSP uses the visual field to locate where the trauma and distress is stored in the brain by observing the body reflexes to certain eye positions. It uses a pointer to locate a specific spot in the field of vision called a brainspot.
When you hold your gaze on these brainspots and bring awareness to how you are feeling in your body, then you can release these pent-up physical feelings of stress, tension, and anxiety. At the same time, by releasing these physical symptoms, you can move through and process the emotional and mental thoughts and feelings that have been building up over time. As you release all these mental and physical pain points, your brain then gains the ability to reprocess these emotions, thoughts, and memories like it would any other normal memory in a more positive way.
BSP is not a tool or a modality, but rather it is the process of attuning to clients, so their brains can go where they need to go to heal. Attunement is the single most important factor in BSP, and it is in the safety of the relationship between therapist and client that healing happens.
I learned about BSP when my former supervisor told me that I needed to sign up for a cutting-edge training that she coined as the power therapy for adoptees. As an adoptee myself, I was intrigued, and I completed my first training in June of 2017 at the start of graduate school. I was among the inaugural group of clinicians trained in BSP in Indiana, and I have completed eight other training courses since then.
I have witnessed profound shifts in clients’ lives using BSP, and clients are amazed at their capacity to heal. I love BSP, because it can be seamlessly integrated with other modalities, and clients can be taught how to do BSP on their own at home. It is built on the premise that deep healing will happen as the clinician follows the lead of the client in knowing best what her system needs, and this increases self-trust in the client.
I have early developmental, attachment, and adoption trauma, so I was interested to see how BSP would help me. I was withdrawn and shutdown, as a child, and I used avoidance and isolation as my main coping tools. I found it hard to engage with others due to the relational trauma I had endured throughout my life, and I was blessed to work with an amazing BSP therapist for several years. He had suffered through his own childhood traumas, so he was able to provide a space where my younger parts felt safe.
It is amazing how having my pain witnessed for the first time in my life helped to release burdens that I no longer needed to carry. We would do part spotting in which I imagined a younger version of myself walking into the room, and I would find the spot where I intuitively knew this part was. It is powerful to engage with these young, hurting parts who were largely ignored and to allow them to know that they are no longer alone in their pain and suffering. I can hold space for these parts and provide the attunement and safety they so desperately needed when I was younger. BSP has helped me to understand myself better, and I can engage much more with people.
I would like to highlight another BSP training that I completed called Expansion BSP, and it is my favorite training that I have done. Some people need a gentler approach to BSP, and Expansion is what I love to use with these clients. Expansion works with hope and possibility, and clients can choose to work with a goal or a feeling state that they want more of such as peace or joy. They are encouraged to remember specific moments when they remember feeling this most strongly, and they can discover what their best shot is at connecting to whatever it is they need in that moment. They lean into their felt sense and locate where they feel the positive expansion possibility in their body. Then, the Expansion Brainspot is located with the pointer. It is a privilege to witness clients learn to discover and love themselves.
Meet the Author:
I’m Lisa Floyd, MA, LMHC, NCC, and my areas of specialty are highly sensitive women, religious trauma, adoption, and Brainspotting. I’m a Certified Brainspotting Practioner, and I’m informed in Internal Family Systems and Somatic Experiencing. I have contributed to the books Adoption Therapy: Perspectives from Clients and Clinicians on Processing and Healing Post-Adoption Issues (2014) and The Adoptee Survival Guide: Adoptees Share Their Wisdom and Tools (2015). I have also been a speaker at the Indiana Adoptee Network Conference (2018). I completed my Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Indiana Wesleyan University in 2019.
Additional Information: “Brainspotting locates points in the client’s visual field that help to access unprocessed trauma in the subcortical brain. Brainspotting (BSP) was discovered in 2003 by David Grand, Ph.D. Over 13,000 therapists have been trained in BSP (52 internationally), in the United States, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia and Africa. Dr. Grand discovered that "Where you look affects how you feel." It is the brain activity, especially in the subcortical brain that organizes itself around that eye position.” (See Source for additional information)
Note: All information and resources presented in these newsletters are drawn from my personal story and those of my guest authors and do not replace professional psychological care for mental health issues. My legal and ethical advice is always to seek professional help.
Brainspotting has been an effective and beautiful part of my healing. Thank you for this! And thank you for sharing some of your story, Lisa!