PROVIDING BRAINSPOTTING & EMDR THERAPY FOR TRAUMA AND COUNSELING FOR WOMEN IN NASHVILLE AND VIRTUALLY THROUGHOUT TENNESSEE, IDAHO, AND CALIFORNIA.
Brainspotting
Unlock your body’s natural healing mechanisms.
This is not your typical therapy experience.
Holistic, body-centered healing for unresolved trauma - and so much more!
You’re here because you have a history of trauma - experiences such as abuse, an accident, neglect, loss, betrayal, or other distressing event(s) - and those big emotions around your trauma continue to flow through your body and are wreaking havoc on your physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual health.
You have PTSD symptoms, you may feel stuck in healing you’ve worked hard for thus far, and your past is difficult to verbally process. If you’re open to a body-centered approach to healing and a non-linear, flexible way to heal your angst for good, Brainspotting is for you!
Brainspotting: a powerful therapy for healing trauma and emotional stress.
Brainspotting, a holistic and client-centered therapy approach that is integrated along with other therapy modalities, is an advanced brain/body based therapy that focuses on identifying, processing, and releasing imbalances, trauma, and residual emotional stress. It is based on the premise that ‘where you look affects how you feel’ and finds that eye positions correlate with unconscious, emotional experiences. It reaches parts of the brain that are not generally accessed through traditional talk therapy approaches.
It has roots in Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) and similarly supports the reprocessing of negative experiences and retrains emotional reactions. Brainspotting can be used on its own or in addition to other therapies.
Brainspotting has been proven to be highly effective in a wide range of settings and issues, including…
PTSD
Developmental (Complex) Trauma
Acute Trauma (it’s happening now)
Depression
Anxiety
Negative Emotions
Creative Blocks
Self-sabotage and Unhealthy Patterns
Addictions
Chronic Stress
Performance Anxiety
Phobias
…and many other issues
How Brainspotting can help you.
The mind can often heal itself naturally, much in the same way the body heals itself. According to therapist and Brainspotting developer Dr. David Grand, the direction in which people look or gaze can affect the way they feel. During Brainspotting, therapists help people position their eyes in ways that enable them to target sources of negative emotion. With the aid of a pointer, trained brainspotting therapists slowly guide one’s eyes across their field of vision to find appropriate “brainspots,” with a brainspot being an eye position that activates a traumatic memory or painful emotion in the body.
There is increasing evidence that trauma is “stored” in the body and that it can alter the way the brain works. Trauma can, for example, have an effect on emotions, memory, and physical health. Brainspotting seems to activate the body’s innate ability to heal itself from trauma. Disturbing memories can be replaced in the brain, resulting in painful feelings being exchanged for more resolved, peaceful things. Brainspotting makes use of this natural phenomenon through its use of relevant eye positions. This helps the brainspotting therapist locate, focus, process and release a wide range of emotionally and bodily-based conditions. It is also a brain-based tool to support the therapy relationship, as it taps into and harnesses the body’s natural self-scanning, self-healing ability.
Brainspotting can be done in the office with me or via a virtual session. If we meet virtually, I will give you some simple instructions and ideas to make the most of your space and devices for a Brainspotting session.
What does Brainspotting look and feel like?
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It starts with having you listen to bilateral sounds to help your brain get into a regenerative state and tap into your parasympathetic nervous system.
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Then we allow your brain and body to tell us what they need to process at a deeper level; we’ll be curious about what “floats to the surface” in terms of what specifically to process that session.
I’ll help you identify the specific emotions that are associated with that event, difficult interaction, panic episode, etc. that you’ve chosen to process. -
As you connect with those emotions and feel them in your body, I’ll ask you to do a body scan and tell me where in your body you’re feeling that emotional energy being stored; I’ll also ask you how intense that is in your body.
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Then I’ll help you find an eye position or “brainspot” that represents the highest intensity in your body based on where you’re looking.
We’ll stay at that eye position or “brainspot” and allow your brain to free associate as your brain and body process in their own unique way. -
While giving the processing that’s happening adequate space and time, the unprocessed, stuck emotional energy in the body is released and lasting relief occurs!
Brainspotting can help you…
Experience an emotional and physical release or purge of stored up emotional energy
Physically feel like yourself again
Decrease intensity of triggers and subsequent emotional distress
Increase emotional regulation
Attune to your body in the spirit of improved relationships
Gain self empowerment; reduced power of your past on your life
Reduce mood swings
Feel grounded and more authentic in your skin; gain calmness and clarity
. . . and so much more!
Brainspotting FAQs
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A: Bilateral stimulation is something you can see, hear or touch that occurs in a moving side-to-side pattern, such as listening to a sound or vibration in one ear, then the other, or following a pointer moving from left to right with your eyes. Bilateral stimulation (nature sounds or meditative music) is used during brainspotting to help activate the brain’s processing abilities and to take advantage of the regenerative state the brain reaches as a result of bilateral stimulation.
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A: The field of Brainspotting is relatively new (twenty years now), so additional research is still being conducted to fully understand its effectiveness. However, according to Dr. David Grand, “Brainspotting is a powerful, focused treatment method that works by identifying, processing and releasing core neurophysiological sources of emotional/body pain, trauma, dissociation and a variety of other challenging symptoms. Brainspotting is a simultaneous form of diagnosis and treatment, enhanced with Bilateral sound, which is deep, direct, and powerful yet focused and contained.”
To date, over 13,000 therapists have been trained in Brainspotting internationally. Here are two sources to further explore:
www.brainspotting.com
www.brainspottingcollective.com
Here are links to recent studies revealing the benefits of Brainspotting:
Brainspotting Study 1
Brainspotting Study 2
Brainspotting Study 3 -
A: Brainspotting is known by experts to be low-risk (considerations will be made where there is substance abuse or pregnancy). But as with most therapy modalities, confronting difficult emotions or memories can be uncomfortable. I always recommend clients give themselves a little buffer time after a Brainspotting session (15-30 mins) before they return to daily life. I also recommend you do something nice for yourself that day and drink lots of water.
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A: Absolutely, especially when we decide together to dedicate a session to doing just Brainspotting. I always want to ensure there is plenty of time to fully process what is desired to touch and heal. Sometimes a particular area of your life that is especially difficult can take one or two sessions to fully process - that’s very normal. I have clients who want to do nothing but Brainspotting and others who prefer to integrate Brainspotting into a larger, more comprehensive approach to their therapy work.
Brainspotting Videos
Click image to view
As a client, why choose Brainspotting? (3:08)
What is Brainspotting? (With Dr. David Grand; 23:49)
Who can benefit from Brainspotting? (2:33)
ready to get started?