Brainspotting (BSP) is a revolutionary therapeutic tool that’s transformed countless lives for the better.

Developed by a former EMDR trainer, it reaches into your brain’s and body’s filing system to access and process the stuck and unprocessed—the emotional debris that talk therapy alone can’t always reach.

It locates where your pain, trauma, limiting beliefs, and performance blocks are trapped and have taken shape in you, then gently flushes them through and out so that they no longer interfere with the joyful, whole life you’re trying to build and fill with more beautiful experiences.

Using specific eye positions that correspond with neural networks, we locate a “brainspot”—a window into the part of your subcortical brain that holds the trauma or distress. I then use my presence as a power tool, allowing your brain to be the remarkable healer it naturally is.

Yes, there are similarities, with both being backed by exciting clinical results. Brainspotting is more flexible than EMDR, however.

Think of Brainspotting as EMDR’s more chill, intuitive cousin.

While both are brain-based therapies that help reprocess trauma, EMDR is more protocol-driven, and Brainspotting is gentler, breezier, and more client-led. There's no rapid eye movement, no rigid scripts—just a co-regulated, presence-rich space where you set the pace.

This makes Brainspotting ideal for sensitive nervous systems, creative thinkers, neurodivergents, or anyone who wishes to travel deeply for profound results—without being physiologically flooded.

Brainspotting honors your brain’s innate blueprint for healing—no pushing, no pressure, no performing.

That said, Brainspotting can be used for all of the same issues as EMDR, including:

• PTSD and complex trauma

• Anxiety and phobias

• Chronic pain and somatic symptoms

• Grief and loss

• Insomnia

• Creative and performance blocks

• Attachment and relationship traumas

Absolutely. While there is an abundance of budding research, this study compared Brainspotting’s efficacy to that of EMDR, showing exciting reductions in PTSD, anxiety, and depression symptoms in its participants in only a few sessions—much faster than many EMDR protocols.

Additionally, some participants reported deeper sleep, less rumination, a reduction in chronic pain, and more energy overall.

Trauma isn’t just the violating or neglectful thing that happened to you. It’s what got frozen in your system when it happened—usually because it had no safe place to land.

Similar to somatic experiencing (SE), Brainspotting helps your body complete the cycles it didn’t get to finish—whether that’s a heartbreak never grieved, a scream never released, an intrusion never named, or a betrayal never fully metabolized.

It works beneath the story, reaching into the somatic imprint, helping you unburden what was shoved into silence.

For trauma survivors, it can feel like finally breathing fully again—like the wounded part of you that’s been curled up in a cobwebbed corner gets invited back to the table as a worthy participant in your life.

This is how it works:

• Brainspotting locates and unlocks stuck pain: Through visual “brainspots,” Brainspotting bypasses the thinking brain and finds where your trauma is being held in your brain and body, then helps release the emotional and somatic tensions tied to it.

• There’s no pressure to talk: You don’t have to retell the things that feel impossible to describe. This process honors that not all wounds have words.

• It supports your natural healing power: Think of it as your brain’s self-cleaning instrument—processing what has long been too scary and overwhelming, and allowing you to feel freer, safer, lighter, and whole.

Brainspotting can absolutely be used for expansion, not just intense trauma healing.

Whether you’re a runner struggling with race-day anxiety, an aspiring artist struggling to share your ideas, paintings, photographs, or sculptures with the world, or a musician battling stage fright or creative burnout, the process is the same:

• Identify the performance block

• Clarify the desired outcome

• Harness the brain spots to close the gap between the “stuck” point and the goal.

Which means, if you’re ready to stop hiding, stop self-sabotaging, stop holding back your brilliance—you’re in the right place.

We can use Brainspotting to target:

• Creative blocks

• Public speaking fears

• Self-doubt

• Self-sabotage that stops you in your tracks—just when the big opportunity lands your way

• Perfectionism

• Athletic or professional performance

• Imposter syndrome

• Visibility fears

Whatever it is keeping you stuck, there’s a spot for that.

Brainspotting is incredibly safe, especially when held in a well-regulated, trauma-informed container. That said, it can stir up intense emotions as your body processes materials that’ve been long-buried or suppressed.

You might cry or fidget. You might suddenly start yawning. You might uncover emotions you weren’t expecting to meet.

If so, none of those are signs of harm, but of movement.

As your therapist, my job is to help your system stay resourced and grounded throughout, so you’re never alone—no matter what bubbles up. That said, many clients find the process strangely calming, even when big, unfamiliar emotions arise.

Regardless, we’ll always move at your pace. I’ll never, ever push you in a direction you aren’t yet ready to go.