If you have never heard of Brainspotting, you are not alone. It is one of the most quietly powerful trauma therapies available, and it remains, even now, less widely known than it deserves to be. I want to introduce it to you the way I would introduce it to a friend who was curious — without jargon, without overselling, with the warmth of someone who has watched it change lives.
Brainspotting was developed in 2003 by Dr. David Grand, a clinician who had been doing EMDR for years. He noticed, during a session with a client, that when her eyes paused on a specific spot in her visual field, she began to access deeper material than she had been able to access in any other way. He held that eye position, and watched the work unfold. The technique that grew out of that observation has since spread across the trauma therapy world.
The premise of Brainspotting is deceptively simple. Where you look affects how you feel. Specific eye positions activate specific parts of the brain — particularly the deep, subcortical regions where trauma tends to live. By holding a precise eye position while attending to an internal experience, you can access and release material that is not reachable through language alone.
I know how this sounds when you read it cold. I want to tell you what it actually feels like in practice, because the experience is much more grounded than the description.
In a Brainspotting session, we begin the way I begin all of my sessions — with conversation. We talk about your week. We notice where in your body you are holding the issue we are going to work on. Then I use a small pointer, or sometimes just my finger, to slowly scan across your visual field. You watch the pointer move. At a certain point — and this is the part that consistently surprises people — your eye lands somewhere that feels different. Sometimes you notice a slight increase in emotion. Sometimes a tightness in your chest. Sometimes a flicker of memory. Sometimes nothing dramatic, just a sense of *this is the spot*. Your body knows.
We pause there. I ask you to keep your eyes on that point, and to simply notice what arises internally. You do not have to narrate. You do not have to make sense of it. You just keep your attention turned inward and let your body do its work.
What happens next is hard to describe to someone who has not experienced it. Clients often go quiet. Their breathing slows. Sometimes they cry. Sometimes they smile. Sometimes they remember something they had forgotten. Sometimes a sensation they have been carrying for years slowly releases. The work is mostly internal. My job is to be a steady presence, to track gently, and to stay out of the way of what your body is doing.
The reason Brainspotting reaches places talk therapy cannot is the same reason EMDR does. The deepest layers of the brain — the ones holding traumatic experience — do not respond to insight. They respond to attention. They respond to safety. They respond to time. Brainspotting creates a structured way of giving them all three. It is not magic. It is patient body work, delivered through the unlikely vehicle of where your eyes are pointing.
Many clients tell me, after their first Brainspotting session, that they did not expect much and were surprised by how much shifted. Some find it works for them in ways EMDR did not, or in combination with EMDR for layered material. Some find it does not resonate, and we move on to something else. Like any modality, it is a tool. The right tool for any given client depends on the particular shape of what they are carrying.
I integrate Brainspotting into my work with adults across Wisconsin and Colorado, virtually. Clients in Madison and Waunakee, in Denver, in smaller towns scattered through both states. Online therapy in Wisconsin and virtual therapy in Colorado have made it possible to deliver Brainspotting via telehealth — something that, even five years ago, was considered impossible. The technology has caught up. The work translates beautifully.
If you have been carrying something for a long time, and you feel it more in your body than in your thoughts, Brainspotting may be a way into a different conversation with yourself. Not louder. Not more dramatic. Just deeper, and quieter, and perhaps more honest than what your mind has been able to do on its own.
If any of this resonates, I want you to know that what you are feeling makes complete sense — and that things can genuinely change. I offer virtual EMDR and trauma therapy for adults across Wisconsin and Colorado, including Madison and Waunakee. If you are ready to take the first step, I would love to connect. You can schedule a free consultation directly at https://alchemy-practice.clientsecure.me/ — no pressure, no obligation, just a quiet conversation to see if working together feels like a fit.