BRAINSPOTTING THERAPY
Sometimes the body knows where the story lives before words can reach it.
Brainspotting is an experiential therapy that uses visual focus and body awareness to help access experiences, emotions, and patterns that may be difficult to reach through conversation alone.
Rather than requiring you to explain or analyze everything, Brainspotting creates space to notice what emerges and allow processing to unfold at a pace that respects your nervous system.
I offer Brainspotting therapy through telehealth for individual clients throughout California.
A DIFFERENT WAY OF ACCESSING EXPERIENCE
Not everything we carry is easily reached through thinking.
Brainspotting is based on the idea that where we look can be connected to what we feel and experience internally. During a session, we may identify a point in your visual field that seems connected to an emotion, memory, physical sensation, or internal experience.
From there, the work is less about forcing something to happen and more about staying curious about what your mind and body begin to notice.
You remain aware and present throughout the process. There is no expectation that you retrieve a particular memory, experience a dramatic release, or know exactly what is happening at every moment.
Brainspotting can be useful when insight alone hasn't shifted the pattern.
Depending on your needs and clinical history, I may incorporate Brainspotting when working with experiences such as:
Trauma and trauma-related symptoms
Anxiety and persistent emotional activation
Difficult or overwhelming memories
Relationship and attachment wounds
Grief and loss
Shame or negative beliefs about yourself
Performance or creative blocks
Feeling emotionally “stuck”
Somatic or body-based distress
THE EXPERIENCE
You don't have to perform the process.
There may be periods of talking and periods of quiet. You might notice emotions, memories, images, thoughts, physical sensations, or subtle shifts in how something feels.
At times, very little may seem to be happening—and that is okay too.
My role is to stay attuned to you, help you remain within a workable level of activation, and support the process without pushing you toward a particular outcome.
You remain in control of the pace, and we can pause, shift, or stop at any time.
One method doesn't have to do all the work.
I don't approach Brainspotting as a standalone technique that must fit every person or every concern. Depending on what you need, our work may also incorporate Internal Family Systems (IFS), EMDR, somatic approaches, attachment-focused work, and other experiential therapies.
Sometimes Brainspotting becomes the primary way we work with an experience. At other times, it may be one part of a larger therapeutic process.
The method should serve you—not the other way around.
WHEN TALKING ISN'T THE WHOLE ANSWER
There may be another way into the work.
If you're curious about whether Brainspotting might be helpful for what you're experiencing, we can begin with a conversation.