Brainspotting Trauma Therapy

Is something holding you back? Do you have traumatic experiences or relationships that have not fully healed? Brainspotting therapy can help you heal and harness your potential.

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Brainspotting Trauma Therapy
in Houston, TX and Online

Deeply Heal From Whatever Is Holding You Back

  • Have you had stressful or traumatic experiences as a child or as an adult?
  • Do you suspect that these experiences may not have fully healed?
  • Are you feeling stuck or unable to break through these blocks?
  • Does it feel like something is keeping you from reaching your highest performance, creativity, or potential?
  • Did you grew up with a lack of nurturing?
  • Were you exposed to judgment, critique, pressure, bullying rejection, or shame?
  • Or did you experience an accident/injury, illness, loss, assault, natural disaster, war, poverty, social turmoil, abuse (sexual, emotional, mental, etc.), or neglect as a child?

And maybe the wounds these experiences have caused are getting in the way of your well-being. They can be influencing the way you feel (physically and emotionally), think, or act (toward yourself or with others).

While your thinking about your life experiences may have changed over time, something deep inside hasn’t. And you don’t know how to verbalize or access it.

Brainspotting trauma therapy can help.

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You Can Thrive With
Brainspotting Therapy

Give us a call at 832-559-2622 to find out more about Brainspotting Trauma Therapy in Houston. You can also schedule an appointment online with our counselors today. We have therapists near the Montrose, Heights & Sugar Land neighborhoods.

Psychological Trauma Impacts Our Mind and Body

Only 20 percent of what is stored in our brains actually comes out through our thoughts (cognition/awareness). This is what traditional talk therapy is about.

But trauma, emotional stress, habits, and sensory experiences are stored much deeper.

Painful or stressful experiences are recorded unprocessed in the body whenever the brain could not comprehend and store them in explicit/conscious memory at the time of the events.

For that reason, psychological trauma impacts our brains and bodies. It affects our mood, behavior, and physical functioning. And it shatters our sense of security leading us to feeling vulnerable, isolated, and powerless.

 

Credit: Lisa Larson, LMFT, Brainspotting Trainer, www.pacifictraumacenter.com

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What Is Brainspotting Therapy?

Brainspotting Heals Trauma From the Inside Out

Eddins Counseling Group offers a powerful, transformative yet gentle treatment approach called Brainspotting.

It can access the areas where psychological trauma is stored in the body and brain and promote deep healing from the inside out.

Brainspotting is an effective and innovative approach to treating trauma, intense emotions, chronic pain, and other blocks to personal growth. It is similar to EMDR (a widely used trauma treatment that we also offer).

The main goal of this technique is to help the brain regulate and achieve balance through reprocessing negative experiences and retraining emotional responses.

 

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The History of Brainspotting Therapy

Brainspotting therapy was developed in 2003 by David Grand, PhD, a master trainer in EMDR. As he slowed down the eye movement process used in EMDR therapy, he discovered the following natural phenomenon: “Where you look affects how you feel.

This means that, depending on where a person looks, they may feel more calm or more stressed while thinking of something distressing or upsetting.

And if they hold their gaze at such a spot (called a Brainspot), the therapeutic process deepens, and profound healing can happen.

Brainspotting Therapy is Different from Talk Therapy

From these ground-breaking experiences, David Grand developed a technique to use the eye position to help focus attention and provide access to information that is stored deep down in the brain and body—the midbrain and nervous system.

Through this access, combined with the therapeutic presence and support of the clinician, the body and brain are able to process and heal whatever is getting in the way of our well-being.

If you have tried EMDR therapy, and it didn’t work or was uncomfortable, Brainspotting might be more effective for you. Or you may want to try this technique instead of EMDR to begin with.

How Does Brainspotting Therapy Work?

Rooted in neuroscience, Brainspotting approaches trauma treatment from the understanding that stress and trauma are held in the body.

How does Brainspotting help access this trauma?

Your eyes are connected to the vagus nerve, which goes through your brain and body, and plays a key role in your stress and relaxation responses.

Brainspotting uses eye positions as entry points to access information stored in the body (nervous system) and the deep brain (seat of your regulation processes).

Such information may be physical sensations, emotions, images, colors, beliefs—unique to each individual.

Noticing this information and observing what happens next stimulates the natural abilities of your brain and body to regulate and heal themselves—from the inside out and the bottom up.

The clinician helps you to mindfully witness your inner process, promoting deep integration and relief from whatever was holding you back in life.

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Brainspotting Therapy FAQ's

Brainspotting therapy can help those facing a wide range of emotional, somatic, and behavioral issues, including:

Brainspotting therapy lets you lead the process and decide how you want to proceed and at what pace. For example, you may choose to work on an issue related to trauma or stress, or you may also use Brainspotting to strengthen your inner resources and resilience

During a session, if you are feeling activated around a topic, a thought, or a feeling, the clinician may ask you if you would like to work through it with Brainspotting. If you are willing, they will guide you through the process of locating an eye position relevant to the issue that you want to focus on.

You may then hold your gaze at that fixed eye position for the whole session, or your clinician may guide you through other relevant eye positions throughout the session. You have full control and will be able to choose the positions that feel appropriate to you in terms of level of intensity—more activated or more grounded and calm.

While processing, you may share your experience with your therapist or stay silent—it is up to you. The clinician will follow your lead and support you throughout the process, allowing you to explore and heal in a safe and contained manner.

Some individuals choose to utilize Brainspotting for each session, while others like to alternate it with other therapeutic work throughout the course of their treatment. Everybody’s situation is unique.

Everybody reacts differently, of course, but since Brainspotting therapy accesses the nervous system, you might notice mental, emotional, and physical differences in the next couple of days after your therapy session.

For example, as your brain is using oxygen to process out the stored trauma, you might yawn more, feel tired/fatigued, lightheaded, or mentally foggy. Or perhaps you’ll experience a short-lived emotional impact—you might cry more or feel irritable at times.

Don’t be alarmed! It’s a sign that the treatment is working and that things are changing as your body and brain are working behind the scenes to naturally continue the processing that was started in session.

You’re releasing the trauma, and that could bring up some unprocessed feelings or negative emotions associated with it. This is to be expected, and your clinician will discuss this with you after your first Brainspotting session.

We want you to rest and relax. If you feel tired, let yourself be tired. Don’t push it. You might think that you don’t have time to relax because you have too much to do. But it’s important to go with your body and let yourself rest. This allows the brain to continue processing and gives your body the space it needs to recover. 

No. A lot of people try Brainspotting and EMDR therapy because they don’t want to have their traumatic memories come up, and neither of these treatment methods requires you to even speak of your experience.

However, the processing can bring up emotions that have been tucked away in the background; though, that won’t impact you consciously.

Your brain is processing the trauma and all its sensations out so you can let it go and release it from your nervous system and your brain.

So you might notice some of the emotions associated with unprocessed traumas coming and going for up to two days after your session—but you won’t have to relive any traumatic experiences or memories that could retraumatize you.

Brainspotting doesn’t require extensive talk therapy, nor does it involve the need for physical touch. But it builds on the strength of the connection between you and the therapist.

This makes the treatment process very well suited to virtual online counseling because you don’t have to be in the same room physically as the brainspotting practitioner.

The relational connection that’s needed for this form of trauma treatment can be achieved just as easily through video conferencing sessions since the therapist’s focus will be mainly on your eyes and face.

In fact, virtual counseling makes it easier for the clinician to track your eye movements and minute facial responses. Without the distance of physical space your face is only inches away on the computer screen. This is much closer than we would actually be in person.

Video brainspotting sessions will work best using a laptop or desktop computer. This will allow for a greater field of vision so that you and your therapist can both see each other effectively. 

 

Your therapist may ask you to listen to specific music during your session. To be prepared ahead of time, it is helpful to have ready: 

  • Any device that can play audio (ie., your phone, computer). Ideally, this should be a separate device from the one you are using for your video session.
  • Headphones: ideally - any kind that goes over your ear. This will allow your therapist to talk through the computer for your video session while you listen to the Brainspotting audio separately through your headphones. 

You'll want to listen to audio through both ears. And your audio should be in stereo.

  • Brainspotting "bilateral" audio track downloaded to your device or available during your session. 

Here are some audio tracks to use: 

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcXvSR7E8QU
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmLpcNGdBx0&t=165s
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApFBK297FM0
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjfn6wRfJFg
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApFBK297FM0

Other items that can be helpful to have ready for your virtual session: 

  • Tissues.
  • Water (for drinking).
  • A blanket, sweatshirt, or some other means for temperature control.

Brainspotting works. Several studies have found that Brainspotting is an effective approach to trauma treatment.1

It addresses trauma and its associated symptoms at the core and stabilizes the body and brain.

Benefits of brainspotting therapy: 

Essentially, Brainspotting can open doorways to new insights and cause internal shifts in your mind and body that help you to feel calmer and more at peace about issues that have previously caused you distress.

As with all therapeutic approaches, some individuals may experience profound changes within one or a few sessions. Others, especially survivors of childhood/developmental trauma and complex trauma may need several sessions to work through their issues and fully heal.

In either case, healing is possible, and Brainspotting trauma therapy can be the transformative experience that you were looking for.

Start Healing and Feel Safe Again

At Eddins Counseling Group, we aim to make a difference in your life by offering a variety of approaches for treating trauma, including Brainspotting trauma therapy. If you’re ready to heal your trauma or posttraumatic stress disorder and grow at a deeper level, please contact us.

For questions call 832-559-2622 or click below to schedule an appointment with a Brainspotting therapist.

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