What Makes Brainspotting Different from Other Therapies, and How Can It Help You Heal Faster?
As a therapist, I sometimes hear people express resistance to or skepticism about the efficacy of talk therapy. While traditional talk therapy can be profoundly healing, there is truth to the fact that sometimes words are only part of the story. When someone is struggling with anxiety, trauma, or other types of nervous system dysregulation, inviting the body into the healing process is essential when it comes to fast and impactful healing.
Recognizing the necessity of body-based healing led me to become trained in Brainspotting, which is why I use it in my practice and advocate for others to try it if they feel stuck in regular talk therapy.
How Brainspotting Works
Brainspotting is a powerful, somatic-based approach that helps individuals access and process emotional material stored deep within their brains and bodies. Brainspotting is based on the understanding that the position of your eyes can directly connect to regions of the brain that hold unprocessed emotions, sensations, and memories.
In a session, we locate what’s called a brainspot: a point in your visual field that corresponds to an internal “activation” or felt experience such as a tightening in the chest, a lump in the throat, or a heaviness behind the eyes. Other times, the brainspot may be more subtle.
With a trained therapist’s attuned presence and your mindful awareness, a guided brainspotting session can move stuck energy in a natural, healing way. Instead of forcing change or talking about it, in Brainspotting, you’re allowing your nervous system’s own wisdom to complete what was once interrupted by overwhelm or trauma.
This gentle and body-based healing is what makes Brainspotting different from talk therapy: instead of analyzing a feeling, you stay with it in the body long enough for it to resolve from the inside out.
Reaching Beyond Talk Therapy
While we may remember the story of our deepest wounds: how they happened, what we said or heard, and the thoughts we connect to them now, the emotional reality of these memories lives in our bodies as sensations, emotional tones, and reflexive patterns developed by our nervous systems to help us stay safe.
This reality is why trauma healing usually needs to go beyond cognition and into the body. Somatic therapy and nervous system regulation tools like Brainspotting reach the subcortical layers of the brain: the same places where survival responses like fight, flight, freeze, or fawn are encoded. This depth of processing allows healing to happen more efficiently because you’re not just thinking differently; you’re also feeling differently.
Clients often describe Brainspotting as deeply calming and surprisingly efficient. It helps integrate body and mind, making new patterns of safety, trust, and emotional balance possible. This is different from talk therapy, where you may feel compelled to rehash painful memories in detail.
Brainspotting Plays Well with Others
As a holistic therapist, I am always eager to find ways to address all aspects of a person. Brainspotting complements many modalities and therapeutic approaches. Brainspotting pairs well with mindfulness practices and attachment repair to support a calm nervous system, greater self-awareness, and better tools for navigating relationships with self and others. Together, these approaches support not just symptom relief, but genuine transformation. I can see in my clients that their nervous systems have learned what it means to feel safe, connected, and whole again.
Tool/Takeaway: Find Your Calm Spot
You can try this simple version of Brainspotting at home as a grounding practice:
Take a deep breath and allow your body to settle.
Slowly move your eyes from left to right, pausing at different points. Don’t rush this process.
Notice where your body feels most at ease—maybe your breath deepens, or your shoulders soften slightly.
When you find that spot, rest your gaze there for 30 seconds.
Let your body feel that sense of calm and presence.
That’s your “calm spot.” You can return to it anytime you feel overwhelmed, anxious, or disconnected. Over time, this practice gently teaches your nervous system what safety feels like.
If you are interested in combining Brainspotting with mindfulness, try this Guided Self-Acceptance Meditation.
Healing That Starts in the Body
If you’ve felt stuck or resistant to starting or continuing talk therapy, maybe you feel like your mind has processed everything but you're still not feeling any different, Brainspotting therapy may be the missing piece.
By working directly with your body’s innate intelligence, you can release old emotional patterns, restore nervous system regulation, and experience deep and sustainable.
If you are ready to experience this for yourself, I invite you to schedule a Brainspotting session with me or connect to learn more.
