What Is Brainspotting Therapy? How It Differs from EMDR
What Is Brainspotting Therapy? How It Differs from EMDR
Have you ever had the experience of knowing something painful happened to you — feeling it in your body, sensing the weight of it — but not being able to put it into words?
Maybe you’ve tried talking about it in therapy, and the words just don’t come. Or maybe you can describe the event clearly, but the tightness in your chest, the knot in your stomach, or the urge to shut down doesn’t budge no matter how much you process it verbally.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. And there may be a reason traditional talk therapy hasn’t been enough — your trauma may be stored deeper than words can reach.
This is where brainspotting comes in.
How Brainspotting Works
Brainspotting was discovered in 2003 by Dr. David Grand, who noticed something remarkable during a session: where a person directs their gaze can unlock emotional and physical experiences stored deep in the brain.
The idea is beautifully simple. Specific positions in your visual field connect to specific areas of emotional activation in the body. During a brainspotting session, your therapist gently guides a pointer across your field of vision while you tune into what you’re feeling. When your eyes land on a position that activates something — a tightness, a wave of sadness, a flash of memory — that’s your “brainspot.”
Once it’s found, you hold your gaze there. And something powerful begins to happen. By maintaining that focused attention, your brain gains access to material stored in the limbic and autonomic nervous systems — the deep, preverbal parts of the brain that talk therapy often can’t reach. Many sessions also incorporate biolateral sound, a gentle music that alternates between your ears, helping your nervous system stay regulated while the processing unfolds.
It’s not about analyzing or narrating the trauma. It’s about allowing your brain and body to do what they already know how to do: heal.
What Can Brainspotting Help With?
We’ve seen brainspotting make a meaningful difference for clients dealing with:
- Trauma and PTSD: both single-event trauma and the complex, layered kind that builds over years
- Anxiety and panic: especially when the anxiety lives in the body and doesn’t respond to cognitive strategies alone
- Depression: particularly when rooted in unprocessed painful experiences
- Grief and loss: when the sadness feels stuck or overwhelming
- Chronic pain: when emotional distress becomes stored physically
- Performance blocks: athletes, professionals, and performers who feel mentally stuck despite being skilled
- Early attachment wounds: relational trauma from childhood that may be pre-verbal or difficult to articulate
One of the things that makes brainspotting especially powerful is that you don’t need a clear memory of what happened. Because the approach works through the body’s physical responses rather than conscious recall, it can reach experiences that occurred before you had language to describe them. For many of our clients, this is what finally allows the healing to begin.
How Is Brainspotting Different from EMDR?
This is one of the most common questions we hear. Both brainspotting and EMDR are brain-based therapies that use eye positioning to access and process traumatic material, and research shows both are effective. But they feel quite different in practice.
In EMDR, your eyes move. In brainspotting, they stay still. EMDR uses bilateral stimulation. Your eyes follow a light or your therapist’s hand back and forth. Brainspotting asks you to hold your gaze on a single point. This sustained focus can create a sense of dropping deeper into the nervous system.
EMDR follows a structured protocol. Brainspotting is more organic. EMDR has eight defined phases with specific steps. Brainspotting is more flexible. Your therapist follows your lead, adapting to wherever your brain and body need to go. Some clients prefer the clear structure of EMDR; others feel more at ease with brainspotting’s open approach.
EMDR usually starts with a specific memory. Brainspotting can start with a feeling. In EMDR, you identify a target memory and work through it systematically. In brainspotting, you might begin with just a sensation (“there’s something heavy in my chest”) without knowing what it’s connected to. Your brain finds the connection on its own.
Neither approach is better than the other. They’re different tools, and the right one depends on you — your history, your nervous system, and what feels safe. At Simmeth Counseling Group, we’re trained in both, along with Havening and other trauma-focused modalities, so we can recommend the approach that fits your unique needs.
What a Session Looks Like
A brainspotting session at our La Cañada Flintridge office lasts about 50 minutes. You and your therapist start by discussing what you’d like to focus on — it might be a specific issue, an emotion, or just a sensation you’ve been carrying. Then your therapist slowly guides a pointer across your visual field while you notice what comes up in your body.
When a brainspot is found, you simply hold your gaze and allow the processing to happen. You may experience shifts in emotion, body sensation, imagery, or insight. Some moments feel intense; others feel quiet and still. Your therapist is with you throughout, offering support and helping you stay grounded.
Many of our clients are surprised by how much can shift in a single session — a memory that once carried an emotional charge feels more neutral, a tension pattern in the body begins to release, or a new sense of clarity emerges.
Further Thoughts
If you’ve been doing the work in therapy but feel like something is still stuck — something deeper than words — brainspotting may be the missing piece. It’s a way of accessing what the conscious mind can’t always reach, and we’ve seen it create profound shifts for people who thought they’d tried everything.
At Simmeth Counseling, we believe that healing doesn’t always happen through talking. Sometimes it happens through presence, through the body, and through trusting that your brain knows the way forward when given the right support.
If you’d like to explore whether brainspotting might be right for you, we’d love to talk. Call our office at (818) 681-6627 or visit our contact page to schedule a consultation. We offer both in-person sessions at our La Cañada Flintridge office and telehealth appointments throughout California.
