Understand your story, and leave with another full of hope & possibilities.
What is Brainspotting Therapy?
What would it feel like to have a traumatic experience or remember a horrible incident but not be ruled by the emotion associated with it? Brainspotting is a non-invasive and gentle way to release emotional trauma or physical pain stored in your brain.
It’s worthy because it releases the traumatic experience or memory in your brain without you having to “relive it” and risk retraumatization (a real fear with other therapies). A quote I love is, “language is both a wonder and a curse.” Talk therapy does wonders but it will only get us so far when it comes to trauma.
Brainspotting helps you go deeper, quicker than your average talk therapy. Brainspotting is rapid relief! How many sessions you need depends on the issues you bring in. But generally, you will feel results after just one session.
What conditions does Brainspotting help?
- Anxiety and panic
- Physical and emotional trauma
- Recovery from injury and accident trauma
- Trauma resulting from medical interventions and treatment
- Stress and trauma-related medical illness
- Sports Performance and Creativity Enhancement
- Fibromyalgia and other chronic pain conditions
- Addictions (especially cravings)
- ADD and ADHD
- Environmental Illness and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
- Perceptual problems
- Stuttering
- Phobias
- OCD
- Asthma
- Preparation and recovery from surgery
- Trauma resulting from war and natural disasters
- Anger and rage problems
- Management of major medical illness
In other words, it helps with almost all diagnoses.
I help people:
- Discover where these big emotions and physiological reactions come from and where they are stored in the brain.
- Process them fully so that we can begin to rewire the neural pathways.
- And begin anew by accessing healthy coping skills.
How does Brainspotting therapy work?
In a typical talk therapy session, the client usually shares what’s bothering him/her with the therapist asking clarifying questions, supporting them, reframing perspectives, or teaching new coping strategies. However, talk therapy can be limited. For example, if there’s trauma lodged in the body, like leftovers from a meal, no amount of language will help to rewire our physiology.
Brainspotting Therapy involves the therapist intentionally giving space for the client to process the emotional and physiological reactions as they come up in session, instead of having a dialogue about them.
For example, if the client is feeling pain in his chest when thinking about her past relationship & life, the Brainspotting therapist will ask the client to notice what thoughts, feelings, and body sensations are coming up at that moment, then prompts them to find a specific Brainspot/eye position where the client feels it more directly.
Once the Brainspot is found, the client directs their full attention on whatever is happening inside of them, while the therapist directs their full attention on the client and what’s happening on the outside. The Brainspotting therapy continues until the client has fully processed the issue or until the session comes to an end.
Since Brainspotting therapy is subcortical (or deep-brained), the client may feel tired afterwards (think 6 months of therapy in one sitting!). The client’s body will also likely continue processing what’s left after the session and a few days beyond. In the following session, the therapist will check in on what’s different for the client from the last session to now? The therapist will also check for any remaining emotional residue that has come up when thinking about the past topic and then the Brainspotting will continue as needed or desired.
How does Brainspotting work for addiction?
It works exactly as stated above. The only difference is, we are working with cravings and negative consequences so our set up is slightly different. The problem with addiction is, when we have cravings, we only think of the drugs. We can’t see past “healing” ourselves immediately with the drug of choice. There’s no access to the part of the brain that holds the consequences. We use a setup to create a new neural network supplying a solution to the neurophysiological problem. The longer one can stay away from drugs/alcohol, the more grey matter starts to rebuild linking these areas together.
Ready to find hope and healing through Brainspotting Therapy in Richmond, VA?
Through 1:1 brainspotting therapy you will learn the WHY behind your not feeling happy and content with your life. You’ll reduce fear and build up, learn ways to cope with the traumatic memories or events, and gain control of your emotions while identifying the source of the issues. Your issues do not have to define you anymore. Through Brainspotting, you can finally create the YOU that you want to be.
Other Mental Health Services at Life Cycles Counseling
Brainspotting therapy isn’t the only service we provide in our Richmond, VA counseling practice.
We know life can be hard sometimes and you may be struggling with more than one issue. At Life Cycles Counseling, we have a variety of specialties to meet your needs. We can meet you in our office in Richmond or online anywhere in Virginia. And with our hypnotherapy specialty, we can meet you online anywhere in the United States. Some of our specialities include substance abuse counseling, eating disorders counseling, anxiety treatment, obsessive compulsive disorders, anger management, and therapy for men.