Brainspotting in Boone, NC

Are You Ready To Try An Innovative, Trauma-Informed Approach To Healing?

Have you been struggling with anxiety, depression, or substance abuse that you think might be connected to past trauma? 

Are you looking to go deeper than standard talk therapy and try something rooted in the wisdom of the mind-body connection?

Maybe you’ve been carrying deep emotional scars for as long as you can remember, such as painful or abusive relationships from your childhood. Or perhaps you experienced a car accident, a house fire, or another traumatic event that’s left you feeling anxious, vulnerable, and overwhelmed. As a result, you may have a hard time functioning and feeling like yourself in day-to-day life.

The good news is that although trauma can be debilitating, it is not a life sentence, and it does not have to get in the way of an authentic and fulfilling life. Through a revolutionary approach to trauma therapy called Brainspotting, I am confident that I can help you reprocess painful memories, reduce your distress, and live with greater confidence and peace of mind.

What Is Brainspotting And Why Is It So Effective?

Our eyes are directly connected to the parts of our body that hold memories. In Brainspotting, what we’re doing is finding an eye spot (or “brain spot”) in your visual field that connects to a memory you’re trying to process. In this way, Brainspotting utilizes the eyes as a healing agent, a way of accessing core emotions and beliefs tied to trauma.

The eyes naturally turn to look at certain spots during moments of recollection—Brainspotting is simply a way of intentionally activating this response, enhancing the brain’s capacity for change and transformation. 

David Grand, the founder of Brainspotting, discovered “brain spots” while practicing EMDR therapy, which uses rapid eye moments as a means of processing trauma. At the time, he was working with a young figure skater who could not complete a triple axel. While using a modified EMDR technique, he noticed that at one spot, her eyes wobbled. He told her to hold her eyes on that point—she did, and suddenly began processing difficult childhood memories. The next day, she called to tell him she completed a triple axel.

Since then, Brainspotting has grown into a worldwide phenomenon practiced in over 30 countries and utilized by many EMDR practitioners who want to go deeper into trauma healing. It can help actors, athletes, military veterans, first responders, and a wealth of other people who are dealing with trauma related to their personal and professional lives.

How Does Brainspotting Therapy Work?

The first step of Brainspotting is equipping you with grounding skills and mindfulness resources for helping you stay comfortable as you process trauma. Once you are comfortable, we’ll discuss what you hope to get out of sessions and then talk about your level of traumatic distress. Using a Subjective Units of Distress Scale (SUD), you’ll rate your distress on a scale from zero to ten and then explore where you feel this distress most keenly in your body.

Next, I’ll move a pointer across your field of vision horizontally, observing you closely for any visible reaction. Oftentimes, you may notice a particularly heightened sensation when your eyes rest on a certain spot. Once you find that spot, I’ll hold my pointer steady and you’ll keep your gaze on that spot as you talk about what emotions and memories come up for you. This can help your body release long-held memories and bring to consciousness emotions that have been locked in your nervous system for as long as you can remember. 

Each time we finish this exercise, I will ask you to rate your level of distress. We’ll continue doing it until your distress level is significantly lower than it was when you came in. For many of my clients, that level goes down after the first few sessions. That said, it’s normal for there to be some fluctuation in how you feel—healing is never a completely linear process, and it’s okay to move slowly as you work through the pain of the past.

How Can Brainspotting Benefit Your Everyday Life?

It’s impossible to neatly summarize all the ways that Brainspotting can change your life. For many of my clients, they tell me that Brainspotting has helped them access valuable information from the subconscious mind, enabling them to make meaningful connections between current emotions and events that happened in the distant past. They're able to recognize how the patterns they find themselves stuck in are connected to past trauma, and this knowledge is incredibly freeing. 

On a practical level, Brainspotting can help you:

• Reduce anxiety and depression

• Restore a sense of safety to the body

• Enjoy a deeper mind-body connection

• Improve sleep and lower chronic pain that may be related to a trauma

• Increase creativity and self-confidence 

What’s more, I myself can attest to the incredible power of Brainspotting. During training for this unique modality, our teacher would have our classroom of therapists break out into groups of two to practice Brainspotting techniques on each other. I found the process remarkably effective, especially for someone well-versed in EMDR, which is very similar to Brainspotting.

 This experience motivated me to incorporate Brainspotting into my own therapeutic toolbag. Since doing so, I’ve seen it bring healing, growth, and transformation into the lives of my clients.