Brainspotting – A Brief Overview 
Valerie Lorig, M.Ed., LPC

Eight years ago David Grand, a psychotherapist for over 25 years discovered Brainspotting when working with a 16 year old figure skater who could not master the triple loop, even though she mastered other more challenging jumps. As they targeted the moment her jump went awry he noticed what he coined a Brainspot, a place where the brain’s response to activation was combined with a designated eye position. Unlike a single spot in the brain, it is a network of activation, which is reflected in the body with somatic activation. As he held her gaze with a single eye point, spontaneous trauma from her parent’s divorce, emotional abandonment, and injuries on the ice emerged with an intense effect. Grand noticed by holding the spot they were able to go deeper into the brain until they reached and dismantled the spot at the reflexive core.  The following day she mastered the triple loop for the first time, which remained consistent. 
(Grand, pgs. 3-4)
A training I attended with  David Grand, consisted of lectures, power point presentations, inspiring demonstrations, practicum work time, and training manuals. A tool kit with a red pointer, biolateral music CDs and glasses that block either the right or left eye are issued to each participant. 
Trauma and unconscious habitual patterns become embedded in the brain and
body where they can remain latent for years. Unaddressed traumatic memories frequently create behaviors that are difficult to comprehend, often limiting one’s relationships or potential to live a full life. 
The brain is a supercomputer with one quadrillion (a million billion) connections, responsible for the ongoing monitoring and adjusting of all our bodily and mental functioning. This supercomputer is constantly downloading information to us in the form of body sensations, emotions, insights, thoughts, reflexive actions and reactions. (Grand, p. 7). 
Some of this information is painful which leads to avoidance, denial or suppression. This short-circuits a natural release process, creating managed and maladaptive behaviors.  Brainspotting is a tool that helps dismantle stuck memories and experiences that are lodged in the brain and body. As therapists we can look beyond dysfunctional behaviors to the neurophysiological and autonomic dysregulation that are often the source of client’s symptoms and diseases (Grand, p. 30). By giving clients the time and space to observe some of these painful areas with curiosity, clients have an opportunity to experience, process and release reactions to these blocked areas.
	Brainspotting is a neurobiological tool used to support the clinical healing relationship and should be used in conjunction with what Grand calls attunement. Attunement utilizes the skills therapists employ when building a client/therapist relationship such as empathic attendance, contacting, deep listening, mirroring, and other therapeutic skills. Within the clinical relationship, brainspotting helps to neurobiologically locate, focus, process, and release experiences and symptoms out of reach of the conscious mind. It is a body-to-body approach. Distress is activated and then located in the body, which leads to locating a brainspot based on an eye position. The process is implemented a few steps. 
1.)	Activation/ Focus – this can be done a few different ways. If the client is already activated by an event, memory, etc, that is enough and the therapist will have the client stay with that. If the client needs to work on something specifically they can invoke an issue. If the client is too activated, accessing a resourced place is important in this stage. The client can later alternate between the resourced and activated places.
2.)	 Find out the SUDS level based on Wolpe’s Subjective Units of Disturbance Scale with 0 being the least activated and 10 being the highest level of disturbance.
3.)	Find the location of distress in the body.
4.)	Locate the Brainspot. (There are a variety of ways to locate a brainspot which will be discussed in the next paragraph.)
5.)	Begin to process the Brainspot which lowers the SUDS level. 
6.)	Return to the activation spot to see how much activation is left. “Squeezing the lemon” is a technique that makes sure remaining distress is processed out.  In this stage the client is asked to “go inside and return to the activation spot to push the distress level as high as they can, and see if anything still holds a charge. Next help the client reprocess again and check the SUDS level. Continue until the SUDS level reaches 0 if possible in the session. 
7.)	If a level 0 is not achieved in one session help the client pack up or zip up the issue in a visualized safe place, in order to be worked with in a future session.
8.)	This work can be done with biolateral music that shifts randomly from the left to the right side of the brain to induce further left/right brain integration, which has proven to help unlock stuck neuro-pathways. Francine Shapiro (EMDR) introduced the concept of using bilateral sound to further right/left brain integration with her discovery of EMDR  or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. Grand studied EMDR prior to stumbling upon Brainspotting.  He created music CD’s specifically for this purpose, which were issued to workshop participants.
There are a number of ways to identify a Brainspot. These include the Outside Window, Inside Window, Two Eye Window, One Eye Window, Gaze or Self Spotting, Rolling Brainspots, Three Dimensional (close and far spots), and Body Gridwork Brainspotting. In all the various forms, the client identifies a visual spot with their eyes open, although at times they may close their eyes. It is uncanny how a person knows exactly where their spot is and how simple it is to feel a connection to it. In the outside window technique the therapist will hold a pointer on a ‘X’ (horizontal) axis and move the pointer on a lateral plane, while tracking the client for subtle or overt movements such as a twitch, eye blink, head nod, etc. Each one of these can be a brainspot. With the Inside Window technique, clients will tell the therapist  from their inside experience exactly where their spot is indicated and choose the pointer position. A ‘Y’ (vertical)  axis may also be used with both Outside and Inside Windows. From there, the other techniques such as One or Two Eye, Rolling, Three Dimensional, etc. can be utilized.
Processing begins to occur naturally as clients stay with their brainspot. Therapists track their clients during this stage and exercise as much attunement as they can. In the demonstrations I witnessed and the practice sessions I participated in, there is a fair amount of space and silence for the client to organically do their work. The therapist offers guidance, asks open ended questions, or may offer breathing and visualization techniques all in the context of empathic attendance. All the while clients stay with their brainspot.
To understand brainspotting is to understand that when you are touching something so deep in the brain, so core, so reflexive, so bodily, there is by nature an incredible sense of attunement that a client feels at a level that is beyond consciousness. 
(Grand, p. 12). 
There may be physical releases as well. A client I recently worked with commented that they were continuously cold, since the weather had just shifted. Upon asking the client to be mindful and look inside, tears immediately arose which surprised them. They seemed to be managing something extremely close to the surface for a long time, even though it was out of consciousness. Working with just those sensations, no story or conceptual information, (even thought some had been disclosed in a previous session), the client stayed mindful with a brainspot and their body became extremely hot from hands to legs to feet. They commented how weird it was as they became somatically attuned to themselves. The releases were continuous and moved through their body like heat waves.  This client also had a resource spot and found it in a small contained ‘safe’ space in the room. They also noticed that they wanted to stay very still and quiet. It made sense and seemed like a freeze response to me. We talked about how a bunny freezes when threatened and it was interesting to find out they worked with rabbits.
The brainspotting model uses a mind/body/brain continuum and uses both activation and mindfulness as tools. It addresses both emotional and physical symptoms that are primarily driven by unresolved past trauma. By using the field of vision to locate eye positions that correlate to inner neural and emotional experiences, it is possible to heal and resolve issues that are held deeply in the non-verbal, non-cognitive areas of the neurophysiology and aims to fully discharge activated areas held in the body and brain (Grand II, p. 25). I hope to use Brainspotting as a tool to help alleviate PTSD, lingering emotional stress, and even tenacious habitual patterns.	

References
Grand D. Brainspotting Phase One Training Manual
Grand D. II  Phase Two Training Manual
Shapiro F. (2001) EMDR Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. The Guiford
 Press: NY, NY