"Where you look affects how you feel"
Dr. David Grand
A Bit About Brainspotting
Brainspotting is an advanced brain-body-mindfulness-based therapeutic approach, which focuses processing in the parts of the brain where memory and emotion are stored and the parts of the brain involved with regulation, so you actually address the emotions and memories impacting you from a part of the brain that can help you feel better and feel more regulated. The neocortex is not involved with regulation; you can't think your way into feeling better. Rather than trying to use the neocortex to think your way through something, Brainspotting helps us go to the source for a much more efficient and powerful experience.
Have you ever noticed yourself simply gazing or staring at some spot on the floor or wall or ceiling? Have you noticed yourself looking away or up or somewhere else when really thinking about something you are saying or want to say, particularly when the subject is loaded emotionally? As a therapist, I notice this all the time. Clients often become unnecessarily self-conscious about it and force themselves to make eye contact with me. While their gaze continues to drift back to these spots, they do not allow themselves to hold the spot. What they don’t realize is that rather than avoiding eye contact, they are intuitively helping themselves to process by accessing deep neural connections and memories in the subcortical brain. Where you look affects how you feel.
Brainspotting is a powerful tool for therapy to help process traumas, negative cognitions, difficult emotions, and upsetting events by focusing your visual field on a spot that stimulates processing. It is a “physiological approach with psychological consequences” that allows us to access our self-healing potential via bypassing the thinking of the neocortex and “promotes organization and integration through coalescence of hitherto separated information files”; “a Brainspot is a stored oculomotor orientation to a traumatic experience which has failed to integrate” (Corrigan & Grand 2013).
Dr. Norman Doidge
Brainspotting is a remarkable, sophisticated, flexible addition to the therapeutic toolkit of any psychotherapist. I know because I use it regularly, and find that, combined with the psychoanalytic approaches I normally practice, the results are astonishingly helpful.
Dr. Gabor Mate
I have personally experienced the benefit of Brainspotting. Just with one session, I was able to relax the grip of a burdensome perspective and its associated emotions, both of which I had carried for a long time.
Dr. Robert Scaer
Brainspotting is based on the profound attunement of the therapist with the patient, finding a somatic cue and extinguishing it by down-regulating the amygdala. It isn’t just PNS (Parasympathetic Nervous System) activation that is facilitated, it is homeostasis.
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk
We know how to treat PTSD... We have great success with methods like EMDR, Brainspotting, Neurofeedback, Internal Family Systems therapy...
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Upcoming Events
Multiple DatesSun, Jan 28The Green HouseJan 28, 2024, 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM ESTThe Green House, 447 E 38th St, Indianapolis, IN 46205, USAJan 28, 2024, 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM ESTThe Green House, 447 E 38th St, Indianapolis, IN 46205, USABrainspotting is a powerful brain-body-mindfulness-based relational therapy used for the treatment of trauma as well as personal growth and expansion.This training is open to all mental health counselors, marriage & family therapists, social workers, psychologists, addiction counselors, & students.
Multiple DatesSun, Feb 04webinarFeb 04, 2024, 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM ESTwebinarFeb 04, 2024, 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM ESTwebinarJoin Senior INternational Brainspotting Trainer Roby Abeles & Brooke Randolph for a deep dive of the essential aspects of Brainspotting no matter how you set up for Brainspotting. Plus learn how to combine Brainspotting & Narrative therapy to honor your client's heroic journeys.
Multiple DatesThu, Feb 29Hybrid (Zoom + Indianapolis in-person)Feb 29, 2024, 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM ESTHybrid (Zoom + Indianapolis in-person), 447 E 38th St, Indianapolis, IN 46205, USAFeb 29, 2024, 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM ESTHybrid (Zoom + Indianapolis in-person), 447 E 38th St, Indianapolis, IN 46205, USAHybrid Training | Zoom + Indianapolis in-person This Approved Brainspotting Specialty Training is for Brainspotting therapists who have completed Phase 1. (Phase 2 is strongly recommended.)- Multiple DatesMon, Apr 15The Green HouseApr 15, 2024, 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM EDTThe Green House, 447 E 38th St, Indianapolis, IN 46205, USAApr 15, 2024, 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM EDTThe Green House, 447 E 38th St, Indianapolis, IN 46205, USABrainspotting is a powerful brain-body-mindfulness-based relational therapy used for the treatment of trauma as well as personal growth and expansion.This training is open to all mental health counselors, marriage & family therapists, social workers, psychologists, addiction counselors, & students.
Multiple DatesFri, Jun 07MindFit CounselingJun 07, 2024, 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM EDTMindFit Counseling, 755 W Carmel Drive, Suite 206, Carmel, IN 46032
Questions about Brainspotting?
Meet The Team
Heather Harris.
Peer Support Lead
Certified Brainspotting Therapist
Approved Brainspotting Consultant
NaKaisha Tolbert-Banks,
Equity Clinicians of Color Lead
Certified Brainspotting Therapist
Kristen Swart
Certified Brainspotting Therapist
Approved Brainspotting Consultant
Brooke Randolph,
Coordinator
Certified Brainspotting Therapist
Approved Brainspotting Consultant
Brainspotting Trainer