How does Brainspotting work in an intensive format?
Brainspotting is a therapy developed by David Grand in which the therapist helps you find an eye position linked to what you feel in your body when you think about a difficult experience, and you stay with it while the therapist follows closely. In an intensive, the extra time lets that processing continue without being cut off at the end of an hour. Research on Brainspotting is limited: the published work is mostly theoretical, with very few clinical studies, and none on Brainspotting as an intensive.
What Brainspotting is
Brainspotting was developed by the psychotherapist David Grand. It grew from his observation that when a person talks about a distressing experience, the activation they feel in their body seems to connect with a particular spot in their field of vision. Holding attention on that spot, which Brainspotting calls a brainspot, appears to allow the experience to be processed until the activation in the body clears.
Brainspotting's own description is of a focused treatment that works by identifying, processing and releasing the neurophysiological sources of emotional and physical pain, trauma and dissociation. It places a strong emphasis on the relationship. The Brainspotting organisation describes the method as a tool used within a safe, attuned therapeutic relationship, not a replacement for one.
How a session works
A Brainspotting session usually moves through a recognisable sequence:
- Choosing what to work with. You bring to mind the issue, memory or feeling you want to focus on.
- Noticing the body. The therapist asks where you feel it in your body and how strong it is.
- Finding the spot. The therapist helps you find an eye position that seems to connect with that feeling, usually by guiding your gaze slowly across your field of vision and noticing together where the feeling is strongest.
- Staying with it. You keep your gaze on that spot and notice whatever comes up, whether sensations, emotions, images, memories or thoughts. You do not need to direct it.
- Following closely. The therapist stays attuned to you throughout, mostly in silence, checking in when needed and helping you stay within a level of activation you can manage.
- Closing. At the end, you check back on the original feeling, and the therapist helps you come back to the room.
Some practitioners also use music or sounds that alternate between the left and right ears, which the Brainspotting organisation calls biolateral sound.
Working with resources, not only with pain
Brainspotting can be used to approach distressing material directly. It can also be used to find a place in the body, and a matching eye position, that feels calmer or more grounded. That steadier spot can be used on its own, or as somewhere to return to if processing becomes too intense.
This matters in an intensive. When there is more time, there is also more opportunity to move between harder work and resourcing within the same day, so that the pace can adjust to how you are responding.
Why Brainspotting is used in intensives
Brainspotting processing does not always fit neatly into an hour. Once something begins to move, it can take time to settle, and a session that has to end on the hour may close before the processing has run its course. In weekly therapy, the next session may start some way back from where the last one finished.
An intensive allows processing to continue until it reaches a natural resting point, with breaks taken when they are needed, not when the clock says. It also allows a sequence of related brainspots to be worked with across a day or several days, each picking up from the last.
Combining Brainspotting with other methods
Brainspotting is often combined with other approaches. Internal Family Systems is a common partner, because the two fit together in a practical way. IFS can identify which parts of a person are holding a difficult experience, and check that protective parts are willing for it to be approached. Brainspotting can then be used to process what those parts carry, with attention on the body.
Some practitioners use this combination, but it has not been studied as a combination. Its use rests on clinical experience and on how each method is designed, not on research comparing it with other approaches.
What the research shows
The research on Brainspotting is limited, and it is important to be plain about that.
- Theory. Grand and colleagues have published papers setting out hypotheses about how Brainspotting might work, focusing on the midbrain and on how attention to a fixed point in the visual field might allow the brain to complete a response to a traumatic memory. These are proposals for testing, not findings.
- One small experimental study. A 2022 study gave 40 psychologists and doctors a single 40-minute session of each of several techniques, including Brainspotting and EMDR, for different distressing memories. Distress about the memories fell after Brainspotting and after EMDR, more than after a body scan meditation or a reading control. The participants were not seeking treatment, and the study tested single sessions, not a course of therapy.
- No intensive studies. We have not found any published study of Brainspotting delivered in an intensive format.
For comparison, clinical practice guidelines for PTSD have consistently identified prolonged exposure and cognitive processing therapy as front-line treatments, with EMDR and cognitive therapy for PTSD among the other treatments with strong support. These are also the therapies that have been studied in intensive form.
None of this means Brainspotting does not help. Some clinicians and clients report that it does, but reports are not the same as research, and it does mean that claims about Brainspotting should be modest, and that choosing it is a reasonable clinical decision, not one backed by a strong evidence base.
Is a Brainspotting intensive right for you?
Brainspotting may suit people who find that talking about what happened keeps them in their head, who have had talking therapy that helped them understand a problem without changing how it feels, or who notice that their difficulties show up strongly in the body. It is not a reason to skip assessment. The same questions about stability, risk and support apply to any trauma intensive, whatever the method.
Common questions
Do I have to talk about what happened?
Not in detail. Brainspotting relies more on what you notice in your body than on telling the story, and many people say relatively little during the processing itself. You may choose to describe what comes up, but you are not asked to recount events step by step.
Is Brainspotting the same as EMDR?
No, although both involve the eyes. In EMDR, the eyes usually move back and forth in a set pattern. In Brainspotting, the eyes are generally held still on one spot that has been found to be relevant, and the session follows wherever the processing goes. They are separate methods with separate training.
What does Brainspotting feel like?
People describe it in different ways. Some notice strong sensations or emotions that rise and then settle. Some find memories or images come and go. Others mainly feel tired, heavy or calm. It is common to feel that something has shifted without being able to say exactly what.
Is Brainspotting evidence-based?
Not in the formal sense. There are theoretical papers proposing how it works and very few clinical studies, but no large controlled trials in people with clinical conditions that we have been able to verify. It is a method that many clinicians use, with limited research behind it.
Lucy Orton has completed Brainspotting Phases 4 and 5 and a Master Class with David Grand, and offers trauma intensives that combine Brainspotting with Internal Family Systems, online worldwide and in person in South East Asia.
References
- Brainspotting. What is Brainspotting? brainspotting.com/about-bsp/what-is-brainspotting
- Corrigan, F., & Grand, D. (2013). Brainspotting: Recruiting the midbrain for accessing and healing sensorimotor memories of traumatic activation. Medical Hypotheses, 80(6), 759-766. doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2013.03.005
- Corrigan, F. M., Grand, D., & Raju, R. (2015). Brainspotting: Sustained attention, spinothalamic tracts, thalamocortical processing, and the healing of adaptive orientation truncated by traumatic experience. Medical Hypotheses, 84(4), 384-394. doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2015.01.028
- D'Antoni, F., Matiz, A., Fabbro, F., & Crescentini, C. (2022). Psychotherapeutic techniques for distressing memories: A comparative study between EMDR, Brainspotting, and Body Scan Meditation. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(3), 1142. doi:10.3390/ijerph19031142
- Sciarrino, N. A., Warnecke, A. J., & Teng, E. J. (2020). A systematic review of intensive empirically supported treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 33(4), 443-454. doi:10.1002/jts.22556
This page is general information about intensive therapy. It is not a substitute for individual assessment or advice, and reading it does not create a therapeutic relationship. If you are in crisis or at risk of harm, contact local emergency services or a crisis line now. How these articles are written and checked: our editorial standards.