Brainspotting
ClinicalA somatic therapy technique, developed in 2003, that uses fixed eye positions to help access and process traumatic memory. Distinct from and not dependent on psychedelics, though sometimes used by the same therapists as part of integration work after a psychedelic session.
Example: Therapist David Grand developed it after noticing, during an EMDR session, that holding a client's eyes in a specific position triggered significant emotional processing — he'd trained in EMDR a decade earlier and built brainspotting as an offshoot of it. Head-to-head, the evidence is thinner than EMDR's: a 2017 comparative study found no statistically significant difference in PTSD symptom reduction between the two approaches, but brainspotting simply has far fewer trials behind it.
What is brainspotting?
A somatic therapy technique, developed in 2003, that uses fixed eye positions to help access and process traumatic memory. Distinct from and not dependent on psychedelics, though sometimes used by the same therapists as part of integration work after a psychedelic session.
How was brainspotting developed?
Therapist David Grand developed it after noticing, during an EMDR session, that holding a client's eyes in a specific position triggered significant emotional processing — he'd trained in EMDR a decade earlier and built brainspotting as an offshoot of it.
Is brainspotting as well-studied as EMDR?
No — a 2017 comparative study found no statistically significant difference in PTSD symptom reduction between the two approaches, but brainspotting simply has far fewer trials behind it than EMDR.