Kelowna Brainspotting Therapy
Another Way to Work With What Words Can’t Always Reach
Brainspotting is a brain-body based therapy that offers another way to work with emotional experiences, patterns and responses that can be difficult to access through words alone.
You may know the facts of what happened, yet your body still reacts as if the threat is present.
Some experiences are remembered as a clear story. Others can show up through sensations, emotions, automatic reactions and patterns that seem to happen before we have time to think about them.
Brainspotting gives us a way to become curious about those responses through the connection between the brain, body and visual field.
What is Brainspotting?
Brainspotting is a brain-body based relational therapy developed by psychotherapist David Grand.
The approach uses points within a person's visual field, known as brainspots, while paying attention to emotions, physical sensations and other internal experiences that arise.
A brainspot may be identified when a particular eye position appears to correspond with an emotionally or physically activated experience. With the support and attunement of a trained therapist, the client maintains their attention on that position while noticing what unfolds.
Unlike approaches that depend primarily on talking through an experience, Brainspotting incorporates awareness of what is happening within the body.
That can make it another useful therapeutic approach when you understand something intellectually, but continue to experience an automatic emotional or physical response
Brainspotting is simply another way in.
Talking can be incredibly valuable. Understanding your history can be incredibly valuable.
But sometimes understanding why something happens doesn't automatically change the response.
Brainspotting gives us another way to explore what may be happening beneath the words.
How Does Brainspotting Work?
Brainspotting is based on the idea that where you look can influence what you feel.
During a session, your therapist may help you identify an eye position connected with a particular feeling, experience or area of activation. Rather than immediately analyzing what comes up, you're invited to notice thoughts, emotions, memories and physical sensations as they unfold.
Sometimes there are words.
Sometimes there are memories or images.
Sometimes the experience is primarily physical.
And sometimes what emerges isn't immediately clear or easily explained.
You don't need to make sense of every part of the experience while it's happening.
Sometimes we can allow the processing to unfold without needing to intellectualize all of it.
Throughout the process, your therapist remains present and attuned to what you're experiencing. Brainspotting is collaborative, and you remain an active participant in determining the pace and direction of the work.
Does This Sound Familiar?
Certain situations create an emotional or physical response that feels much bigger than what's happening in the moment.
You recognize a pattern and genuinely want to change it, but keep finding yourself back in the same place.
You understand why you react the way you do, but understanding hasn't changed the reaction.
A difficult experience is over, but sometimes your body responds as though it isn't.
You've talked about an experience and gained insight from it, but something still feels unresolved.
Experiences like these are some of the reasons people become interested in brain-body approaches such as Brainspotting.
What Can Brainspotting Therapy Support?
Brainspotting may be incorporated into counselling when working with a range of experiences and concerns, including:
Trauma and PTSD
Difficult childhood experiences
Attachment and relationship wounds
Anxiety and emotional overwhelm
Grief and loss
Emotional reactivity
Self-esteem and deeply held beliefs
Performance blocks
Stress related to accidents or injuries
Brainspotting isn't limited to one diagnosis or one type of experience. It is a therapeutic modality that can be incorporated into a broader counselling plan depending on the individual and what they want to work through.
For example, someone seeking Anger Management may recognize that certain reactions seem to happen automatically. Someone working on Self-Esteem may repeatedly encounter beliefs about themselves that they understand intellectually but struggle to shift emotionally.
For clients working through Trauma & PTSD, Brainspotting can offer another way of approaching experiences that may be difficult to put completely into words.
We aren't forcing anything.
Brainspotting doesn't mean finding the most painful experience in your life and pushing directly into it.
The work can be gentle, curious and paced according to what feels manageable.
Sometimes we notice activation. Sometimes we notice steadiness, safety or resources. Sometimes we move between the two.
The goal isn't to overwhelm your nervous system. It's to create enough space and support for something different to become possible.
You remain an active participant throughout the process.
Brainspotting and Bottom-Up Therapy
Many traditional forms of counselling use what is sometimes described as a top-down approach. We use thought, language, reflection and insight to better understand our emotions and experiences.
Brainspotting incorporates a bottom-up approach, bringing greater attention to physical sensations, automatic responses and the connection between the brain and body.
This is one of the areas where Brainspotting and Somatic Experiencing share common ground.
Both approaches recognize that our responses aren't always something we can simply think our way out of. They provide different ways of becoming aware of what the nervous system is doing and creating opportunities for new responses.
Brainspotting and Somatic Experiencing are distinct therapeutic modalities, and one isn't necessarily better than the other. The approach we use depends on you, what you're experiencing and what feels appropriate for the work we're doing together.
Heart to Heart with Kim
“One of the things I appreciate about Brainspotting is that we don't always have to know exactly where we're going before we begin.
Sometimes clients come into therapy with a really clear understanding of their story. They've thought about it, talked about it and can explain exactly why a pattern exists, but their body still seems to respond in the same familiar way.
That's where I become curious.
What happens if we don't immediately try to explain or change the response? What happens if we slow down, notice it and give the nervous system another experience?
Brainspotting gives me another tool for working alongside clients in those moments.
It isn't about forcing something to happen. It's about creating the conditions where we can become curious about what your system is already showing us.”
— Kimberly Castle, MTC,CC-BRT, SEP, RCS
Common Questions About Brainspotting
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It can certainly look simple from the outside, but the eye position is only one component of the process. Brainspotting combines focused attention with awareness of thoughts, emotions and physical sensations while working within an attuned therapeutic relationship.
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No. Brainspotting does not require you to describe every detail of an experience. There may be times when talking feels useful and other times when much of what you're noticing happens internally. You remain in control of what you choose to share.
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Brainspotting isn't about deliberately forcing you back into the most difficult parts of an experience. Pacing matters. Your therapist works with you to notice what is happening and what feels manageable rather than assuming that greater intensity means greater progress.
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There isn't one universal Brainspotting experience. You may notice physical sensations, emotions, thoughts, images, memories or changes in how activated or settled you feel. At other times, the changes may be much more subtle.
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Talk therapy often uses conversation, reflection and cognitive insight as important parts of the therapeutic process. Brainspotting incorporates those elements when useful but places additional attention on eye position, internal awareness and brain-body responses.
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Both can be considered bottom-up, brain-body approaches, but they use different methods. Brainspotting incorporates the visual field and focused eye positions, while Somatic Experiencing places particular attention on sensations, nervous system responses, resources and the body's capacity to move between different states.
Curious About Brainspotting?
You don't need to know which therapeutic modality you need before coming to counselling.
We can start with what you're experiencing, what's feeling stuck and what you'd like to be different. From there, we can explore whether Brainspotting therapy may be an appropriate part of your counselling.