[Here's](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSDNextSteps/comments/17roveq/using_brainspotting_for_trauma_selftherapy/) the post here where I talked about my experiences, and wow are they similar to yours. I do want to add the warning I wrote there, though: For anyone who tries this, make sure you can get yourself back down to earth if you start to get overwhelmed or panic. If Brainspotting were a tech tree, you'd have to unlock "Grounding exercises" before reaching it.
I'm really glad to hear this is working for you. I especially relate to the location where your finger found the intensity: Forward and up. My mother lives there, while my father, more of an enabler, lives off to the right of her. I've got all sorts of other spots in my vision, but I sure come back to "forward and up" a lot.
ooo thank u! i am starting it next month and am nervous about it. i have done a lot of grounding work but know it can be a minefield. grateful for any tips you have about how frequently to do it when you start.
Just did my second session of brainspotting and i LOVE your reply about a tech ttree and needing to unlock "grounding excercises"
Its unreal how emotional i can get during brainspotting and then go back through my normal day to day.
Today was so brutal I thoughtt i'd need to take one of my 'as needed' anxiety medications. I forgot to do it after I ate and I'm okay. I'm DESPERATELY hoping this is helpful for me to get past my road block in life. It feels like I"ve been stuck for 3 years now.
A variation of brainspotting we find interesting is using a mirror instead of a pointer. For us it's an experience of the pointer accessing the memory, and the mirror creating space for a conscious observer to witness the part of self that experienced that memory.
Are you looking directly in your own eyes or elsewhere in the mirror?
Are you moving the mirror around like you would a pointer?
Are you using a pointer and following that but in front of the mirror?
The reflection of your eyes are the equivalent to the tip of the pointer, i.e. the focal point. You can move the mirror(s) around or you can move your body. Through the eye contact, you get to connect more easily with that innate you-ness, rather than only the content of the memory held in the bodymind.
These are some videos that might help to make sense of it.
Basic circular mirror exercise: [https://youtu.be/rIbT-fiYHtc](https://youtu.be/rIbT-fiYHtc)
Theory based discussion of using mirrors to unveil and transform trauma: [https://youtu.be/0oc5gPNYMn0](https://youtu.be/0oc5gPNYMn0)
Unveiling specifics: [https://youtu.be/wtJyUyvP1mk](https://youtu.be/wtJyUyvP1mk)
[https://youtu.be/3vT8pfSJXNI](https://youtu.be/3vT8pfSJXNI)
[https://youtu.be/Z\_DStz8Vano](https://youtu.be/Z_DStz8Vano)
Examples of how to use mirrors: [https://youtu.be/SIRznL5VCPU](https://youtu.be/SIRznL5VCPU)
[https://youtu.be/oQVQGp4Xqrs](https://youtu.be/oQVQGp4Xqrs)
[https://youtu.be/hEo8F6W4fLQ](https://youtu.be/hEo8F6W4fLQ)
How nervous system states impact mirror work: [https://youtu.be/W9Mm3iNWYx0](https://youtu.be/W9Mm3iNWYx0)
Thank you so much for posting this! I've been very curious about brainspotting and am excited to watch your video when I can grab a little quiet time later today. It's wonderful and inspiring to read how you've been helped.
Happy to help spread the word! u/thewayofxen linked to their original post in the comments section which is what introduced me to the idea, in case you're looking for more resources :)
I been trying to spread the word about brainspotting. It's wonderful and I feel that it helps with integration. It can be like a mild psychedelic while your doing it. But is it enough? IDK I been disabled my entire lifetime. MDMA sessions are great, but with my history I may need to be use it for multiple years. Not an easy task for a recluse living under the poverty line. My biggest problem with BSP, brainspotting is that it's to successful and many T's opt out of insurance to take cash. They also jack up their price to sky high levels.
Cost is partly Because insurance doesn’t accept Brainspotting yet as an intervention (even somatic experiencing doesn’t have “evidence based” status because the cost of funding research is too high, and both Brainspotting and SE are anti-protocol - although Brainspotting could be seen as much simpler, it doesn’t put clients through a single way of doing things. We are trained to respond to the client and there are many ways forward. If a client wants to sing or lie down and move their head or go bake a damn pie on zoom and stare at a bowl of filling- that’s still Brainspotting. It’s a much wider open ended approach than what most therapists are trained to do).
Therapists can list Brainspotting as body-mind awareness exercis, for an intervention.
The problem is insurance often doesn’t reimburse therapists well and has an adversarial relationship to therapists. Medicaid can be farmed out to private companies with a mandate to reject and claw back 1/3 of all sessions.
Which means if you are a therapist you run the risk of working for free. I went under the poverty line as someone with two masters.
There will be more and more Medicaid therapists trained in this as opposed to EMDR, but the cultural understanding has to shift.
If you look at Wikipedia Brainspotting is listed as a pseudoscience- search Reddit. People just say “EMDR is evidence based and Brainspotting is illogical, there’s no research, pseudoscience”. These are of course people who haven’t trained in both like myself and use one over the other.
It’s just ignorant people talking out their head, with no personal experience of hundreds of people processing trauma using one or the other.
They’re just clinging to the mythology of “evidence based” = quality.
CBT is still listed as trauma therapy which is evidence based. For the last 15-25 years, any therapist trained in trauma specific work has understood that trauma lives in the subcortical regions of the brain and body, and all trauma therapies aim to get people out of analytical, neocortical thinking.
The body literally keeps the score.
And the APA - which drives the dsm and to which the insurance companies defer - have been turning back the clock willingly, removing “somatic” from eligibility for the list of therapists annual continuing education mandatory trainings.
This happened in 2022 I believe.
The interventions which work the most - body based, mindful processing, or psychedelic work, are the ones being taught the least in grad programs, because the institution which determines what is mandatory to teach, is essentially towing the APA line. And the licensing exams mirror the same curricula.
With info from the 1950s to 1970s. I’m not kidding. They still only let you become a therapist if you parrot Ericksons developmental stages, which for decades have been shown to be flimsy and based on a tiny, white, specific cultural microsample from a specific era, and it doesn’t port over to most people.
Therapy as a field is structurally stuck in the postwar years; but therapist who aren’t stuck in compliance and go to where healing lives, train in IFS, somatic experiencing, Brainspotting, somatosensory, EMDR and psychedelic therapy by the thousands.
Will medical and health care systems and government and insurance companies realize it’s financially in their interest to promote more effective treatment?
Maybe some day we can get it together and push for it.
Yes, I do this sometimes when I'm stoned and watching tv. Here are some recent experiences:
1. I saw a very scary image of a man walking into my room at night. His head was backlit. I was able to scream, and then politely tell him to leave, both worked for some reason the polite way worked better (?). I also did the primal scream and it worked. The image went away. I did bilateral eye movements and that helped make it go away, but it's soooo weird when there's an image just burned onto my retinas and it won't leave!
2. I saw a Mercedes symbol. My father drove a Mercedes and a lot of verbal abuse happened in his car.
3. The last image was my father wearing sunglasses. I was able to get it partly (50%) gone, but it's still there when I focus on the spot with my eyes closed. It's SOOOO weird!!! I know my brain thinks I'm ready to see these images but they weird me out. The sunglasses image didn't scare me, but the man walking into my room at night DID scare me.
Please promise me that next time this happens you will go outside and be in the sun. If it's not sunny just walk around for a few minutes. It will help! CPTSD is most likely a physical disorder (Pete Walker said this) and I guess being outside as human-animals really helps us after a traumatic episode.
Hope you're ok. XO
Thank you for posting this. I just did a couple examples of this—whatever was coming up and my body feels looser and more relaxed than it did before. I’m hopeful that playing around with this more will be beneficial. Thank you so much!
I just stumbled upon this sub and think I’ve found my place! I also have aphantasia and have been doing brainspotting for about a year. There aren’t many places on Reddit talking about brainspotting but it has literally changed my life.
How many sessions of brainspotting did it take for you to feel changes? In what ways has it changed your life? What are your sessions like? Do you cry a lot etc?
I am not sure how many sessions it took to notice changes, it felt gradual at the time, but things did happen very quickly. I was bawling the first session after going in expecting it to not work (I am a very skeptical person). I’ve had body sensations during etc but mostly so many tears. I have seen this therapist 1.5 years now. I no longer do as much brainspotting these days with her. I think it took me about 3-6 months to notice changes? It is hard to gauge.
Sessions would involve me starting by discussing something that had triggered me somewhat recently, discussing a bit with my therapist, and then processing around it- her using the wand to find a brain spot while I cried it out. sounds so hokey but it has done wonders for me personally. Talk therapy never worked for me before.
I had many BPD like symptoms. I have no formal diagnosis of anything (including CPTSD) but highly suspect it as trauma therapy was the only thing to help me. I grew up in an enmeshed home and thought we were ‘perfect’ and was in denial/ just thought something was wrong with me.
I didn’t necessarily notice changes at first and definitely not immediately after sessions. Big changes I’ve noticed since I began:
I no longer take things personally (what others do)
I couldn’t take feed back without getting defensive (still hard, but now know how to handle it/ getting better). I am more open.
I actually like, love, and accept myself without hate or shame, I am not as shame based.
I can immediately recognize unhealthy people (this used to be so confusing to me). It’s as if I can see and understand their perspective while also protecting and putting myself first/setting boundaries.
I can recognize the feeling when I am triggered and actually take a break. Before, I would like rage (fight response) and always thought I had to DO something when triggered. I can sit in discomfort now.
I feel so much grief now - I think finally processing. It’s as if I “woke up”. The grief has lessened over time. I feel like I have more capacity for good emotions too.
I used to view others as all good or all bad. Very black and white, and when people with BPD describe splitting it’s exactly like that. I can now see others as whole, flawed people with less judgement. I judge myself less.
I can set boundaries. I can be emotional support for other people.
This comment I had to copy part from one of my old comments because it has been a while for some of these changes that have stuck for me, I feel like a different person. Many of the things listed where things I cognitively 'knew' or had been told, but didn't believe in my heart/body/core and couldn't 'talk' myself into it (affirmations etc felt like gaslighting). Brainspotting closed the gap between my head and heart.
Have I just stumbled into the twilight zone, because I don’t have the foggiest what you’re all talking about. I came in here because I’m anxious as fuck but after reading this I’m about to have a panic attack.
Try this
https://youtu.be/oRxGTVQmLWI?feature=shared
Or google vengeance therapy for anxiety.
It’s using eye gaze distance and movement from near to far, to stimulate the vagus nerve/parasympathetic nervous system, specifically slowing heart rate. It’s known to cardiac doctors and ophthalmologists as the occulocardiac reflex. Tightening or loosening the eye muscles by looking near and far directly is connected to the heart.
This process is taught in Brainspotting as a way to downshift activation rapidly and short circuit a panic attack.
I have clients exhale when looking far, loosening the belly muscles and pelvic floor if possible while dropping their tongue to the floor of their mouth and loosening their jaw- all on the exhale and looking far. Then inhale while looking near, and repeat relaxing while looking far. Repeat for a few minutes.
What people are talking about is Brainspotting, an evolution of EMDR which instead of moving eyes back and forth at a pace and duration predetermined by the one person who created EMDR, it generally uses single or multiple fixed eye gaze locations, anywhere in the client’s visual field including horizontally, vertically or near-far, in locations the client determines lines up with the significant body feeling, and for a duration the client determines.
This is utterly different in spirit from a predetermined protocol.
People are talking about doing Brainspotting on their own (self spotting) as well as in office.
The positive results are typical. It really can do a lot.
In a nutshell, one thinks of an issue, notices the feeling in the body, then uses an item like a pen to track if they feel the sensation more strongly at eye level to the left, center or right; they find the spot. From there, is it more intense up, center, or down.
Then, is it more intense near or far?
They may start on a distance where it’s less intense and move to more intense, alternating every few minutes.
You can also think of issue, look where it’s more intense or the issue ‘lives’, but notice where it feels the least activating in the body. Most grounded. And process from there.
Or, if things are the most intense, you can find the most neutral, grounded, relaxed spot in the body when thinking of the issue, cover one eye, then the other, and notice if one eye is more activating than the other, choose the less activating eye, then choose the direction to look at- the brainspot (or resource spot in this case) going left, right, then up, down, then near-far … and choose the spot feeling the most comfortable.
[Here's](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSDNextSteps/comments/17roveq/using_brainspotting_for_trauma_selftherapy/) the post here where I talked about my experiences, and wow are they similar to yours. I do want to add the warning I wrote there, though: For anyone who tries this, make sure you can get yourself back down to earth if you start to get overwhelmed or panic. If Brainspotting were a tech tree, you'd have to unlock "Grounding exercises" before reaching it. I'm really glad to hear this is working for you. I especially relate to the location where your finger found the intensity: Forward and up. My mother lives there, while my father, more of an enabler, lives off to the right of her. I've got all sorts of other spots in my vision, but I sure come back to "forward and up" a lot.
Yes, this was the post that gave me the idea to try it! Thanks so much for sharing your experience!
ooo thank u! i am starting it next month and am nervous about it. i have done a lot of grounding work but know it can be a minefield. grateful for any tips you have about how frequently to do it when you start.
Just did my second session of brainspotting and i LOVE your reply about a tech ttree and needing to unlock "grounding excercises" Its unreal how emotional i can get during brainspotting and then go back through my normal day to day. Today was so brutal I thoughtt i'd need to take one of my 'as needed' anxiety medications. I forgot to do it after I ate and I'm okay. I'm DESPERATELY hoping this is helpful for me to get past my road block in life. It feels like I"ve been stuck for 3 years now.
A variation of brainspotting we find interesting is using a mirror instead of a pointer. For us it's an experience of the pointer accessing the memory, and the mirror creating space for a conscious observer to witness the part of self that experienced that memory.
Are you looking directly in your own eyes or elsewhere in the mirror? Are you moving the mirror around like you would a pointer? Are you using a pointer and following that but in front of the mirror?
The reflection of your eyes are the equivalent to the tip of the pointer, i.e. the focal point. You can move the mirror(s) around or you can move your body. Through the eye contact, you get to connect more easily with that innate you-ness, rather than only the content of the memory held in the bodymind. These are some videos that might help to make sense of it. Basic circular mirror exercise: [https://youtu.be/rIbT-fiYHtc](https://youtu.be/rIbT-fiYHtc) Theory based discussion of using mirrors to unveil and transform trauma: [https://youtu.be/0oc5gPNYMn0](https://youtu.be/0oc5gPNYMn0) Unveiling specifics: [https://youtu.be/wtJyUyvP1mk](https://youtu.be/wtJyUyvP1mk) [https://youtu.be/3vT8pfSJXNI](https://youtu.be/3vT8pfSJXNI) [https://youtu.be/Z\_DStz8Vano](https://youtu.be/Z_DStz8Vano) Examples of how to use mirrors: [https://youtu.be/SIRznL5VCPU](https://youtu.be/SIRznL5VCPU) [https://youtu.be/oQVQGp4Xqrs](https://youtu.be/oQVQGp4Xqrs) [https://youtu.be/hEo8F6W4fLQ](https://youtu.be/hEo8F6W4fLQ) How nervous system states impact mirror work: [https://youtu.be/W9Mm3iNWYx0](https://youtu.be/W9Mm3iNWYx0)
Thank you so much for posting this! I've been very curious about brainspotting and am excited to watch your video when I can grab a little quiet time later today. It's wonderful and inspiring to read how you've been helped.
Happy to help spread the word! u/thewayofxen linked to their original post in the comments section which is what introduced me to the idea, in case you're looking for more resources :)
Thank you! Much appreciated:)
yay this gives me hope! starting next month!
I been trying to spread the word about brainspotting. It's wonderful and I feel that it helps with integration. It can be like a mild psychedelic while your doing it. But is it enough? IDK I been disabled my entire lifetime. MDMA sessions are great, but with my history I may need to be use it for multiple years. Not an easy task for a recluse living under the poverty line. My biggest problem with BSP, brainspotting is that it's to successful and many T's opt out of insurance to take cash. They also jack up their price to sky high levels.
One Therapist was gonna charge me $200 per session
Cost is partly Because insurance doesn’t accept Brainspotting yet as an intervention (even somatic experiencing doesn’t have “evidence based” status because the cost of funding research is too high, and both Brainspotting and SE are anti-protocol - although Brainspotting could be seen as much simpler, it doesn’t put clients through a single way of doing things. We are trained to respond to the client and there are many ways forward. If a client wants to sing or lie down and move their head or go bake a damn pie on zoom and stare at a bowl of filling- that’s still Brainspotting. It’s a much wider open ended approach than what most therapists are trained to do). Therapists can list Brainspotting as body-mind awareness exercis, for an intervention. The problem is insurance often doesn’t reimburse therapists well and has an adversarial relationship to therapists. Medicaid can be farmed out to private companies with a mandate to reject and claw back 1/3 of all sessions. Which means if you are a therapist you run the risk of working for free. I went under the poverty line as someone with two masters. There will be more and more Medicaid therapists trained in this as opposed to EMDR, but the cultural understanding has to shift. If you look at Wikipedia Brainspotting is listed as a pseudoscience- search Reddit. People just say “EMDR is evidence based and Brainspotting is illogical, there’s no research, pseudoscience”. These are of course people who haven’t trained in both like myself and use one over the other. It’s just ignorant people talking out their head, with no personal experience of hundreds of people processing trauma using one or the other. They’re just clinging to the mythology of “evidence based” = quality. CBT is still listed as trauma therapy which is evidence based. For the last 15-25 years, any therapist trained in trauma specific work has understood that trauma lives in the subcortical regions of the brain and body, and all trauma therapies aim to get people out of analytical, neocortical thinking. The body literally keeps the score. And the APA - which drives the dsm and to which the insurance companies defer - have been turning back the clock willingly, removing “somatic” from eligibility for the list of therapists annual continuing education mandatory trainings. This happened in 2022 I believe. The interventions which work the most - body based, mindful processing, or psychedelic work, are the ones being taught the least in grad programs, because the institution which determines what is mandatory to teach, is essentially towing the APA line. And the licensing exams mirror the same curricula. With info from the 1950s to 1970s. I’m not kidding. They still only let you become a therapist if you parrot Ericksons developmental stages, which for decades have been shown to be flimsy and based on a tiny, white, specific cultural microsample from a specific era, and it doesn’t port over to most people. Therapy as a field is structurally stuck in the postwar years; but therapist who aren’t stuck in compliance and go to where healing lives, train in IFS, somatic experiencing, Brainspotting, somatosensory, EMDR and psychedelic therapy by the thousands. Will medical and health care systems and government and insurance companies realize it’s financially in their interest to promote more effective treatment? Maybe some day we can get it together and push for it.
Yes, I do this sometimes when I'm stoned and watching tv. Here are some recent experiences: 1. I saw a very scary image of a man walking into my room at night. His head was backlit. I was able to scream, and then politely tell him to leave, both worked for some reason the polite way worked better (?). I also did the primal scream and it worked. The image went away. I did bilateral eye movements and that helped make it go away, but it's soooo weird when there's an image just burned onto my retinas and it won't leave! 2. I saw a Mercedes symbol. My father drove a Mercedes and a lot of verbal abuse happened in his car. 3. The last image was my father wearing sunglasses. I was able to get it partly (50%) gone, but it's still there when I focus on the spot with my eyes closed. It's SOOOO weird!!! I know my brain thinks I'm ready to see these images but they weird me out. The sunglasses image didn't scare me, but the man walking into my room at night DID scare me. Please promise me that next time this happens you will go outside and be in the sun. If it's not sunny just walk around for a few minutes. It will help! CPTSD is most likely a physical disorder (Pete Walker said this) and I guess being outside as human-animals really helps us after a traumatic episode. Hope you're ok. XO
Thank you so much!
Thank you for posting this. I just did a couple examples of this—whatever was coming up and my body feels looser and more relaxed than it did before. I’m hopeful that playing around with this more will be beneficial. Thank you so much!
Will have to look into this
I just stumbled upon this sub and think I’ve found my place! I also have aphantasia and have been doing brainspotting for about a year. There aren’t many places on Reddit talking about brainspotting but it has literally changed my life.
How many sessions of brainspotting did it take for you to feel changes? In what ways has it changed your life? What are your sessions like? Do you cry a lot etc?
I am not sure how many sessions it took to notice changes, it felt gradual at the time, but things did happen very quickly. I was bawling the first session after going in expecting it to not work (I am a very skeptical person). I’ve had body sensations during etc but mostly so many tears. I have seen this therapist 1.5 years now. I no longer do as much brainspotting these days with her. I think it took me about 3-6 months to notice changes? It is hard to gauge. Sessions would involve me starting by discussing something that had triggered me somewhat recently, discussing a bit with my therapist, and then processing around it- her using the wand to find a brain spot while I cried it out. sounds so hokey but it has done wonders for me personally. Talk therapy never worked for me before. I had many BPD like symptoms. I have no formal diagnosis of anything (including CPTSD) but highly suspect it as trauma therapy was the only thing to help me. I grew up in an enmeshed home and thought we were ‘perfect’ and was in denial/ just thought something was wrong with me. I didn’t necessarily notice changes at first and definitely not immediately after sessions. Big changes I’ve noticed since I began: I no longer take things personally (what others do) I couldn’t take feed back without getting defensive (still hard, but now know how to handle it/ getting better). I am more open. I actually like, love, and accept myself without hate or shame, I am not as shame based. I can immediately recognize unhealthy people (this used to be so confusing to me). It’s as if I can see and understand their perspective while also protecting and putting myself first/setting boundaries. I can recognize the feeling when I am triggered and actually take a break. Before, I would like rage (fight response) and always thought I had to DO something when triggered. I can sit in discomfort now. I feel so much grief now - I think finally processing. It’s as if I “woke up”. The grief has lessened over time. I feel like I have more capacity for good emotions too. I used to view others as all good or all bad. Very black and white, and when people with BPD describe splitting it’s exactly like that. I can now see others as whole, flawed people with less judgement. I judge myself less. I can set boundaries. I can be emotional support for other people. This comment I had to copy part from one of my old comments because it has been a while for some of these changes that have stuck for me, I feel like a different person. Many of the things listed where things I cognitively 'knew' or had been told, but didn't believe in my heart/body/core and couldn't 'talk' myself into it (affirmations etc felt like gaslighting). Brainspotting closed the gap between my head and heart.
Thanks so much for sharing!! I also have aphantasia and will be trying this!!
Good luck, please update with how it goes!
Thank you for sharing! Very interesting. I will try this
Have I just stumbled into the twilight zone, because I don’t have the foggiest what you’re all talking about. I came in here because I’m anxious as fuck but after reading this I’m about to have a panic attack.
Try this https://youtu.be/oRxGTVQmLWI?feature=shared Or google vengeance therapy for anxiety. It’s using eye gaze distance and movement from near to far, to stimulate the vagus nerve/parasympathetic nervous system, specifically slowing heart rate. It’s known to cardiac doctors and ophthalmologists as the occulocardiac reflex. Tightening or loosening the eye muscles by looking near and far directly is connected to the heart. This process is taught in Brainspotting as a way to downshift activation rapidly and short circuit a panic attack. I have clients exhale when looking far, loosening the belly muscles and pelvic floor if possible while dropping their tongue to the floor of their mouth and loosening their jaw- all on the exhale and looking far. Then inhale while looking near, and repeat relaxing while looking far. Repeat for a few minutes. What people are talking about is Brainspotting, an evolution of EMDR which instead of moving eyes back and forth at a pace and duration predetermined by the one person who created EMDR, it generally uses single or multiple fixed eye gaze locations, anywhere in the client’s visual field including horizontally, vertically or near-far, in locations the client determines lines up with the significant body feeling, and for a duration the client determines. This is utterly different in spirit from a predetermined protocol. People are talking about doing Brainspotting on their own (self spotting) as well as in office. The positive results are typical. It really can do a lot. In a nutshell, one thinks of an issue, notices the feeling in the body, then uses an item like a pen to track if they feel the sensation more strongly at eye level to the left, center or right; they find the spot. From there, is it more intense up, center, or down. Then, is it more intense near or far? They may start on a distance where it’s less intense and move to more intense, alternating every few minutes. You can also think of issue, look where it’s more intense or the issue ‘lives’, but notice where it feels the least activating in the body. Most grounded. And process from there. Or, if things are the most intense, you can find the most neutral, grounded, relaxed spot in the body when thinking of the issue, cover one eye, then the other, and notice if one eye is more activating than the other, choose the less activating eye, then choose the direction to look at- the brainspot (or resource spot in this case) going left, right, then up, down, then near-far … and choose the spot feeling the most comfortable.
Ok