Brainspotting is a way of being with ourselves which is profoundly different from our usual experiences. It is very person-centred in that you cannot do it wrong, but I will encourage you to be kind with yourself. It allows us to listen to many parts of ourselves in an embodied way rather than repeat the old stories we already know and to tell ourselves off.
It is a modality which is based on experiences with the Nervous System and/or the Spirit and Soul, depending on how you see things. Because it come from working with people rather than an idea of how things should be it is appropriate to the situations we find ourselves in, whether it is relationship difficulty, problems making decisions or performing in our work, overcoming addictions and habits we would like to change and overcoming traumas.
Sessions can be one-off or part of a series of sessions and on any issue, we will make a plan at the start of a session for what you would like to achieve and then explore from there. Brainspotting uses eye positions to help us track body sensations – that tightness in your chest, the hair standing on the back of your neck or that dull feeling of flatness. Sometimes we might have a clear problem to work on, at other times a vague thing which troubles us or a reoccurring dream or thought that seems stuck to us, at other times people realise they are distant from their lives, ‘disassociated’ and are ready to reengage but don’t know how. Understanding of polyvagal theory of Steven Porges and Bassel Van Der Kolk’s ‘The body knows the Score’ has shown us that our bodies have lots of information our clever brain does not know about and when we pause and track our body sensations our experience changes, because we are living beings and when we aren’t stuck in a trauma response we change just like all other beings.