Brainspotting vs. EMDR: Comparing Therapy Options

Are you considering going for trauma counseling but you're unsure about which type would best suit you? Do you feel as though you have hit a wall and cannot make any more progress with your current therapy sessions?

If so, then you may want to consider brainspotting vs EMDR. These brain-based therapy techniques are specifically designed to make patients feel better. They help you progress through your healing journey. Here is everything you need to know about EMDR and brainspotting.

Brainspotting Therapy

Brainspotting is an exceptional technique that combines somatic therapy, mindfulness, healing power, and neuroscience. At a quick glance, brainspotting is when you have to stare at a point in your visual field.

This helps a lot to activate the emotional problems you want to process and work through. Your brain will use this position of your eyes to help you tap into neural networks in your body and your brain. This way, you can work to reprocess them by practicing mindfulness with your therapist's support.

Compared to regular talk therapy, brainspotting therapy is quite different. During a brainspotting session, you and your therapist will identify a specific problem you need to work on.

This can be a powerful emotion, a creative block, poor self-esteem, or trauma. It is essential to pinpoint the area of healing and self-growth you want to focus on. Then you and your therapist can determine a point in your visual field.

This point has to be where the problem is most activated in you. For instance, "activated" does not mean something extreme like the Winter Soldier. What this means is that you will be aware of any somatic feelings your body has regarding the problem in your life.

When you tune into these powerful feelings in the body, your brain will also tap into the deeper areas. This is where neural pathways regarding the topic of the issue are located.

The best way to think about brainspotting is to focus on where you look. This is because the point you look at will affect your feelings.

How Does Brainspotting Work?

Your therapist will use a pointer to help you fix your eyes on the area you need to look at. This will invite the emotions you need to think and feel about the problem you want to deal with.

This is a simple way of practicing mindfulness. You are making way for heavy emotions, thoughts, and feelings with a lot of love and curiosity instead of fear and loathing. This is what makes brainspotting therapy so powerful and effective.

With your therapist present and attuning to your needs, they can help you when you become stuck. This should reassure you that you are never alone when you re-experience the memories of trauma or other problems that arise during your sessions.

When you do this, your brain is essentially changing the way you store painful content in the body. Then when you reprocess the content, you can experience it through more resilience and healing instead of emotional torture.

How to Use Brainspotting?

When it comes to knowing how to use brainspotting, it is best to think of the therapy session as locating a corrupt file on a patient's computer. When you run a software program to debug the corrupt file, it will re-save as another complete file that no longer threatens the computer system.

Your brain functions the same way as the computer. Even though there is a corrupt file, you undergo therapy to convert it into a harmless document that does no more harm.

The power and success of brainspotting comes from the relationship between a patient and their therapist. The best therapist will skillfully make their patients feel safe.

Then patients can experience anxiety-provoking thoughts and feelings during their sessions.

This way, the patient does not feel alone because they are connecting with another compassionate human being. Your therapist is physically there to help navigate them through any issues that come up.

EMDR Therapy

EMDR therapy helps people work through their traumas by providing the brain with various information-processing methods. This gets done in a safe space with the help of a professional.

Therapists can ensure that patients are not struggling with the fight or flight stress responses from their memories. This way, a patient's brain can keep healing from the trauma the way that it should.

Remember that our brains have a powerfully natural ability to recover from traumatic events. The process involves communication channels between the hippocampus (which helps with understanding danger and safety), the amygdala (the alarm for stressful triggers), and the prefrontal cortex (which analyzes and controls emotions and behavior).

EMDR is an excellent therapeutic method. It helps patients simultaneously manage and resolve their traumatic experiences.

How Does EMDR Work?

EMDR therapies involve quick bilateral shifts of the eyes. This then stimulates our sensory and auditory systems. EMDR therapy follows a specific protocol. It helps patients identify events that are connected to negative beliefs about themselves.

This is where your therapist will ask you specific questions. These will be about feelings, your distress level, and body sensations while you think of a painful memory or event.

Although this seems challenging, remember that you are in a safe environment. There is a professional with you to help you through the entire process.

Your therapist will identify the best way for you to use the bilateral movement of the eyes. Some of the ways they will do this are by using a tapping device or an EMDR light.

Your therapist may also tap on your thighs or include bilateral music. They will tell you to start the bilateral movement when this setup gets done. Then they will check in with you every minute to ask what is happening during the moment.

They will track your distress level as you answer and sometimes ask you to return to the target incident or memory. During this process, your therapist will guide you by checking your distress levels to ensure they are low until the end of your EMDR session.

At the end of the EMDR session, the therapist will review the patient's positive cognition and stress levels to help them with grounding techniques.

Your therapist may also make you do some processing homework after the session, like maintaining a log of triggers, dreams, and sensations you need to review during your next session.

Brainspotting vs EMDR

EDMR and brainspotting both use brain-body somatic approaches and bilateral stimulation. The good news is that therapists do not need to talk so much during the session, so you can focus more on your feelings, thoughts, and sensations.

Both therapists can help patients process information stored in the amygdala. Then they can reprocess that information to treat PTSD, anxiety, depression, past trauma, and many other issues.

Since both therapies are centered around patients, the patients get to decide the issue. Giving up talk therapy is unnecessary because you can use EDMR and brainspotting as an addition.

Key Differences

Although some differences exist between brainspotting and EMDR, they both have high success rates. They both use bilateral stimulation with a specific protocol or questionnaire.

Both therapies also use eye movements to unlock memories and emotions. They both require proper medication and breathing and grounding exercises to be most effective for patients.

The only thing is that the eye positioning may differ, and EMDR can be a little more intense because patients might have to relive their trauma. EMDR may also involve fingers, pens, and other tapping tools, while brainspotting uses headphones and pointers.

Evidence-Based Treatment

EMDR is an evidence-based treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It has been studied by numerous researchers and found that most people who complete up to 3 months of weekly EMDR sessions show a significant improvement.

This is because, after trauma, people with PTSD struggle to make sense of what happened to them. So, EMDR helps people process this trauma to start to heal.

After a few months, patients of both therapies reported that their symptoms stopped recurring. This was a huge relief for patients dealing with trauma for a long time, not knowing how to protect themselves from it.

There is no reason to think that one therapy is better than the other because EMDR and brainspotting are extremely helpful for patients. It all comes down to personal preference.

Ultimately, asking your therapist to help you choose the best treatment program would be best. They will have the expertise to know if you will be more comfortable overcoming trauma using EMDR or brainspotting.

So, it would be best to phone your therapist's office to ask about their brainspotting and EMDR sessions to determine the best treatment options. It also helps to ask your therapist about the care process after every session.

For instance, EMDR and brainspotting can make you feel tired and drained after a session. So, patients should always take it easy for the rest of the day and practice self-care instead of overwhelming themselves with too much work or chores.

Schedule a Consultation Today

Now that you know a little bit about brainspotting vs EMDR, it is time to schedule a consultation with our professional staff. Contact us today, and we can put you in touch with the best therapist for your needs to help you start the process of growth and healing most effectively.