Nicola Miller Psychotherapy

Brainspotting

I have recently started using this in my Body Psychotherapy practice. Brainspotting sits seamlessly alongside the many body-based ways of working that have evolved over the last 50 years. As a practitioner familiar with the work of Peter Levine, Dan Siegel, Bonnie Baddenoch and other leaders in the somatic field, BSP makes sense. It makes sense not just rationally, to the neocortex, but to the body and emotions, the `felt sense' of our unconscious, limbic and mammalian brain.

This method lends itself to working with the places within the brain where trauma is unprocessed or stuck, minimising the need to use narrative. Instead the movements of the eye lead the way to the place of trauma in the conscious. We bring our attention, curiosity and patience, the therapist from outside and the client from within. This means that between us, overwhelming emotions can be regulated to process at a tolerable pace. Unbearable events do not need to be relived in order to resolve into memories of past events. In effect, the `brainspot' or specific area of the brain where the trauma or stuckness is, can be afforded the time and space it needs to process. This then allows the body to regulate more freely. When our creativity or vitality feels inaccessible, or words seem unavailable, this can be an effective way in.

Brainspotting works well online and usually doesn't require extended periods of psychotherapy. Short-term work is a possibility. It can suit people with no experience of therapy, to supplement existing ongoing work, or to address a specific question or dilemma.