Brainspotting Therapy in New York and New Jersey
What Is Brainspotting?
“That was different,” he told me. “I wasn’t trying to figure it out—it just… shifted.”
We had followed the smallest thread: a flutter in the chest, a flash of emotion, a place where his eyes paused. And from there, something loosened.
This is why I return to Brainspotting again and again—it bypasses the pressure to explain, and helps the body do what it’s wired to do: heal.
A Gentle Doorway to What’s Buried Beneath
Brainspotting is a neuroexperiential, therapeutic approach that helps access the places where experiences—especially overwhelming ones—get held in the body and nervous system. It works with both the brain’s neurobiology and your felt inner experience in the present moment.
It’s based on a powerful insight: Where you look affects how you feel.
When we locate a specific eye position connected to an emotional or bodily experience—what we call a brainspot—we can open a kind of doorway into deeper processing.
Your Nervous System Remembers
Think of your nervous system as your body’s internal alarm and safety system. When something distressing or traumatic happens, your brain and body may move into survival responses—like fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. These responses are governed by parts of the brain that are faster than thought and often outside conscious awareness.
Sometimes, those patterns get stuck in the system. Even years later, you might still feel tension in your chest, overreact to small things, or feel chronically shut down—and not fully understand why.
Brainspotting helps access and gently release what got frozen in time, so your system can return to regulation and resilience.
But it’s not just the eye position that creates change. It’s also the safe, attuned space we hold around it.
The Role of Attunement
While Brainspotting engages deep parts of the brain and body, it’s not a technique done to you. It’s a relational process.
The attuned presence of the therapist is part of what makes this work powerful and safe. Together, we co-regulate. My role is not to direct or fix, but to accompany you—tracking your system, witnessing what arises, and helping hold the space so your inner healing intelligence can do what it already knows how to do.
What Happens in a Brainspotting Session?
Every Brainspotting session is different, and that’s intentional.
Together, we tune into a specific issue—maybe something you want to heal, understand, or move through. I’ll help you notice what’s happening in your body as you bring it to mind: sensations, emotions, tension, or even a blank space.
Then, using your visual field, we find a "brainspot"—a point in space your eyes naturally rest on that connects to that inner experience. This spot isn't magical, but the brain-body connection it reveals often is.
You stay with that spot, allowing your brain and body to do what they innately know how to do: process, release, and reorganize.
It might include:
Quiet, internal processing
Emotional release or softening
Verbal insights or spontaneous memories
Shifts in sensation or energy
Movement, metaphor, or imagery
You may speak a lot, or very little. You might cry, or sit silently. There’s no need to explain everything. You don’t have to retell the whole story. The healing doesn’t come from doing it “right”—it comes from giving your nervous system space, and being accompanied in a steady, present way.
Because I also practice drama therapy and somatic therapy, I sometimes integrate Brainspotting with other methods: working with parts of self, role work, movement, or breath. These modalities can blend intuitively, offering you a full spectrum of ways to reconnect with yourself.
Why Brainspotting?
Goes Deeper Than Words: Some experiences live in the parts of the brain that don't have language. Brainspotting works directly with the subcortical brain—the part involved in survival, emotion, and memory.
Regulates the Nervous System: It can calm long-held patterns of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, helping your body return to a state of ease, honoring the nervous system’s natural healing process.
Client-Led & Gentle: You’re in charge of the pace. There’s no pushing or forcing. We go only as far as feels safe and supported.
Trauma-Informed: It’s especially effective for processing trauma, anxiety, grief, chronic stress, performance blocks, and even physical pain.
Relational and attuned: The healing happens not just through eye position—but through presence, trust, and deep listening.
Versatile and integrative: It can be used on its own or woven into creative, somatic, and experiential approaches.
A Different Kind of Knowing
The impact of Brainspotting is often described in ways that go beyond words or logic. Many clients say things like…
“I didn’t figure out what changed. I felt the change. And afterward, I could respond differently to things that used to knock me over.”
Brainspotting doesn’t analyze your pain. It helps your system complete what was interrupted. It honors your body’s wisdom to heal in its own way—often more deeply and more quietly than expected.
Where Did It Come From?
Brainspotting was discovered by Dr. David Grand in 2003 while working with a competitive figure skater on a performance block. When he noticed her eyes wobble on a certain spot and asked her to hold her gaze there, her processing deepened unexpectedly—leading to successfully overcoming the block the next day.
That moment sparked the development of Brainspotting. It’s now used by over 20,000 therapists worldwide and supported by a growing body of research, including in the treatment of PTSD, anxiety, performance or creativity blocks, and somatic symptoms.
For more information and research, visit the official Brainspotting website at brainspotting.com.
Want to Experience It?
You don’t have to fully understand Brainspotting to benefit from it. If you're curious, overwhelmed, or simply tired of thinking your way through something that won’t budge—this might be a doorway.
Together, we can explore gently, without pressure. Your brain knows what to do.