Brainspotting: The Revolutionary New Therapy for Rapid and Effective Change

BRAINSPOTTING
 THE REVOLUTIONARY NEW THERAPY FOR RAPID AND EFFECTIVE CHANGE
 DAVID GRAND PHDPublished by Sounds True 2013. ISBN: 978-1-60407-890-9
Available now from Amazon.com Brainspotting: The Revolutionary New Therapy for Rapid and Effective Change "Once I realized that the human system is so vast as to be unknowable, I surrendered to it and that surrender was not a defeat it was a liberation."
- David Grand summarises. (Brainspotting can change the way you live and carry out therapy - my words).DAVID GRAND's book about Brainspotting is an informative read about a gentle yet profound therapy that genuinely brings liberation. This story of Brainspotting by the therapy's innovator is highly recommend as an introduction to a most effective and life-changing therapy. Have you ever wondered why cognitive talk therapy did not seem to help for long? After having read this book, you understand why, because you have a physiological and neurobiological problem. A welcome feature of this therapy is its ability to integrate with virtually any other. You will be amazed at the results no matter your previous background. Those who have learned EMDR will find this more gentle yet profound for even the most vulnerable and dissociative clients who found other approaches too aggressive or directive. Brainspotting also complements the newer therapies such as Somatic Experiencing and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy.The author describes a uniquely holistic and integrative approach, initially designed to resolve trauma and also indispensible for enhancing confidence and performance skills. Whether clients attend in desperation after many previous years of therapy or as a skilled athlete, artist, musician or performer who needs to increase their potential, this is the therapy. (Many conditions and symptoms have spectacularly melted away in my practice including, anxiety, OCD, psychosomatic disorders, chronic pain and those following physical injury such as whiplash, ME and CF.In Chapter 1, the genesis of Brainspotting is celebrated with an example of a figure-skater who dramatically overcame a block to her progress, previously unachievable even after more than a year of skilled therapy. Chapter 2 further illustrated the origins of the therapy when "Outside Window" was named after David first observed how important the body's reflexes were in indicating internal (physiological) arousal or `stuck activation' which when paired with a Brainspot, enabled self-resolution of the trauma utilising the client's own neurobiological processes. The denouement continues in Chapter 3, with an incisive ability to observe everything and assume nothing with "Inside Window". This allowed the client to report their `felt sense' in connection with an eye position enabling them greater direction over their experience. Chapter 4 demonstrates how a Resource Model offers even more gentle access to and release of trauma and consequent symptomatology for those experiencing greater vulnerability. Chapter 5 teaches us to note and utilize natural ways of balancing our physiological state (back to homeostasis) by spontaneously and naturally gazing at particular spots. This is usually a subconscious action where a gaze relates to where we experience either some activation or a resource within which helped him coin the phrase: "Where you look affects how you feel."In Chapter 6 The Dual Attunement Frame is noted as the part of the core essence of Brainspotting. David Grand describes that a therapist does well to "hang onto the tail of the comet", because the neurobiology works so fast (in self-scanning and attempted stabilization) that to try to race ahead of the comet (clients' neurobiology) or to direct the client is certain to fail. Therefore, using the dual attunement frame encourages an essential `felt sense' of safety in the client, deep in the brainstem, enabling their self-healing to take place at it's own pace. The presence of the therapist cannot be underestimated. So simple and elegant and seemingly effortless when done well and in effect, so complex to learn how to find and facilitate a mutual trust with the clients' neurobiology to enable it to heal in the way it must.Chapter 7 & 8 show Brainspotting to be an integrative model and explains the three-dimensionality of this therapy and how we map and utilize the clients' relevant eye-positions on these three dimensions.Chapter 9 comments that the latest exciting discoveries and published scientific research changes so quickly that it is genuinely hard to keep track. New scientific discovery seems to back up Brainspotting's effectiveness. The book acknowledges the cutting edge contributions to science by Dr Frank Corrigan (Scotland) who wrote (co-authored with Dr David Grand) a new paper accepted for publication in Medical Hypotheses, "Brainspotting: Recruiting the midbrain for accessing and healing sensorimotor memories of traumatic activation" (in press 2013). This brand new model suggests where the sense of `who we are' resides along with where the resolution pathways are. Brainspotting seems to be the first therapy to work at the core of the self, for real resolution and truly effective healing.Chapter 10 examines Brainspotting in relation to the Body and Brain - a complex and integrated whole. The mind is seen as curious observer of the interactions of Body and Brain in trauma resolution. Chapter 11 illustrates sports and more specific performance issues with pertinent case examples. Not just in the domain of champions and experts, performance issues are part of everyone's life. Creative ability is also a crucial part of us all, developed to different levels and affected markedly by our early experience. Chapter 12 explains that our natural creativity can shine or be crushed from childhood and the consequences that would have been suffered over a lifetime, curtailing abilities and freedom can now be resolved. The book closes after a look at Self-Brainspotting in Chapter 13 where exercises are illustrated. Chapter14 comments on Brainspotting as an international phenomenon and speculates on its future. A helpful glossary and some suggested resources conclude the text but start the journey of adventure for those lucky enough to learn this exciting new therapy of infinite possibility.Engage your curiosity and feed your creativity... with this book that is equally informative and helpful for therapists and the public who seek to understand effective solutions for often unexplained but ubiquitous trauma in our lives that previously blocked progress and healing."Where you look affects how you feel." and... What you read here will change you and influence the rest of your life.
I recommend this book highly to all.PD-UK. B.Sc., Dip.Clin.Psychol., C.Psychol., A.F.B.Ps.S.

As a consultant general adult psychiatrist in National Health Service practice in Scotland, also trained in some conventional therapies (Group Analysis, Cognitive Analytic Therapy or CAT, Clinical Hypnosis) , and finding EMDR and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy enormously useful in day to day practice, I was intrigued indeed when I heard that an esteemed colleague - a doyenne of trauma therapy in the UK - who had used EMDR for 20 years was now using more Brainspotting.Although I had held it unlikely that the eliciting of a so called 'Brainspot' ( the finding of a particular point of gaze in someone's visual field which elicits an observable, sometimes subtle, reaction in the patient) could really facilitate a deep and rapid access to the neurobiological core of someone's emotional distress, my own PERSONAL experience, as well as what I observed, of this modality, at the first Brainspotting workshop I took was so utterly striking and convincing that I rushed off to do a 5 day intensive with David Grand in New York shortly afterwards. I quickly followed this experience with other workshops with David Grand and with Lisa Schwarz, who has helped David Grand develop Brainspotting, especially with her Resource Model protocol. I now myself also use more Brainspotting than EMDR, especially with cases of significant psychological trauma. This book give an excellent and very accessible overview of the model and how it was developed and I would recommend it to any psychotherapist/psychiatrist/psychologist as a great introduction to a very significant development in the field.David Grand was a training (psycho) analyst in New York for 20 years before beginning to use EMDR, finding it very helpful and developing his own approach to EMDR (Slow-Flow EMDR, about which he wrote a book). Brainspotting emerged as an empirical development of EMDR after Grand observed one afternoon, while doing 'slow-flow EMDR', that his professional skater patient had a slight but distinct reaction at one point as her gaze followed his finger. He instinctively held his finger at that point and asked to keep her gaze fixed at that point, and for 10 minutes she seemed to be taken into a state of deep 'processing', the effect of this being confirmed next day when she phoned Grand and said that the difficult skating manoeuvre which she had not been able to do for many months she had easily achieved that day after their session. And so Brainpsotting developed from this empirical beginning,With its 'dual attunement' (ie to the client as person as well as to what is 'presencing' observably in the moment in their neurobiology), Brainspotting is deeply relational, but much of the 'heavy lifting' of change in this therapy seems to be done, yes, WITHIN a deep relational attunement to the person, but also BY resources accessed by the neurobiological phenomenon of the 'brainspot'. I had often seen cases of rapid change in EMDR, but Brainspotting seems often to work even more quickly to create deep and lasting change. Some of the Brainspotting protocols renders it a very suitable approach in cases of significant trauma where it is often inadvisable to to use an unmodified EMDR protocol, for example, because direct accessing of such memory can so easily be retraumatising, and lead to an abreaction which is merely dissociative and very distressing (for both parties!) and does not result in any change, rather than to a reaction in which there is an experience of processing or 'digesting' of the memory invoked, which DOES lead to change in the subsequent experience of that memory. I have found, like many others, that Brainpsotting in such cases, especially when combined with 'parts work', can offer a very gentle but very effective 'way in' to work with such traumatic memory.Although of course there can be no substitute for experience in really understanding the power of this method, if you are not lucky enough, as I was and am, to be working alongside a therapeutic maestro who might encourage to take that important first step and do an introductory 2 day workshop, I think you just might feel David Grand in this great book prompting you with that same impulse. See for yourself......

This revolutionary discovery of the healing powers within our brains coupled with Vessel Van Der Kolk's work documented in his post book, The Brain Never Forgets, has given psychology new tools that can be sharpened to one day erratic human depression! I hope all colleges give added training to this tool to future therapists for all to employ with CBT and ACT used techniques in teaching humans how to process ACES ( Adverse Childhood Events) and ATEs(teen) and AAEs (Adult).

I was introduced to Brainspotting by Gregg Unterberger in "The Quickening". I wanted to go to the source so turned to David Grand. I was not disappointed. I personally experienced what Brainspotting can do when I was talking to my girlfriend about an issue we were having. I was looking at her up and to my left. Suddenly the floodgates opened. This is a fantastic book.

This book is well written and easy to read for both the public and professional therapists. I believe there is no better therapy - for trauma after the disasters and tragedies of the world where people are still suffering years later because this will allow the fastest recovery of any therapy. The therapy enables therapists to guide the sufferer to enable their own neurobiology do what it is designed to do... self heal... as any injury to the body or brain can do with the right conditions and faster than ever before. The book will not train you in the therapy but it offers hope and motivation. The examples in the book might seem too good to be true... however, I have witnessed profound healing with this therapy and the examples are real and accurate. Brainspotting should be available to the world - for all who are still experiencing trauma and PTSD symptoms. It is also helpful for those who experience a block in their creativity or performance skills. Even if you have worked on your issue for years... with the right therapist, this is the full solution.

This is a really easy to understand book on the principles of Brainspotting. I read it in conjunction with the training available on-line and found that it expanded on and developed that. It's a fascinating subject. And David Grand writes clearly about it. I highly recommend the book to anyone interested in knowing more about this ground-breaking new way of working in therapy.

Found this pretty interesting. Probably mostly of relevance if you are working in Psychology. How this applies to sports people and the ability to brainspot yourself if you aren't in the field were of interest to me.

Fascinating, ground-breaking development of EMDR - well-written and clear.

I’ve actually read the book then went for this type of therapy. It really did help somewhat. They still do not know how to treat cPTSD