Brainspotting vs EMDR
Aimee Solis, LPC, LCPC, LMHC
Burnt out and hopeless.
I’ve been in the mental health field in some capacity for more than 20 years and started off bright-eyed and bushy tailed, eager to find answers and make a difference, passionate that I could really change the world one client at a time. Fast forward to around 2015, I was burnt out and traditional, talk therapy methods I was trained in weren’t working for my clients and they weren’t working for me either. I had further internalized by then that I was a failure and it must be me. After years of my own therapy and training and being an expert at what I was supposed to do, I couldn’t stop myself from reacting to trauma triggers and I was barely scratching the surface in terms of progress towards healing the impact that my own developmental trauma had on my sense of self. I was doing the very best I could and I was feeling hopeless.
It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem, it’s me.
In 2018, after having my second child, I heard about EMDR and decided to try it. I was excited and eager to be finally trying a therapy that held so much promise and was so praised by the field. I tried. And tried. I went weekly for about 18 months. And I left that experience feeling worse than ever about myself feeling like I had to come to terms with the reality that it really was me. I invested all of that time, money, energy, and my hope and trust into the therapeutic process and came out feeling worse in some ways.
This may seem like an attack on EMDR, but it’s not, I know it has a place and helps many. I encourage you to keep reading.
Renewed hope.
Then, in early 2020, a colleague asked me to attend a new training she’d heard about from another therapist that weekend. This was the second time I’d had a colleague invite me to a Brainspotting training and I decided not to ignore the coincidence, follow my curiosity and give it a chance. In January 2020, I trained in phase 1 of Brainspotting and now 5 years later I have taken 6 Brainspotting trainings every year growing deeper in my practice and every year experiencing more personal healing and facilitating more client healing than I had in the previous 15 years in the field combined.
Background of Brainspotting and EMDR
Brainspotting was discovered in 2003 and in my experience, more than 20 years later, most therapy-experienced people still haven’t heard of it. Brainspotting works by utilizing a fixed eye position to access emotional pain, trauma, emotional dysregulation or any other therapeutic material a client presents with to achieve the goal of regulation. In essence, the traumatic, challenging or painful material can be accessed, “looked at”, and regulated by the client’s brain, body, nervous system, psyche, soul, spirit, etc. It is a modality that honors the internal capability of a person, trusts in their ability and wisdom, and allows and trusts their system to come to a place of regulation. Brainspotting is also very flexible and intuitive versus the structured and rigid EMDR model. Brainspotting does not require a client to process chronologically nor does it require an extensive history-taking process like EMDR does.
Brainspotting is expansive and while there are frames, set-ups and techniques taught especially to hold space and support for more fragile clients who need additional resourcing, it assumes that there are infinite possible ways to work with clients through Brainspotting, while EMDR adheres to protocols developed in the 1980’s.
More therapy-experienced people have heard of EMDR. EMDR was developed in the late 1980’s and revolutionized the therapy field in the following decades. EMDR works by using bilateral stimulation and/ or eye movement with the goal of re-processing trauma, desensitizing the client to stimuli associated with the trauma, and reducing the distress associated with past trauma. EMDR is a very structured method with a well-thought out and laid out procedure that processes trauma consciously and chronologically.
By now, it is clear that as a Brainspotting therapist, I am passionate about Brainspotting and am team Brainspotting. However, I have had a few occasions where clients tried Brainspotting and felt the lack of structure was overwhelming and preferred EMDR. Ultimately, whether Brainspotting or EMDR is right for you is a matter of preference and likely influenced by your own unique brain-functioning. Part of the beauty in trying Brainspotting is that there is less upfront investment of time and energy since the history-taking process and time spent developing a plan is far (faaaaar) less extensive than EMDR. If you have tried other methods like me and are feeling like a failure or let down by your options, I encourage you to give Brainspotting (or EMDR) a try.
If you are ready to get started with a coach, give us a call at (833) 379-5206.
Aimee is the owner and executive director of Mindful Springs Counseling, a nationwide 100% independently owned and operated mental health center specializing in non-traditional therapy services like Brainspotting, EMDR, and Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy. Mindful Springs has locations in Colorado, Washington and Illinois.