Brainspotting Therapy for Teens in St. Louis
When you need anxiety therapy in St. Louis, you have lots of choices. And you want to figure out what type of therapy is the best fit.
At Compassionate Counseling St. Louis, all of our therapists are trained in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and skills building, and each therapist brings their own additional specialties to their work with our clients. We want to make sure we’re always tailoring our approach to the anxious and angry kids, teens, and college students we love working with.
One new modality we’re currently offering is Brainspotting with Allegra Grawer. So this week, we interviewed Allegra to learn more about Brainspotting and how we can use it to treat deep-rooted anxiety, depression, and even trauma.
What is Brainspotting?
Brainspotting is brain and body based therapy (aka “somatic” therapy) that happens through relationship or attunement between client and therapist. The motto of Brainspotting is “where you look affects how you feel.”
We can use Brainspotting on its own, or in addition to the other types of therapy at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis.
Brainspotting helps with many symptoms that you may be seeking therapy for, including anxiety, depression, emotional dysregulation, and more pervasive symptoms like dissociation, physical pain, and trauma.
How do you use Brainspotting therapy for teens?
Brainspotting can be very effective and healing for many different types of clients - it can be used with all ages (young children and up), and many different types of symptoms, including anxiety, emotional dysregulation, depression, and trauma. For teens seeking counseling at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis, Brainspotting would be a very effective way at targeting and healing the root cause of symptoms of anxiety and emotional dysregulation.
How can Brainspotting help with anxiety specifically?
Brainspotting is healing and processing (usually much more quickly than talk therapies) the root cause of your anxiety. Many CBT tools and skills are focused on changing patterns of thought and managing the symptoms of anxiety, where Brainspotting is healing the cause of the anxiety. If we use an analogy of gardening, one could weed a garden bed by picking the weeds only from the ground up (focusing on thoughts and managing symptoms), versus digging deep into the ground and digging up the root of the weed as well (Brainspotting).
What does a typical Brainspotting therapy session look like?
During a session, the client will choose an event or issue they want to work on. If you have trouble identifying what to work on, your therapist can help.
A brainspot is located (this can be one of three ways: inside or outside window, or a gazespot), and you will go into a focused mindfulness around the identified event you have chosen, noticing how you feel, sense, or experience the event in their body.
Next, we measure the level of this activation you feel in your body. A beautiful aspect of brainspotting is the attunement between therapist and client, which means that processing doesn’t have to be verbalized (and is often beyond the reach of the conscious mind!), so there may be a few or many minutes of not speaking. You and your therapist remain attuned during this processing using the brainspot, which allows your brain to process and release the experiences and symptoms. It is transformational and powerful to see it happen, and to experience!
Brainspotting isn’t focused on building or developing skills. Instead, your natural skills and resources emerge during the focused mindfulness.
CBT and other talk or solution-focused modalities would be considered “top down therapies,” meaning the focus is on what the client thinks and how changing thoughts will lead to a difference in feelings and experiences. Brainspotting is a “bottom up” therapy, meaning that we get the client deep into their limbic and more primitive brain parts, and when healing occurs here, the release affects the thinking, higher or upper parts of the brain.
How is Brainspotting different from EMDR?
Brainspotting and EMDR have many similarities. Both therapies are designed to facilitate healing deep in the brain, actually healing the faulty memory network in the brain
They both use a type of Bilateral Stimulation during processing. In EMDR, this may be having the client visually track the therapist’s fingers or a lightbar, or may be holding pulsars in their hands that buzz back and forth. During Brainspotting, rather than moving the eyes back and forth, we find one spot that the brain naturally processes on (you may feel where that is or naturally look in a specific place, or the therapist can help find the spot), and then you stay focused on that spot, usually looking at a pointer your therapist holds to mark the spot.
During a Brainspotting session, the client will also listen to biolateral music with headphones, which is gentle music that alternates between ears.
Brainspotting and EMDR both follow their own specific method; in Brainspotting, this is the set up, or how we locate the brainspot and attuning between client and therapist; in EMDR, this is a specific protocol, that usually involves a few steps and checking in frequently, discussing what the client is feeling and noticing. Brainspotting and EMDR both use grounding and resourcing; in EMDR, grounding and resourcing are a focus so that during the reprocessing, the client doesn’t “flood” or get too activated. In Brainspotting, it’s more of a natural process, and the client naturally moves to a grounded place, or can be helped to find a natural resource within themselves.
Brainspotting and EMDR are powerful healing tools, and though there are many similarities, the biggest consideration is what feels best to the client. Some people may like the structure and protocols of EMDR, or others may prefer the natural flow and the attunement with the therapist in Brainspotting.
To learn more about Brainspotting, please visit https://brainspotting.com
If you’re wondering if brainspotting in St. Louis is a good fit for you or your child, you can schedule a call on our website. We’ll talk about what’s going on and the best therapist to pair you with, including Allegra, our EMDR and Brainspotting trained therapist!
Compassionate Counseling St. Louis works with anxious and angry kids, teens, and college students throughout St. Louis, Missouri. Curious to learn more about how we can help kids, teens and college students with anxiety? Schedule your free 15 minute phonecall on our website, at www.compassionatecounselingstl.com/contact.
