What is Brainspotting?

Sports psychologists have recently assumed a significant role in helping athletes deal with a variety of performances issues. Conventional approaches in sports psychology pay close attention to an athlete’s dysfunctional thoughts and behaviors. A number of cognitive-behavioral techniques have evolved to address negative self-talk and imagery, lack of confidence, poor concentration and anxiety. While cognitive-behavioral approaches are often helpful, they remain within the domain of what has been called, “The Talking Therapies.”

Advances in Neuropsychology have given psychologists new insights into Repetitive Sports Performance Problems and how they can be treated. Performance issues are now seen as being rooted in an athlete’s emotional states and physical body. Emotional and physical experiences are the direct result of conditioned neural pathways in the brain that continually charge in response to certain cues and outer circumstances, but never discharge their energy so that the athlete can regain a baseline of composure for peak performance to take place.

Brainspotting is being recognized as one of the newest Brain Therapies...techniques and processes that directly address neurological conditioning in the brain that can lead to a number of the unwanted emotional and physical disturbances associated with repetitive sports performance problems: ranging from periodic slumps to full blow sports trauma.

How Brainspotting Works

Brainspotting is designed to directly release an athlete from traumatic activation associated with negative emotions such as anxiety, fear, freezing and panic. A typical Brainspotting session begins by asking an athlete to focus on what they would like to work on and where they are feeling activated in their emotions and body. The Brainspotting therapist then looks for how an athlete has stored emotional and physical stressors in the form of highly charged neurological and energetic pathways in the brain. This is done, in large part, through a series of specific observations regarding the athlete’s reflexive eye movements when asked to track a stimulus such as a pointer. While talking is necessary to guide and support the athlete through the Brainspotting process, a great deal of the athlete’s experiences of emotional and physical release take place effortlessly within the brain through complex processes of self-regulation.

Reported Outcomes

Athletes often report feelings of freedom from unwanted emotions and physical disturbance. Brainspotting is also used as a resource for finding emotional and physical stability in an athlete to help insure peak performance under competitive conditions in real time.