Brainspotting Glossary of Terms

This Brainspotting Glossary was developed by Jesse Jonesberg, MSW, LCSW to bring together many common concepts and theories that are important to understanding the practice of brainspotting. The glossary reflects Jesse's take on brainspotting, please note that there is a formal glossary in David Grand's brainspotting book.

Section 1: Selected conceptual and theoretical terms related to brainspotting

Activate - To intentionally intensifying or heighten internal experiences such as emotions, images, and body sensations. In a brainspotting session this is done with support from the therapist by focusing on what is bothering us. This is usually done towards the beginning of the session before finding the corresponding brainspot.

Activation - A heightened inner sensation (such as an emotion or body sensation) that occurs when our attention is intentionally placed on the issue of focus in a brainspotting session.

Attunement - A therapist's ability to connect with, understand, and respond to a client's presence (verbal and nonverbal), and the result is that the client feels "genuinely seen, felt, and understood."

Bottom-up Therapy - A general term for types of therapies that focus on body-based interventions in order to access the lower and less conscious parts of the brain such as the limbic system. Brainspotting incorporates many bottom up strategies.

Brainspot - David Grand's assertion that an individual can discover an external point that corresponds with an individual's field of vision. This point allows the individual access to deeper memories, sensations, and other internal experiences that are otherwise difficult to access and remain focused on. Finding a workable brainspot is often done in collaboration with a brainspotting therapist towards the beginning of the session.

Cultural Humility - A perspective on interpersonal relationships that honor's an individual's culture and identity while also seeking to understand the societal context of inequity and oppression. Cultural humility requires that we practice critical self reflection, address power imbalances present in a relationship, and hold institutions and structures accountable.

Dirty Pain vs. Clean Pain - Resmaa Menakem highlights these two types of pain to help us distinguish between helpful and harmful painful emotional experiences. Clean pain can be a foundation for growth, development, and wisdom. It can be associated with activities such as self advocating, setting limits, interrupting harmful behaviors, etc. Dirty pain is usually connected with shame, avoidance, and fear. It can be associated with actions that ultimately result in harm to ourselves or others.

Disassociation - Grand explains the state of disassociation as being shut down, in shock, and disconnected. During this state an individual is not connected and has limited to no access to emotional experiences and body feelings.

Dual attunement - The foundational intention and presence of the brainspotting therapist. Throughout the session, the therapist attends with compassion to the therapeutic relationship and body responses of themself and client all at once during the interaction. The skilled therapist allows the session to be guided and informed by these developing phenomenon.

Frame - The implicit and explicit world views, assumptions, norms, rules, limits, and boundaries of activity in a given brainspotting session. The frame is a container that can serve to help focus the brianspotting session. It is said the the client "brings the frame" to the therapy session. Grand explains that the frame is amorphous. It will change in position, shape, size, texture, etc. The therapist works in partnership with the client to "receive and shape the frame" in a way that allows for access to the issue and healing to occur within the brainspotting session.

Felt Sense - A common term in brainspotting that was developed by Eugene Gendlin. The felt sense can be similar to intuition. It is a way of knowing or understanding that is beyond verbal or written language. It is received all at once rather than in a logical detailed manner. In brainspotting, the therapist strives to connect with this way of understanding the client in addition to working with verbal and body language.

Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn, Flop - These words describe some common responses that our bodies naturally have to traumatic events. These are usually automatic responses that occur when we experience or witness events that overwhelm our ability to cope. These responses are associated with lower brain automatic functioning.

Focused Mindfulness - In brainspotting this term refers to activity of placing awareness and curiosity on the issue of focus. The therapist and client partner to notice what occurs in the body, mind, emotional self while keeping this focus.

HIPP - Resmaa Menakem's term for how we experience racialized trauma including historical, intergenerational, persistent institutional, and personal lived experiences.

Interoception- Refers to our ability to and process for being aware of our internal experiences within the body and interpreting these signals. In brainspotting this skill can be used during trauma processing. This ability can be used during trauma processing.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) - A therapy approach founded by David Schwartz that works with an individual's various internal parts of self to facilitate healing. Also called "Parts Work," this model is frequently integrated with the brainspotting therapy session.

Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) - An approach to helping others developed by Neff and Germer that focuses on the practice of compassion and acceptance for ourselves. MSC practices are based in common humanity, kindness, and mindfulness. MSC and other self-compassion approaches are often integrated with the brainspotting session.

Polyvagal Theory - A model of how our brains function created by Stephen Porges that informs much of how we understand brainspotting therapy. This model includes many other neuroscientific theories such as the 3-part brain functioning (originally coined by Paul D. MacLean). Therapists will often use this 3 part model (reptilian, mammalian, primate) to conceptualize and communicate about brainspotting and trauma. Brainspotting therapy aims to work with the lower parts of the brain to resolve trauma, memories, and other deeper mental barriers.

Liberation Therapy Model - An approach to therapy that honors an individual's experience and identities in the context of oppression and social forces. The factors are incorporated into the therapy treatment, and this approach also emphasizes social justice engagement. The liberation model often incorporates healing modalities outside of the standard western accepted approaches. It welcomes new perspectives on healing, new ways of seeing the world, and new ways of being in the world from a place of acceptance. Brainspotting works to include many aspects of this model into its approach.

Limbic Countertransference - David Grand postulates that limbic countertransference is a common phenomena that occurs during a brainspotting session where the therapist has deep emotional reactions when the client shares experiences, thoughts, and emotions during the therapy session. This type of countertransference can be largely subconscious and activates the limbic part of the nervous system.

Organic Intelligence - An approach to therapy developed by Steve Hoskin to work with trauma in an emergent and gentle manner. The therapist supports the client in noticing what is arising within their internal and body experience. Brainspotting uses similar ways to support clients with processing trauma, and Grand often describes the brainspotting process as organic.

Process - David Grand explains processing as "to emotionally and/or neurobiologically experience, internally, step-by-step, over a proscribed period of time." The purpose of processing is to facilitate healing, changed perspectives, and understanding related to the issue of focus.

Processing - This is explained by Grand as "a client’s internal experience." Processing in brainspotting can include may internal events and activities such as feelings, emotions, sensations in the body, memories, visualizations, etc. The brainspotting therapist supports and guides in this process through compassion and focused mindfulness.

Prolonged Exposure Therapy - This is explained by Grand as "a client’s internal experience." Processing in brainspotting can include many internal events and activities such as feelings, emotions, sensations in the body, memories, visualizations, etc. A brainspotting session will likely use a similar approach when relating with trauma.

Socially Engineered Trauma - Socially engineered trauma is a type of trauma experienced by individuals targeted and harmed by social institutions through oppression and inequality. This type of trauma is the result social inequity, discrimination, sigma, marginalization, etc. and can be a focus in the brainspotting session.

System - A general term frequently used in brainspotting for complex network of internal experiences, body sensations, and biology related to a particular issue.

Setup - In brainspotting this term is similar to a therapy protocol. Brainspotting has various setups that are suggested for different situations to help guide the therapist/client activity. The setup is part of how the frame is developed and shaped. Unlike many protocols or manuals, the setups are not restrictive or directive, they often evolve and transform throughout the session in response to the client's needs.

Somatic Abolitionism - Resmaa Menakem's concept of "embodied anti-racist action and culture building," and based on the premise that most bodies have been "infected by the virus of white-body supremacy[WBS]." This WBS is a major source of suffering that impacts people of all racial/ethnic backgrounds, and it can be examined and healed.

Somatic Experiencing - A therapy approach developed by Peter Levine that uses resources of the body to heal trauma. Brainspotting incorporates many aspects of this approach during the therapy session.

Tail of the Comet - David Grand uses a analogy of a comet and its tail when describing the realtionship between the brainspotting therapist and the client. The brainspotting therapist is tasked with being diligent in following the client's experience through the session just as a tail follows the head of the comet. He reminds us that "the moment the therapist thinks they know where the comet is going, they fall out of the tail." Being in the tail requires skill, practice, trust, and letting go of the "expert" perspective.

Top-down Therapy - This term describes therapy approaches that use a cognitive approach including logic, language, and problem solving. This type of therapy is said to work with the prefrontal cortex where conscious thinking occurs. Brainspotting incorporates some of this approach, especially before and after the processing of trauma.

Uncertainty - A foundational understanding during the brainspotting session that the brain and body (and reality itself) are infinitely complex. David Grand states that "Most of what goes on inside a person is unknowable, and when therapists intervene in their system, the true outcome is just as unknowable." Knowing that causes, effects, interventions, and "evidence based practices" are uncertain provides us the freedom to use the intuition, spirituality, and creativity in the therapy session that is essential for healing.

Window of Tolerance - This concept explains how we respond to stressful stimulus by either hyperarousal (becoming angry, etc.) or hypo arousal (becoming numb, etc.). When we reach either of these two states we are outside our window of tolerance and not in a good place to do many things including working on healing and therapeutic goals. The aim of brainspotting is to support the individual stay within the window of tolerance during the therapy session, and to ultimately create a bigger window of tolerance related to triggers.

Works Referenced

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