Brainspotting Therapy In San Antonio
For what your mind has tried to make sense of and the body’s still holdingYou carry things well.
You always have. You’re aware of patterns, can name your wounds, and follow them back to where they started.
And you know the shape of what’s still here.
And something’s still there, in the body, in the way certain moments feel, in what arrives before you've had time to think.
There’s a map of what you still need to work through.
Brainspotting goes to the places that still need to be reached where talking doesn’t always seem to change.
What Is Brainspotting?
Brainspotting (BSP), is a body-based, neuroscience-informed therapy developed by Dr. David Grand in 2003. The central finding was where you look affects how you feel. Specific points in your visual field, brainspots, connect directly to the subcortical brain, the part that holds trauma, grief, and emotional experiences outside of narrative and conscious thought.
It's a body-based, neuroscience-informed method that uses your field of vision to locate where something is held in the nervous system, and then stays there, giving the brain the conditions it needs to process what language can’t quite reach.
Sometimes the body tells the story long before words arrive. A flicker in the gaze, a catch in the breath, a doorway the mind couldn't find on its own.
Brainspotting follows those cues.
What Happens in A Brainspotting Session
A Brainspotting session is quiet in a way that might surprise you.
We identify a point of activation, something that’s brought you here, something that has charge, and find where it lives in your body.
From there, I use a pointer to find the brainspot: the specific place in your visual field where that activation is held most intensely. You hold your gaze there.
Bilateral sound is also something that can be added and plays softly through headphones, supporting deep brain access, helping things move through.
Then we stay with it.
There's no script. No prompts to follow. No need to narrate what's happening.
Your brain and nervous system do what they're built to do when the right conditions are met, processing what’s been waiting to process.
What comes up can vary. Images. Sensations. Emotion that moves through rather than getting stuck. Sometimes words, sometimes nothing verbal at all. The work happens at a level beneath conscious direction, which is precisely why it can reach what other approaches don't.
You won't be left alone in it. I'm with you the entire time, tracking what's happening, adjusting, attuned, present.
"Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know." Pema Chödrön
Who Finds Their Way Here
You may have come from another page on the site. You may have heard of Brainspotting somewhere and started looking into it.
Something brought you here, and it's usually the same thing: a sense that there's more to reach, and that talking or thinking about it hasn't been what gets you there.
You may not be new to therapy. You’ve done good work. You understand your patterns and can articulate your history. And underneath the articulation, something hasn't moved.
Brainspotting is for women who are open-minded and ready to go somewhere different in therapy.
What Brainspotting Can Help With
There are places that traditional talk therapy can help with and other places that don’t seem to budge. Brainspotting tends to reach the latter.
It works where emotion, memory, and body awareness meet, helping you process what’s still here.
The trauma and PTSD you can still feel in your chest when something familiar gets close. Complex and childhood trauma. Grief. The ache for what never was.
Attachment pain held in the body. Sexual trauma that’s hard to speak out loud. Relationship trauma. Anxiety that still lives in the nervous system and appears before you realize it.
The shame that lives deeper inside you that starts to feel like it’s a part of you.
Guilt. The emotional weight that’s accumulated over years.
The memory that doesn’t have a clear picture or story, just a sensation, a weight, a specific quality to it. The persistent sense that something is off. The activation that arrives in ordinary moments.
The patterns that keep repeating no matter how much you understand them.
What Can Be Different
A memory that had charge starts to feel more like something that happened than something still happening.
The activation that arrived reliably in certain situations gets quieter. You catch the pattern earlier, and notice it moving through rather than lodging somewhere it stays for days.
Some of what changes is hard to name, which makes sense.
Sometimes what was held doesn’t have language to begin with.
It shows up in how sleep feels like rest. In what doesn't follow you home. In the moment you realize you're actually in a conversation instead of managing one.
The things you've been working around, the places you don't go, the situations you arrange your exposure to, start to require less arrangement.
Frequently Asked Questions About Brainspotting
What is Brainspotting?
How is Brainspotting different from EMDR?
Both are body-based approaches that work at the level of the nervous system, not just through narrative. EMDR uses bilateral stimulation and a more structured set of phases to help the brain process what feels stuck.
Brainspotting is often quieter and less directive. It uses eye position to access what your system is holding and tends to follow the body’s cues rather than a more defined protocol.
For some people and some kinds of material, one reaches what the other does not. I’m trained in both and use them based on what you’re bringing in and what your nervous system seems ready for.
How is online Brainspotting different from in-person sessions?
Online Brainspotting works well for many clients. The core of the work remains the same, though we use the screen and your environment a little differently than we would in person.
The biggest practical difference is your setting. A private, uninterrupted space and a reliable internet connection usually matter more than whether the session happens in an office or online. Some clients find it easier to stay present with the work from their own space.
I primarily offer online Brainspotting for women across Texas, Oregon, and Washington, with some in-person availability in San Antonio.
What can Brainspotting help with?
Brainspotting can help with trauma, anxiety, grief, and attachment wounds that still seem to live somewhere deeper than words. It is often useful when you understand your patterns, but your body still reacts as if something unresolved is close by.
Can anyone do Brainspotting?
Brainspotting can be a strong fit for many people, but not everyone. Whether it makes sense depends on what brings you to therapy, how stable things feel day to day, and what kind of support will help you stay present with the work.
The best way to know is to look at your history, your current symptoms, and what you’d want Brainspotting to help shift.
How long does Brainspotting take to work?
It varies. Some people notice shifts after a few sessions, while others need more time, especially when what they’re carrying is more complex, layered, or longstanding.
The pace depends on what you’re coming in with, what you want the work to help change, and how much support your system needs along the way.
What can I expect after a Brainspotting session?
After a session, some people notice strong emotions, fatigue, vivid dreams, or thoughts continuing to unfold afterward. Others feel lighter, quieter, or more settled than they expected.
We’ll talk beforehand about what to expect, and we’ll keep track of how you’re doing throughout the process.
What hasn't moved was always going to need a different kind of conversation.
One your body could finally be part of.
Related: PTSD & Trauma | Childhood Trauma | Sexual Trauma | Grief Therapy | Attachment Therapy | EMDR Therapy