Improve Your Performance with Brainspotting®

As we go through life, we all accumulate varying degrees of trauma – and over time, some of this unprocessed trauma can impair our ability to perform optimally in both personal and professional settings. While there are several different therapeutic approaches for overcoming trauma, a technique known as Brainspotting™ offers a uniquely simple and effective solution.

Developed in 2003 by renowned psychotherapist Dr. David Grand, Brainspotting is a neuroexperiential process that uses relevant eye positions to access the deeper, intuitive brain. Over the past two decades, Brainspotting has been adopted by thousands of practitioners worldwide due to its ability to help heal trauma, enhance performance and creativity, and bring about life-changing breakthroughs. In Episode 87 of The MINDSet Game® podcast, Dr. Grand discusses the many benefits of this revolutionary technique. 

How does Brainspotting work?

The human brain is composed of both a conscious, thinking part, as well as a subconscious, primal part that gives rise to our deep, intuitive understanding about our own capacities for adaptation and expansion. Additionally, since the retina and optic nerves are made up of neurons, our vision and neurological processes are inextricably linked. 

With this knowledge, Dr. Grand discovered “brain spots,” or relevant eye positions that can affect how you feel based on where you are looking and what you are focusing on. Under the guidance of a Brainspotting practitioner, these eye positions can be used to access the intuition of the deeper brain – which can ultimately be instrumental in processing trauma and improving performance. For instance, Dr. Grand tells the story of a professional ice skater he worked with who was struggling with a particular move. During their session, her eye began to react when she was looking in a specific direction. By guiding her to continue looking at that spot for several minutes, Dr. Grand was able to help the ice skater process years of deep traumas, which quickly allowed her to master the move that had been giving her trouble. 

Dr. Grand also notes that one of the key strengths of Brainspotting is that it incorporates elements of two main therapeutic approaches: relational (such as talk therapy) and technical (including neurobiology). In practice, Brainspotting begins by focusing on the unique individual with all of their strengths, fallibilities, and accumulated traumas, and then attuning to the individual’s neurobiology. 

Implications for organizations and leaders

Dr. Grand mentions that in order to perform optimally, we need to feel safe – if the nervous system feels threatened, it enters survival mode and unprocessed traumas may be triggered, thereby creating a barrier to performance. Within business organizations, for instance, employees who feel that they are not valued or are seen as commodities will likely not be able to perform to the best of their abilities.

For business leaders – particularly amidst today’s landscape of rapid change – holding onto negative beliefs and traumas can impede the crucial ability to make decisions and adapt as needed. By allowing us to look inward to a level that we can’t consciously reach otherwise, Brainspotting can help leaders and anyone else seeking to improve their performance achieve incredible breakthroughs and discover untapped potential. 

In addition to his work with psychotherapy clients – including professional athletes, entertainers, business leaders, and survivors of profound trauma – Dr. Grand is a lecturer, performance coach, humanitarian, and the author of Brainspotting: The Revolutionary New Therapy for Rapid and Effective Change.

To learn more, visit https://brainspotting.com or tune into Episode 87 of The MINDSet Game podcast!