Brainspotting Therapy

  • Brainspotting uses focused eye positions, body awareness, and mindful attention to help access and process emotions, sensations, and experiences. It can be particularly helpful when you understand something intellectually but still feel affected by it emotionally or physically.

    To better understand the process, please feel free to explore:

  • Traditional talk therapy often focuses on understanding experiences through conversation and reflection. Brainspotting access a deeper part of our brain that holds stored emotions and adds a body-based approach, allowing you to notice physical sensations, emotions, and responses while processing. These two approaches can be used together.

  • Sessions begin with connecting-in, grounding, and identifying what you would like to work on. With guidance, you may focus on a particular sensation, emotion, or experience while exploring an eye position that feels meaningful. You remain aware, supported, and in control throughout the process.

  • Alyssa has completed professional Brainspotting training, including specialized training in working with children, adolescents, and high-acuity populations. She integrates Brainspotting with her advanced training in trauma-informed somatic therapy, nervous-system regulation, attachment, and other therapeutic approaches. Brainspotting is offered as part of an individualized, collaborative approach tailored to each person’s needs—not as a one-size-fits-all method.

Who May Brainspotting Help? 

Brainspotting may be helpful for adolescents and adults experiencing trauma, anxiety, overwhelm, grief, stress, performance anxiety, mental blocks, burnout, or experiences that feel difficult to move through with talk therapy alone.

  • Traumatic experiences can continue to affect the body and nervous system even when we understand what happened. Brainspotting can support the processing of difficult experiences and the emotional and physical responses connected to them, at a pace that feels manageable and supported.

  • Brainspotting may be helpful when your mind feels stuck, your nervous system feels overwhelmed, or you find yourself caught in recurring thoughts, emotions, or patterns. Sessions incorporate body awareness and nervous-system regulation alongside therapeutic processing.

  • Athletes and high performers may be experiencing performance anxiety, pressure, perfectionism, mental blocks, or difficulty accessing their abilities when it matters most. Brainspotting can be used to explore responses connected to competition, mistakes, injury, fear of failure, or high expectations while supporting greater grounding, focus, and confidence.

  • Traditional talk therapy can be challenging for some adolescents who find it hard to describe or share their feelings. Brainspotting offers adolescents another way to process experiences that may be difficult to put into words. It can be integrated with talk therapy, creative approaches, and age-appropriate nervous-system regulation strategies.

Where Can I Work with Alyssa Using Brainspotting?

In-Person Brainspotting in Victoria, BC

In-person Brainspotting sessions with Alyssa are available in a private and comfortable counselling space in Victoria, BC. 50-minute and 80-minute sessions are available creating time and space to settle into the therapeutic process.

Online Brainspotting Throughout British Columbia

Online Brainspotting sessions with Alyssa are available to clients throughout BC, offering the option to access therapy from the comfort of your own space.

Listen Up

If you are interested in trying BioLateral sounds, put on a pair of headphones and press play.

BioLateral sounds move back and forth between the left and right sides, and are sometimes used in Brainspotting sessions to support grounding, focus, and nervous-system regulation.

There are many different forms of BioLateral music and sound, and what works best can vary from person to person.