How Does Brainspotting Work? A Step-by-Step Breakdown for First-Time Clients
If you’ve found yourself searching for something more profound than talk therapy, something that meets both your mind and body, you’re not alone. Whether you’re carrying the weight of trauma, navigating chronic illness, or just feeling stuck, you’re not alone. Brainspotting might be the healing approach you've been looking for.
As a somatic therapist in Phoenix, I’ve seen firsthand how powerful this modality can be. It’s gentle, effective, and truly honors the whole person. Still, I know starting something new can feel overwhelming. That’s why I created this step-by-step breakdown to help you understand how Brainspotting works and what to expect from your first session. Let’s walk through it together.
What Is Brainspotting?
Brainspotting is a brain-body-based therapy that helps your brain and nervous system heal from the inside out. It uses your field of vision, specifically, your eye position, to access what we call “brainspots.” These are places in your visual field that connect to stored emotional or physical pain. By identifying and staying with a brainspot, we give our brain the space it needs to process stuck or unresolved material.
And the best part? Your body already knows how to heal itself. Brainspotting simply helps it along. If you’re looking into brainspotting in Phoenix, you’re in the right place. Or, if you’ve been curious about somatic therapy but aren’t sure where to begin, know that this is a gentle yet powerful place to start.
How Is Brainspotting Different from Talk Therapy?
In traditional therapy, we use words to discuss and work through our experiences. This can be helpful, but sometimes, words don’t reach the deeper parts of the brain where trauma, fear, or pain are held. That’s where Brainspotting comes in. Brainspotting taps into the subcortical brain. This is the part responsible for emotions, instincts, and bodily responses. We work with your body’s cues, not just your thoughts.
That’s why it’s considered a form of somatic therapy. It doesn’t require you to retell every detail of your trauma. Instead, we let your nervous system lead the way. f you’ve ever felt like talk therapy wasn’t enough, or that you “knew what to do” but still felt stuck, Brainspotting treatment might offer a new path forward.
What’s the Science Behind Brainspotting (and Why Does It Work)?
Trauma and emotional overwhelm often get stored in the nervous system. When something painful happens and we’re unable to process it fully, our brain holds onto the memory. This can show up later as anxiety, chronic pain, emotional reactivity, or just a sense of being “off.” Brainspotting utilizes a specific eye position to pinpoint where the pain is stored.
We pair that with mindfulness and body awareness to help your system release what’s no longer serving you. It’s like untangling a knot that’s been sitting just under the surface. Many people searching for somatic therapy in Phoenix are surprised to find that this approach feels intuitive, even when it’s new. You don’t need to understand the neuroscience to benefit from it. Your brain already knows what to do.
What a Session Looks Like: Step-by-Step
If you’re here, chances are you’re feeling both curious and cautious. That’s completely normal. Maybe something about Brainspotting has caught your attention, but you’re not sure what it looks like in practice. Or you're not quite sure if it’s really for you. I’ve written this section to walk you through each step of the process. I hope that it answers your questions and helps you feel more at ease before your first session.
1. Grounding and Resourcing
We begin by ensuring you feel safe and supported. I’ll guide you through some grounding exercises, and we’ll identify resources—people, places, memories, or images—that bring a sense of calm or comfort. This helps regulate your nervous system before we begin and sets the tone for how brainspotting supports healing in a somatic, body-based way.
2. Identifying the Focus
You don’t have to have everything figured out. We simply pick something you’d like to explore. This could be a feeling of anxiety, a past event, physical pain, or even a creative block. You just bring what feels most present or important to you.
3. Finding the Brainspot
Through a slow, gentle process, we use your eye movements to find the spot in your visual field where the body and brain react. This reaction helps identify the area most connected to the issue you’re working on. That point in your visual field becomes your "brainspot." It’s where your system instinctively knows to focus in order to begin processing and healing.
4. Processing and Holding Space
Here’s where the magic happens. You’ll stay focused on your brainspot while noticing what’s happening in your body, emotions, and thoughts. There’s no need to force anything. As your somatic therapist, I’ll be there with you, holding space and checking in. Sometimes there are tears, sometimes silence, sometimes shifts that are hard to put into words.
5. Integration and Closure
We’ll take time to come back to the present moment. You’ll have space to share, reflect, or simply breathe. Together, we’ll talk about how to care for yourself after the session and what support you might need moving forward.
Many of my clients say Brainspotting feels surprisingly natural, even if it’s unlike anything they’ve done before. For those seeking brainspotting treatment in Phoenix, I offer a deeply personalized, trauma-informed experience designed to meet you exactly where you are.
Why is Brainspotting a Somatic Therapy?
Somatic therapy focuses on how our bodies hold emotion, trauma, and memory. It recognizes that healing doesn’t happen in the mind alone. Brainspotting works with your nervous system. That's the part of you that flinches, freezes, or shuts down when you feel overwhelmed.
That’s why Brainspotting isn’t just for trauma. It can also help with:
Anxiety and panic
Chronic illness or pain
Grief and loss
Emotional dysregulation
Medical trauma
Fatigue and burnout
Feeling frozen or “stuck”
As a somatic therapist in Phoenix, I’ve worked with children, teens, and adults who have tried many other approaches without lasting change. They often come in feeling discouraged, wondering if real change is even possible. Brainspotting offers something different. It meets the nervous system where it is and supports healing from the inside out.
My Personal Experience with Brainspotting
Before I ever brought Brainspotting to my clients, I experienced it myself. Living with a chronic medical condition since childhood, I was familiar with pain, fatigue, and frustration. When I began Brainspotting, I was amazed to feel shifts, not just emotionally, but physically. The pain eased. My body felt lighter. And my nervous system started to soften.
That experience changed my life. It also changed how I show up for clients. Now, I bring this modality into my work with deep respect and excitement. Whether you’re 10 years old or 65, your brain and body are wired to heal. You just need the right support.
Is Brainspotting Right for You?
Maybe you’ve tried therapy before and didn’t feel it helped. Or, maybe you’re new to this journey and unsure where to begin. Either way, if something inside you is saying “there has to be a better way,” Brainspotting might be worth exploring. You don’t need to have all the answers. It’s okay if things still feel unclear or unresolved. You also don’t need to relive everything that happened. Healing doesn’t require you to go back through every painful memory. All you need is a little curiosity and a therapist who can walk alongside you with care and compassion.
Is Brainspotting in Phoenix the Missing Piece You’ve Been Searching For?
Living with the effects of trauma, chronic stress, or emotional overwhelm can feel like you’re constantly bracing for impact. You might be trying to keep things together on the outside while everything feels tender on the inside. Brainspotting in Phoenix offers a gentle, body-based path forward. One that doesn’t require you to push through or pretend, but instead helps you soften into your own healing process.
As a somatic therapist trained in Brainspotting and deeply rooted in integrative care, I specialize in supporting children, teens, and adults who are ready to heal in a new way. Whether you’re navigating anxiety, medical trauma, grief, or just feeling stuck and disconnected from your body, you don’t have to go it alone. Brainspotting meets you where words fall short and gives your nervous system the space to shift, release, and realign. If you’ve been searching for something deeper, more attuned, and more effective, this might be it.
Take the first step today.
Then reach out to schedule your Brainspotting session and begin your journey toward freedom, clarity, and wholeness.
Other Therapy Services Offered at Through It All Counseling in Scottsdale and Phoenix, Arizona
Healing isn’t one-size-fits-all. At Through It All Counseling, I offer a variety of integrative, creative, and evidence-based therapies that honor the full mind-body connection. Whether you’re supporting a child through big emotions, navigating family transitions, or working through your own experiences of anxiety, grief, or trauma, I offer therapeutic approaches designed to meet you with warmth and intention.
In addition to Brainspotting, I offer Play Therapy, Expressive Arts, Bibliotherapy, and Creative Art Therapy to support younger clients and those who express themselves best through movement, art, and story. For adults and families, I offer services like Polyvagal Therapy, Mindfulness-Based Interventions, Parent Work, Co-Parenting and Divorce Support, and Family Systems Therapy. I also integrate approaches such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Solution-Focused Brief Therapy, and Motivational Interviewing to support clarity, resilience, and meaningful growth.
Whether you’re seeking support for yourself or your child, I’m here to walk alongside you with care, curiosity, and compassion.
If you're interested in exploring any of these services or determining which approach aligns best with your needs, feel free to reach out for a free consultation. Cristina is dedicated to providing compassionate, individualized care to support your journey toward healing and growth.
About the Author
Cristina Yturralde, M.C., LPC, is a certified Brainspotting therapist, Brainspotting Consultant, and somatic therapist in Phoenix. She brings nearly 20 years of clinical experience and over 30 years of dedicated work supporting families navigating chronic illness, grief, and emotional overwhelm. Cristina’s approach is rooted in both personal and professional experience. After discovering the mind-body connection through her own healing journey, she became passionate about somatic therapy as a path to lasting change.
Since 2020, Brainspotting has transformed her work and her clients’ lives by offering a gentle, body-based method for addressing trauma, pain, anxiety, and medical stress without having to rehash every detail. In her private practice, Through It All Counseling, Cristina supports children, teens, and adults using a deeply integrative approach. She blends Brainspotting with Play Therapy, Expressive Arts, Polyvagal-informed care, and other nervous-system-focused techniques. Whether you’re a parent watching your child struggle or an adult looking to feel more grounded and whole, Cristina offers a warm, steady presence to help you soften into healing, one step at a time.
