in-person in roseville | Online across CA & TX

Brainspotting therapy

Helping you access your body’s own capacity to heal and achieve deep, long-lasting change.

You know something—even if you can’t put a finger on what—is “off.”

It feels like an out of body experience sometimes: watching yourself repeat the patterns you swore you never would.

You hate how reactive you are with the people you love—how you take things too personally or respond in bigger ways than the situation calls for. And yet, you don’t know how to stop.

The voice that tells you everything is your fault seems to grow louder and louder, and you’re hard on yourself in ways you never would be with someone else. Despite how “good” life might look on paper, you have a deep-seated feeling that you’re not good enough.

You might have tried therapy before but felt like it was focused just on “coping”...not on actually getting to the root of the issue. You’re ready to go deep and put these triggers and patterns to rest for good.

Brainspotting bypasses the “thinking” part of your brain to access & heal the root of what’s troubling you.

Brainspotting can help you feel like yourself again in the midst of:

  • Trauma & painful experiences

  • Perfectionism

  • Anxiety

  • Self-criticism & self-doubt

  • People-pleasing

  • Unhelpful relationship patterns

  • Reactivity

  • Money anxiety & avoidance

  • Imposter syndrome

How it works

Where you look affects how you feel. Brainspotting uses where you look to heal.

Like files in a computer, our memories must be processed, encoded, and stored in our brains. When we experience something painful, this processing and encoding system can go awry. In Brainspotting, we can access where the troubling files are stored, properly process them, and neutralize them, storing them in a way that causes less distress, anxiety, and pain.

Together, we’ll find a “brain spot”: an area in your field of vision to focus on. I’ll ask you to mindfully observe what comes up as you keep your eyes on this spot and consider what’s bothering you. Sometimes, we’ll use tools like bilateral music (via headphones) to enhance the process, encouraging both sides of the brain to engage in the process.

As you continue to focus on the brain spot, your brain will begin to re-process and neutralize the “file” stored there, and you’ll start to notice feelings of more calm, clarity, and relief. You’re in control of every step of the way of this process—we trust that your brain knows what to do. My role is to be here as a guide and a safe container: a safe, stable presence that allows your nervous system to do the hard work to heal.

In the midst of challenges like the ones you’re facing right now, it can be easy to forget that your body has an innate ability to heal. In our work together, you can access that ability—it just requires a bit of help to get unstuck.

How we’ll work together

We’ll start with an in-depth intake session. This will give me an opportunity to learn more about you and your goals, answer any questions you have, and co-create a plan to track your progress throughout our work together.

You choose the format that works best for you:

  • If you prefer to make progress steadily over time, we can meet on a weekly or bi-weekly basis for 50- or 80-minute sessions.

  • For accelerated results, concentrated therapy in the form of intensives may be a good fit for you. Like a large dose of therapy at once, you can experience rapid relief and healing with a relatively small time investment. 1- and 2-day options available. Click here to learn more.

  • If you’re already working with another therapist and finding the work there helpful, great! Brainspotting can be a powerful addition to your work by helping to break through a specific barrier or accelerate your healing as you continue working with your therapist. Adjunct therapy can occur via ongoing or intensive therapy.

why i do this work

I specialize in Brainspotting because I know first-hand how powerful I can be.

As a Brainspotting client myself, I was able to access and resolve things that talking alone could not fully resolve—and it’s because of my experience that I decided to get trained. This method has made such an impact on my life that I wanted to be able to bring this to my clients, too.

Deep, long-lasting change doesn’t have to take years.

Accelerate your healing and discover what real relief feels like.

Frequently asked questions

  • Just like you might look off into the distance to try and remember something, your eye positions are linked to different areas of your mind that store thoughts, emotions, and beliefs. In Brainspotting, we can access stored trauma or pain by fixing your eye positions on those locations.

    Together, we’ll locate a “brain spot” where your challenges may be stored, and I’ll guide you through focusing on that spot. Many clients report a feeling of both conscious and subconscious release.

  • Brainspotting and EMDR leverage some of the same mechanisms. However, Brainspotting tends to be more gentle, and research suggests that its effects are deeper and longer lasting than EMDR.

    Brainspotting can be a good fit if you have tried EMDR and it didn’t feel like the right fit.

  • While Brainspotting is a newer modality, it is classified as evidence-based and research indicates it may be more effective than Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) due to its increased precision. Patients are shown to experience continued progress even after treatment is complete.

  • Either. Depending on your needs, goals, and timeline, we can do full sessions of just Brainspotting, or integrate it into talk therapy to further enhance healing and processing. We’ll discuss this as we begin our work together.

  • It can. If there are traumas or painful experiences preventing effective communication and connection, Brainspotting may be a great choice for one or both partners.

  • Contact me to schedule a free consultation with me. It’s important that you feel comfortable with your counselor, and I’ll help you decide if I’m the right fit for you.