EMDR and Brainspotting: What's the Difference?

I first came across EMDR 12 years ago via a friend who was a clinical neuro psychologist. She had just done the training to become a practitioner, and I was fascinated to discover a way to undo traumatic experiences. If you've been looking into therapy for trauma or anxiety you might have come across EMDR yourself. It was invented in 1987 and awareness of it has grown significantly in the last couple of years. It has a strong research base and has helped a great many people.

Brainspotting is less well known. It evolved from EMDR, but has significant differences (think: scuba vs freediving; skiing vs snowboarding; kitesurfing vs windsurfing – some similarities and many important differences). Brainspotting was first designed by Dr David Grand in 2003. During my trainings in Brainspotting, many of the educators, and also participants in the trainings, described feeling that their therapeutic work was only getting their clients so far, and they were seeking another way to help their clients heal. The word among their colleagues in similar professions was to train in Brainspotting. And the search stopped there – this was the missing piece.

Among practitioners trained in both, Brainspotting is increasingly the preferred approach. I work exclusively with Brainspotting - I'm not an EMDR practitioner, nor have I experienced it as a client - but I know of many colleagues who have trained in both, and their insights inform this comparison.

What they have in common

Both EMDR and Brainspotting are brain-body approaches that work with trauma and emotional distress. Both use bilateral sound - music or tones that pan from left to right - to support processing. Both modalities recognise that the body and nervous system hold what the thinking mind alone cannot resolve.

David Grand, who developed Brainspotting, was himself a senior EMDR practitioner and trainer before making the discoveries that led to Brainspotting.

Where they differ

The differences are significant, and they matter depending on who you are and what you want to address.

Structure vs attunement. EMDR follows a structured protocol with required steps, regular verbal check-ins, and a focus on specific target memories. Brainspotting uses a simple framework, and is fundamentally flexible and relational. There are no required steps, we do not need to know the ‘story’ or go into an in-depth history, and there is far less talking during the processing part of the session itself. The session belongs to the client's nervous system, not to a protocol. We don’t know what will come up, and that is ok, we just follow along and allow the brain, body and nervous system to work with their own intelligence.

What each modality can help

EMDR tends to work well when there are clearly defined memories to target, like a specific incident that continues to ‘trigger’ or cause distress. Brainspotting doesn't require a specific memory at all - the issue can be vague, unknown, physical, or hard to put into words. It works with the felt sense in the body and with nonverbal, subcortical (subconscious) material that may sit beyond conscious recall. As practitioners often put it: EMDR processes what the frontal lobe can access (the conscious brain); Brainspotting reaches the amygdala - the deeper survival brain.

Who leads 

In EMDR, the therapist guides the process. In Brainspotting, the client's own nervous system leads the way - the therapist accompanies and follows. One thing I’ll often say to clients is that their subconscious brain is far cleverer than either of us. We let the subcortical/subconscious brain do the work for us. This is important and is also quite comforting. We don’t need to strive to understand or have insights – we hand everything over to the brain to process.

Application 

EMDR is particularly effective for PTSD, phobias and anxiety where memories are clearly defined. Brainspotting is effective for all of this, and also for developmental trauma, emotional ‘stuckness’, performance work, unwanted behaviours (e.g. addictions), limiting beliefs, and experiences where memories are vague or non-existent. We can also work with Expansion, which is a way to facilitate higher performance and to strengthen desired states of being and feeling, neurologically within the brain networks.

Dual Attunement – key to what makes Brainspotting distinctive

One of the most important aspects of Brainspotting is called Dual Attunement.

We cannot process difficult or negative experiences, while our nervous system is stressed or in ‘sympathetic state’ (sometimes described as flight fight freeze fawn). But our nervous systems attune to one another (like finding a radio station, by matching the frequency) - this is well established, visible in heart rate and brainwave studies, and something most of us have experienced intuitively. A mother's calm presence settles an upset child. Touching a pet dog or cat lowers our blood pressure. A hug can calm us when we are upset or agitated. We regulate each other.

In Brainspotting, the therapist's regulated nervous system becomes part of the therapeutic process. I sometimes describe it to clients as ‘lending’ them my nervous system. Because the client's experiences are not mine, I can remain calm — and that calm connects with their system, allowing them to process and integrate even very difficult material from a place of safety.

This is understood to be a significant part of why Brainspotting works as deeply as it does. We create the conditions for the brain to explore and integrate experiences or overwhelm that it would not be able to otherwise.

A balanced assessment

There are some practitioners who are trained in both Brainspotting and EMDR who will use both approaches depending on what their clients want. EMDR remains a valuable, well-researched approach, and for some people and some presentations it may be the right fit.

That said, I would say the majority of professionals I know who are trained in both, who choose to work predominantly or exclusively with Brainspotting.

EMDR took nearly 40 years to become known outside of psychotherapeutic circles. Brainspotting has been around for just 23 years, and is considered to be cutting edge within those professional psychotherapy circles. There is ever increasing interest in our wellbeing and healing, and my feeling is that Brainspotting will take a lot less time to hit the mainstream. My experience is that both clients and practitioners anecdotally report a preference to Brainspotting - for the breadth of its applications, for the gentle way that it works, and profound shifts and outcomes it creates in people’s lives.  

[Get in touch] if you'd like to find out more.

Related reading: [What is Brainspotting?] | [What happens in a Brainspotting session?]

Louisa Collyns is a certified Brainspotting practitioner working with clients in person and online.