Understanding Brainspotting: A Powerful Tool for Healing Trauma

I Was a Therapist, But Still Stuck

When I first started trauma work, I trained in EMDR and received certification. I believed in it. I used it with clients. I even used it on myself and sought out therapy with an amazing trained and certified EMDR therapist as well.

And for a while, it helped. It gave me coping tools. I understood my trauma more cognitively. But something was still missing. I kept looping through the same relational patterns. I was still over-functioning, still stuck in cycles of guilt, still feeling invisible in the places that mattered most.

That’s when I realized: I wasn’t just dealing with isolated traumatic memories. I was living out an entire blueprint I had built to survive emotionally unavailable environments—and EMDR wasn’t touching that.

Most People Have Developmental Trauma (Even If They Don’t Know It)

Here’s the thing: most of us don’t walk into therapy saying, “I have developmental trauma.” We say, “I can’t stop people-pleasing,” or “I feel numb all the time,” or “I know what’s wrong but I still can't change and I feel defective.”

Unfortunately, because there’s no DSM diagnosis for developmental trauma, it often gets missed entirely. Clients are labeled with anxiety or depression—and treated accordingly. They’re sent home with worksheets, breathing techniques, maybe some CBT. And for some, it helps a little. But for many? It leaves the deepest wounds untouched. Because the truth is, it’s all in the body.

Developmental trauma isn’t just something you remember. It’s something you carry. In your posture, your breath, your reactivity, your silence. You can’t logic your way out of something your nervous system still believes is dangerous.

That was me. I had done the work—years of it. But I still felt like my body didn’t trust the world. Or myself.

The Therapist Who Helped Me Come Home to Myself

Working with Jennyfer Rosado, a Brainspotting therapist who understood the impact of early attachment trauma, changed everything for me. It wasn’t immediate. It wasn’t flashy. But it was deep.

I cried in sessions without even knowing why. I stopped trying to “figure it out.” I felt anger begin to rise, it was being held tightly down, contracted in my body. I had learned to push it down because it was never safe to be angry, but I started to follow my anger, even lean into it. My intuition started waking up. I stopped apologizing for being intense or needing rest. I started trusting myself more than I ever had.

Why I Use Brainspotting With My Clients Now

I’m also trained in Brainspotting, and while I still value EMDR, this is the tool I reach for with most of my clients now—especially those with childhood emotional neglect, codependency, or relational trauma that’s been dismissed or minimized.

Brainspotting helps us bypass the thinking brain and access what lives deeper—in the body, the survival system, the parts of us that learned to hold it all together at any cost.

What Even Is Brainspotting?

In simple terms, Brainspotting is a trauma therapy that uses the visual field to locate where emotional and somatic pain is stored. With the support of a trained therapist, we track eye position and body sensation to gently open a window into the nervous system—one that doesn't require rehashing painful stories or pushing through defenses.

It works because it honors how trauma actually lives in the body—not just how it’s remembered in the mind.

This Isn’t Just About Healing. It’s About Power.

These days, I still do Brainspotting on myself and still go to Jennyfer a couple of times a month for a tune up. Now it's not just about trauma work, it helps me write more honestly, parent more patiently, love more deeply, and rest without guilt. It helps me listen to the quiet voice inside that says, “You’re allowed to take up space.”

If you're carrying old pain you can't name, or if therapy has helped but hasn’t transformed—maybe it’s not you. Maybe the method just hasn’t reached the part of you that needs it most.

Ready to Try Something Deeper?

There is no magic pill that cures all, I still get sad, feel fear, and anger or even loneliness. But the point of therapy isn't to "rid" you of feelings, for me, I've learned that the point is to help you lean into those feelings, connect to who you are and finally return home.

If you want to explore Brainspotting as part of your healing journey, book a free 15-minute consult here You deserve more than survival. You deserve to feel whole.