I Didn’t Believe in Brainspotting. Then It Happened to Me.

Keywords: brainspotting therapy Dubai, trauma therapy Dubai, brainspotting for trauma, neuroscience of trauma healing, somatic therapy Dubai

-----

Let me be honest with you. Before I completed my Brainspotting Phase 1 training in September 2025, I knew about as much about Brainspotting as the next person. Which is to say, not much. I had heard the word. I had vague associations with eye positions and trauma. And I was skeptical.

Very skeptical.

-----

What Even Is Brainspotting?

Brainspotting is a brain-body based therapy developed by Dr. David Grand in 2003. The premise is that where you look affects how you feel, and that specific eye positions, called “brainspots,” correlate to where unprocessed trauma and emotional pain are stored in the brain and nervous system.

In simple terms: your brain holds onto experiences that were too overwhelming to process at the time. Talk therapy can help you make sense of these experiences. But Brainspotting goes deeper, it accesses the subcortical brain, the part that doesn’t respond to words, logic, or insight. The part that just holds things.

Sounds a bit abstract, right? I thought so too.

-----

Day 1: Everyone Is in on This. Except Me.

The training began. MRI scans were presented!Actual images showing neurological changes in the brains of people who had undergone Brainspotting. The evidence was there, right in front of me.

But the question kept circling in my head: How? How does staring at the tip of a pointer actually do anything?

I sat with that question all through Day 1. By the end of the day, I was half-convinced that everyone else in the room had quietly drunk the Kool-Aid and I was the only one left who hadn’t. That is genuinely how skeptical I was.

Then the peer practice started. And I felt things.

Things I was not expecting to feel. Things that started making sense in a way I couldn’t quite articulate.

And still, what if it’s just the placebo effect?

-----

Day 2: 5:30am. No Alarm.

I woke up before my alarm. That doesn’t happen. I went back in for more.

Day 2 was tears. A lot of them. Not in a falling-apart way, more like something releasing. The skepticism was still there, but it was quieter. The pieces were clicking together. The science was landing differently now that I had felt it, not just heard about it.

The neuroscience of Brainspotting centres on the deep brain, the limbic system and brain stem, where survival responses, emotional memories, and trauma are stored. The prefrontal cortex, the “thinking brain,” often can’t access these areas through language alone. Brainspotting bypasses the narrative and goes directly to where the experience lives in the body and brain. The focused activation, combined with the therapist’s attunement, creates the conditions for the brain to process what it has been holding.

That’s the how… or as much of a “how” as I could hold at that point.

-----

Day 3: Exhausted. Gone. And Something Shifted.

By Day 3, I was done. Exhausted in that deep way you get when something real has happened. More practice. More tears… my own, and those of the strangers I had spent three days becoming unexpectedly close to.

I still didn’t fully understand how it worked. I’m not sure I do now, completely. But I left with my shiny new pointer, a head full of memories and notes, and the title of Brainspotting Phase 1 Practitioner.

And I was terrified to use it.

-----

The First Client. The One I Will Never Forget.

It felt like the right time to bring out the magic wand. (That is genuinely what it feels like: A pointer that somehow holds more than it has any right to.)

My client had nightmares. Not occasionally. As far back as she could remember, her sleep had been disrupted by them. Constant, relentless nightmares.

We did one Brainspotting session.

She didn’t know what had happened during it. She couldn’t explain it. Neither could I, not fully. But she slept. Peacefully, for the first time she could remember.

I still don’t know exactly how. And somehow, that feels okay.

-----

Why Brainspotting for Trauma Healing?

Traditional talk therapy, including CBT, which is my primary modality, is enormously effective. But it works largely through the thinking mind. It helps you reframe, restructure, and make meaning.

Trauma, at its core, isn’t stored in the thinking mind. It’s stored in the body. In the nervous system. In the subcortical brain regions that predate language. This is why you can understand, intellectually, that something is in the past — and still feel it as if it’s happening now.

Brainspotting works with where trauma actually lives.

For clients who feel stuck despite years of therapy, or who find that talking about their experiences only takes them so far, Brainspotting can open a different door.

-----

Who Can Benefit from Brainspotting?

Brainspotting has shown strong results with:

- Trauma and PTSD

- Anxiety and panic

- Grief and loss

- Performance blocks and sports performance

- Chronic pain with a psychological component

- Emotional overwhelm that resists talk-based approaches

It is a gentle, non-invasive modality. You do not need to talk through your trauma in detail. The brain does the work.

-----

Brainspotting Therapy in Dubai

I offer Brainspotting as part of my clinical practice at The Psychology Center by The Lab in Dubai. I work with adults and teenagers navigating trauma, anxiety, and life transitions.

If you have been wondering whether Brainspotting might be right for you, or if you have tried therapy before and felt like something was still being left unprocessed, I would be glad to talk.

You can reach me via https://wellbeingwithwafa.com or wafafarid@gmail.com or on Instagram at [@wellbeingwithwafa]

-----

Wafa Farid is a licensed psychologist based in Dubai, trained in CBT and Brainspotting Phase 1.