Brainspotting: A Powerful Tool For Navigating Perinatal Mental Health
By Elle Murphy, MSW, LSW
The perinatal period is incredibly complex; emotions such as grief, joy, sadness, and anger can all visit us during this time. This unpredictable emotional turbulence makes mental health support during this time not just helpful, but essential.
Enter brainspotting: an innovative therapeutic approach that provides the ability to process the complex emotions and trauma that can arise during the perinatal period.
What is Brainspotting?
"Brainspotting is based on the profound attunement of the therapist with the patient, finding a somatic cue and extinguishing it by down-regulating."
– Robert Scaer, MD, "The Trauma Spectrum"
Brainspotting is a brain-based therapy technique built on a premise: where you look affects how you feel. By identifying specific eye positions called "brainspots," therapists can help clients access and process deeply held trauma, anxiety, and emotional pain stored in the subcortical brain.
Different from traditional talk therapy, Brainspotting works below the level of cognition, accessing the parts of our brain that hold emotional wounds before they become words. This makes it particularly effective for processing experiences that feel overwhelming, confusing, or difficult to articulate, like experiences which often arise during the perinatal period.
How Brainspotting Works Well for Perinatal Mental Health
Body-centered healing: Pregnancy and birth are profoundly embodied experiences. Brainspotting honors the wisdom of the body and helps process trauma held at the somatic level like the tightness in the chest, the knot in the stomach, the overwhelming exhaustion that goes beyond lack of sleep.
Works beyond words: In the fog of postpartum or the overwhelm of pregnancy anxiety, finding words can feel impossible. Brainspotting doesn't require eloquent explanations; it meets you where you are.
Addresses multiple layers: A single brainspotting session can help process birth trauma while also touching on how it connects to childhood experiences or relationship patterns, allowing for holistic healing.
What a Brainspotting Session Looks Like
In a Brainspotting session, I will help you identify what you'd like to work on. This could be persistent anxiety about the future of childbearing/rearing, a specific birth memory, or a feeling of disconnection. I’d ask you to notice where you feel this issue in your body.
Then, using a pointer, I will slowly guide your gaze across your field of vision while you stay connected to that body sensation. When your eyes land on a particular spot that intensifies the feeling or creates a reflexive response, that's your brainspot.
You'll then hold your gaze on that spot while I offer a safe, supportive space for whatever needs to emerge, including emotions, memories, insights, or simply release. The process is deeply intuitive, and I just follow your lead throughout.
Many clients describe feeling lighter, calmer, and more integrated after sessions. The traumatic memory or anxious thoughts may still be there, but they no longer carry the same emotional charge.
Your Healing Matters
The perinatal period is one of profound transformation. With support, it can also be a time of deep healing from recent experiences and wounds we've carried for years. Brainspotting offers a path forward that honors both the vulnerability and the resilience inherent in the perinatal journey.
Sources:
Brainspotting. (n.d.). What is brainspotting? https://brainspotting.com/about-brainspotting/what-is-brainspotting/
Corrigan, F., & Grand, D. (2013). Brainspotting: recruiting the midbrain for accessing and healing sensorimotor memories of traumatic activation. Medical Hypotheses, 80(6), 759-766. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2013.03.005
Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health. (2025, May). Maternal mental health [Fact sheet]. https://policycentermmh.org/maternal-mental-health-fact-sheet/
