The Brain in Brainspotting

By Judy Hawley, RSW, MSW, BSDS, BSW

Brainspotting is holistic because it doesn’t treat the mind, body, and spirit as separate systems — it works with all three at once, through the subcortical brain + the felt sense in the body + the intuitive/energetic field around a person is attuned with the practitioner.

What this really means is that bainspotting is deep processing that happens beyond cognition.

It bypasses your thinking prefrrontal cortex executive functioning and goes straight into the subcortical brain through the ocular nerves with a focused spot the eyes are on.

So through that spot that people are focusd on they are accessing their emotional memories, implicit beliefs and what they need to process – rather than logically figuring out what they are working on.

By accessing the mid brain and unconscious patterning brainspotting releases stuck memories, at the same time as quieting the prefrontal cortex through internal processing without overthinking. It has the ability to reorganize internal narratives by dissolving the emotional charge that holds them, and strengthens intuitive clarity with the insula.

So mental clarity increases, thought patterns shift, and cognitive distortions soften because the brain is no longer defending or trying to make sense of the imprints anymore. It’s no longer about managing symptoms but unwinding their source.

Somatically – the body regulation and completion of old survival responses becomes possible because the spot that someone is looking is activating the neural network connected to what has been stored in the body. So old patterning from the body are released through muscle release, unconscious protective tensions, stored survival responses are released through the basal ganglia, brainstem and felt sense of the hippocampus. 

Autonomic regulation improves, shifting body out of chronic hypervigilence, involuntary tremors, heat, yawning, shaking, all signs of discharge that happen during a brainspotting session, releasing what the body needs to. The vagus nerve also can soften and allow more ventral vagal states and deeper safety. 

The body basically moves into safety and the nervous system becomes more resilient and present.

One of the most fascinating aspects of brainsporting is how connected it is to connection with the bigger picture. Your higher self, your divine source, God, your intuition, your connection with spirit. Brainspotting opens the inner spiritual channel because once survival energy releases, your system naturally rises into connection, insight, and alignment. 

The brain regions within the subcortical brain are in charge of holding trauma, emotional memory, regulation, and the default mode network or DMN which is in charge of self-awareness, introspection and inner guided knowing  can become regulated. This includes the medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex and inferior parietal lobule. When the DMN becomes regulated rather than hyperactive or shut down people often experience a deeper intuition, self-truth, integration, clarity, and connection to something larger.

This part of the brain is associated with meditation, intuition, higher self experiences – and brainspotting can calm the ‘noie’ that interrupts the DMN functioning.

The insula is the inner truth of the body – it is the interoception and intuition – the felt sense bridge between body sensations, emotional states, intuitive knowing. The insula is more accurate when an individual is grounded. The insula is the key to turning sensation during brainspotting into meaning.

The ACC or Anterior Cingulate Cortex is in charge of awareness, integration, emotional honesty. It supports the integration of emotional information, making sense of inner experiences, and connection with meaningful emotion. This region becomes much more active once the threat response has calmed – so many brainspotting clients will report that everything becomes clear with a bigger picture.

The prefrontal Cortex in the brain where we make meaning from experience, have spiritual reflection, and connect with a higher level perspective. Once the lower brain is able to stop firing in survival mode, the prefrontal cortex can come back online to allow perspective, compassion to connect to logic, reflection, spiritual understanding, accessing values and truth, and making sense of what was felt in session.

Many will describe this as a connection with spirit, higher self or divine alignment. 

There is also the transcendence, connection beyond the self of mystical experiences, where connection to something bigger is sensed, and out of box insight or intuition can show up. This can be activated by the Temporal-Parietal Junction (TPJ) returning to online during brianspotting when a calm state is reached. Research has shown that meditation and mystical states activate the TPJ and brainspotting by reorganizing the subcortical stress have the TPJ become accessible again.

The Holistic aspect of brainspotting makes it feel spiritual because it removes the survival noise that blocks our access into it.

When the amygdala calms, the insula awakens, the DMN organizes, and the PFC comes online. So people are able to naturally rise into insight, clarity, intuition, connection, alignment, meaning and higher-level consciousness.

This is why so many clients describe Brainspotting experiences that feel mystical, sacred, deeply intuitive, guided, connected to higher self or spirit, and transformative beyond words. Brainspotting is literally where neurobiology meets soul.

There is also dual attunement to consider with brainspotting which is one of the most misunderstood aspects of brainspotting, because people think it’s only relational attunement. In reality, it has three dimensions. Neurobiological attunement, relational attunement, energetic field attunement.

The neurobiological part of attunement is co-regulation through the nervous system. When two people are attuned their nervous systems synchronize – we know this through the measurable research that has been done – for instance with moms and their children. It has been shown that heart rates synchronize, Breathing patterns synchronize, Brainwave patterns shift into coherence, Vagal tone entrains to the calmer system, Mirror neuron systems activate.

This is physiological attunement. In Brainspotting, the therapist’s grounded, regulated presence signals to the client’s subcortical brain that it is safe to process.

That safety alters: amygdala reactivity, midbrain threat detection, limbic emotional tone, and vagus nerve pathways. This is why the spiritual experience emerges later:  the lower brain stops interfering.

The relational attunement of attachment, presence, and deep witnessing creates a non-judgemental space where dual attunment allows the practitioner to track the clients neurobiology, the clients emotional waves, the internal process happening beneath expression.

This activates the ventral vagal social engagement system, which communicates: safety, resonance, bonding, co-regulation so that when a client feels seen and safe it allows the brain to open and associates states of the brain associated with trust, openness, surrender, self-connection which are states familiar in meditation, prayer, deep intuition, and spiritual alignment.

The spiritual channel opens because the psychological defenses quiet. With the Energetic Attunement of the science behind field connection. Neuroscience actually supports this with humans having a measurable electromagnetic and bioenergetic fields. 

Humans have measurable electromagnetic and bioenergetic fields. The Science behind energetic attunemen has been shown in the Electromagnetic field that is measurable with the heart for up to 3-8 feet. When two people are attuned their heart rhythms create coherent patterns and these patterns influence the other persons nervous system. There is a coherence creating calm, clarity and intuition. This is the science backing why there is an energetic presence when two people are attuned.

Also the brain has the Electromagnetic Field (EEG-Detectable) Where brainwaves produce a bioelectric field around the head.

During deep attunement: both brains shift into more synchronized rhythms, this synchronization improves interoception and intuitive perception So the client can sense energetically what the therapist senses . This is the science behind the “shared field” people describe.

The Polyvagal + Default Mode Network Interaction is also known to be part of this attunement. When survival energy downshifts (thanks to the attuned relationship), the system accesses: introspective awareness, insight, intuition, spiritual meaning. This is because: the DMN becomes quiet and coherent (meditation-like), the ventral vagal system increases safety and connection, the insula heightens intuitive, interoceptive knowing, the ACC integrates emotion and meaning, the TPJ opens the sense of “beyond the self”

These combined create the state clients call: spiritual insight, divine connection, higher self, intuition, alignment and guidance. It is not magic.  It is a neurospiritual state created by safety, attunement, and subcortical release.

Dual attunement creates subcortical safety + relational resonance + energetic coherence.

This combination: calms the amygdala, opens the insula (intuition), integrates the ACC (meaning), activates the TPJ (transcendence), synchronizes the heart-brain field, clears survival “noise” from the nervous system.

When the body stops running survival programs the spiritual channel naturally becomes audible.

This is why people report a deep clarity with intuitive downloads, ancestral or higher self connection. And an emotional transmutation with energetic release and a sense of alignment or purpose.

Spiritual experience is not separate from neurobiology — it emerges when the brain-body system finally has enough safety to access higher states. Everything is connected, and we are made up of energy – of everything.

Dual attunement creates a state of such deep safety — physiologically, emotionally, and energetically — that the body relaxes, the mind quiets, and the spirit begins to speak.

It’s the combination of two nervous systems in coherence, two minds in resonance, and two energy fields interacting that opens the inner channel for intuition, connection, and spiritual insight.

Why It’s brainspotting is truly Holistic: it works on all three layers simultaneously. The mind through reorganization of implicit, emotional and unconscious layering. The body by discharging stored neurobiological imprint of trauma, shifting the nervous system into safety and flexibility. ANd the spirit through opening access to intuition, inner truth, connection and our higher self rather than having our system be hijacked in survival states.

Brainspotting isn’t talking about healing – it is creating it. It is not analyzing trauma, it is unwinding it. It is not separating your mind, body or spirit – it is reuniting them.

The reason brainspotting can support you in expanding into your purpose, in enhancing your creativity, your skills, your executive functioning and your brain-body connection is because it activates all. It works from a holistic you as opposed to one part – and it does this in a safe, nonjudgemental energetic way with another individual who not only provides the guidance, but provides you with the regulation you need to move through into where you want to be.