Brainspotting versus Hypnosis

Many of Thinkshift’s clients come to us for therapy delivered via Hypnosis. This is because Hypnosis has been demonstrated to assist a diverse range of day to day issues. From addictions to unwanted habits and from anxiety to coping with transitional life stages and moments, hypnosis has been a therapeutic mainstay.

Personally I love hypnosis. As it was my second skillset it will always have fond memories for me. And I’ve conducted thousands of client hypnosis sessions.

Times Have Changed

Thirty years on, there are a number of new effective neuroscience based interventions. Approaches to behavioural adjustment have changed also. There are many ways which are more sophisticated and have with greater efficacy than hypnosis.

One of those neuroscience based approaches is called Brainspotting. It was developed by Dr David Grand in 2003.

Hypnosis v’s Brainspotting

A question that clients frequently ask is, “what is the difference between Brainspotting and Hypnosis?” It’s a very good question. 

The brain state people go into while receiving Brainspotting is similar to brain states that people go into under hypnosis.

The big difference is that in Hypnosis the hypnotherapist “talks” the client into the hypnotic trance state.

With Brainspotting, when a person goes into a similar state, we don’t “talk” them into that state. Instead their brain actually creates the hypnotic state inside of themselves. In that way the Brainspotting trance state is the perfect trance state for that moment. For that issue. For that client.

The Profound Difference

So there is a similarity, but the profound difference is that we the therapist don’t guide a person from the outside, the client themselves does it from the inside. As Brainspotters we facilitate the client’s journey from inside of themselves: we frame a situation for a client so they go there on their own.

Dr David Grands own words on this matter speak volumes:

“Our survival instincts come from the deepest parts of our brain. And drive us to be able to not only survive but able to cope with things in our environment. In this context the true answers come from deep in the brain. And when you hold things for a person in that the way that they get access to it, things work the way they can work best.”

Having been a vocal supporter of hypnosis due to past excellent results since 1995, it‘s quite a shift to now embrace the even more powerful results obtained by using Brainspotting.

Contact Us

Contact us to discuss how Brainspotting and or Hypnosis may assist you.