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Brainspotting is theorised as a psychotherapy method that furthers eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) methods. This psychotherapy method claims to treat stress disorders and accesses traumatic experiences that inhibit one's daily lifestyle, by using a prolonged treatment of self-activation in brainspot identification, eye gazing methodologies and introspection. There have been few cases to suggest that brainspotting treatment has effectively lowered individual's anxiety levels on the subjective units of distress scale (SUDS) however there is an unacceptance for brainspotting in the scientific world. Brainspotting is a method that has been criticised due to there being little scientific examinations recorded on the mass effectiveness of this method.

History
Brainspotting therapy claims to focus on the patient's irregular ocular movements along the visual field, tracking client's non-verbal cues to determine trauma reflected externally through the eye. Using an observational method on patients, psychologists have identified brainspots that were known to contain repressed trauma. The internal location of emotional stress is said to be reflected through the fixation of the human eye, projected through ocular movement of patient's when presented with varying stimuli. This coupled with verbal therapy, is said to expose traumatic memory and therefore, enables psychologists to determine the most effective psychotherapy treatment. Brainspotting claims to use the identification of patient's emotional cues, also known as the 'outside window theory'. The outside window theory included the observation of an individual's impulsive actions. However, the 'outside window' brainspot identification has been said to be limited in identifying emotional cues in all patients, giving rise to the 'inside window theory'. The inside window theory depends on the individual's internal emotional experiences, providing deeper introspection in comparison to the outside window theory, which relies on psychologist's secondary observations. This therapy differs from EMDR psychotherapy methods, as brainspotting claims to investigate the brainstem sections of trauma that are reflected through the eye. Stemming from vast psychological studies researching the orientation of one's eye and its association with traumatic experiences, brainspot identification provides an insight into a patient's emotional memories, contributing to the psychologist's assessment on appropriate treatment for the patient. However, due to its recent emergence, brainspotting therapy is still under evaluated and does not contain a vast amount of scientific research. This is one scientific area to watch in future years as the contemporary method of brainspotting is only now being researched extensively, criticised and supported. The future mainstream implementation of brainspotting as a psychotherapy method by psychologists is unknown and will be an interesting space to watch. An increasing number of scientific reports have researched into EMDR therapy and its linkage with brainspotting, however many papers still focus extensively on EMDR methods in comparison to other psychotherapy methods and give it more weight when researching the effectiveness of brainspotting.

Theory
This psychotherapy method claims that, through the observation of one's eye movement, the psychological issues of an individual surfaces, requiring brainspotting therapy. After brainspot identification, the brainspotting process attempts to "help the brain reprocess the encapsulated memories" of this trauma. Stemming from the theory of EMDR, brainspotting aims to use the incorporation of EMDR assessments to identify brainspots in patients. In order to do this, it is claimed that the identification of a brainspot is required to determine the type of trauma the patient is experiencing. A brainspot is known to be network that "contains stored traumatic memory" that has "failed to be integrated". The brainspot is identified by the scanning of the 'relevant eye position' of patients when presented with stimuli. This identification process is also a source of uncovering memories that have been repressed in the brain and surface the trauma previously experienced by individuals. Brainspotting theory claims that the superior colliculi and the connection of this section in the midbrain to the eyes leads to a shift in eye movement when trauma is felt internally. Furthermore, the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) is said to play a major role in the connection between the emotional state of an individual and the superior colliculi. Therefore, brainspotting suggests that emotional memory sections of the brain can reflect individual trauma. It is theorised, and has been reported that brainspotting aims at reconstructing and reconsolidating memories in the aim of deletion of trauma from an individual's brain system, in the attempt to 'reset' and individuals emotional retention. This theory is further substantiated by recent brain imaging evidence that shows that the way we feel is represented through different activations in the body.

Method
During the process of brainspotting, a patient is said to engage in a series of appointments starting with the identification of a brainspot. To identify a brainspot, hypothetically, a therapist will assess an individual's emotional experiences, which then is said to determine the appropriate method to use in their therapy. After the observation of specific cognitive processes of the patient, therapists then are said track the eye movement of their client to observe for other emotional cues. This observational process, when looking for cognitive cues, is coined the 'outside window theory'. Alternatively, therapists will use the 'inside window cue' method, a process where some individuals exhibit feelings inexplicitly through emotional cues. During this process, the movement of a person's eye, also coined gaze spotting by Grand, is attended to by psychologists to record unpredicted ocular movements. After the brainspot is identified, patients are required, during the eye gazing process, to think deeply about their traumatic stress. The gaze spotting process will include the psychologist presenting stimuli, such as their finger, along the visual field to effectively observe the ocular movement of the patient. After this process begins, the client might be given the task to listen to a series of musical compositions through headphones or alternatively, is presented with other calming stimuli in order to activate certain emotions and experiences. Patients may also be placed in a guided meditated process in order to fully activate their emotional memories. Based on the client's subjective units of distress levels (SUDS), the length of treatment is unknown.

Case study
There have been few case studies that support the effectiveness of brainspotting, however there have been two significant incidents that demonstrate brainspotting as an effective psychotherapy method. A 26-year-old patient who had sexual arousal syndrome, engaged in brainspotting therapy to help treat this debilitating syndrome. During the brainspot identification process, the ocular movement the patient presented a brainspot located in the left eye suggesting there was evidence of suppressed negative feelings regarding her genital arousal syndrome. The patient in the initial session of her therapy recorded a SUDS level of 12. However, after multiple sessions of brainspotting therapy, her SUDS level decreased to 0. The extensive decrease in stress levels were recorded as early as the beginning of her third session, reducing her sexual arousal syndrome symptoms. After her therapy, the patient engaged in medical exams that proceeded to conclude that her genital hyperarousal state had in fact, dissipated. Evidently, in this case brainspotting therapy was an effective source of treatment for the patient.

Additionally, one of David Grand's clients, Rick, a 19-year-old patient who had issues with his performance in sport proceeded with brainspotting therapy to overcome his childhood trauma and negative experiences with his family. Grand examined how the inhibited performance levels of the baseballer was due to childhood traumatic memories, essentially effecting the athlete's capacity to reach his full potential. Grand used the SUDS assessment to determine the athletes stress levels regarding this issue. After identifying a brainspot and understanding the patients stress associated with his childhood trauma, Grand placed the patient in a prolonged engagement of brainspotting therapy. Rick's treatment lasted over 4 months, while his SUDS levels decreased dramatically. Grand examined that once the brainspot was identified and the patient engaged in brainspotting therapy, Rick no longer felt trauma regarding his childhood experiences demonstrated heightened performance in his baseball games.

Controversy
As brainspotting is a relatively new psychotherapy method and by some have been considered pseudoscience, there have been little sufficient studies done to accurately assess how effective brainspotting treatment is. However, some papers suggest that psychologists find the practice of brainspotting more effective than that of EMDR and that brainspotting is an effective treatment to lower patients SUDS levels. Additionally, there are several new studies emerging to demonstrate how effective brainspotting has been in the treatment of individuals that are experiencing traumatic stress. Although, there has been further controversy surrounding the lack of scientific reports that are currently investigating brainspotting as an effective therapy method and further there is little evidence to demonstrate opposing perspectives to the effectiveness of brainspotting as a psychotherapy method. However, there has been a well-researched linkage between eye gazing and emotional memory providing extensive background information that gives reason for the successful development and use of brainspotting by psychologists. Further studies need to be done to fully establish a wide range of resources that provide substantial evidence regarding the process and effectiveness of this psychotherapy method. Even though there have been not controversial studies that disregard brainspotting based on evidence, psychologists still speculate its effectiveness. However, recent large-scale studies suggest brainspotting psychotherapy methods have been an effective treatment for individuals. Previous studies have used a longitudinal and quasi experimental design, in which the findings show participants who have experienced post-traumatic stress disorder, were effectively treated through the use of brainspotting as a psychotherapy, healing method. However, the findings did suggest that there was no significant difference in effectiveness of healing effectiveness between brainspotting and EMDR. Additionally, brainspotting has been attributed to a pseudoscience and is not widely accepted by psychologists in the academic profession. It is necessary for this topic to be studied more widely in order to further determine whether the claimed psychotherapy method is actually a substantial scientific process.