Interview with José Martín del Pliego: this is how brainspotting works

The line between psychological disorders and brain disorders is very blurred, partly because, Technically, any alteration of a psychological nature is reflected in the nervous system of the person who has suffered it. developed.

That is why, consistent with this, there are therapeutic intervention techniques that seek to obtain psychological results through the stimulation of parts of the brain. This is the case of brainspotting.

In this interview, the psychologist José Martín del Pliego will talk to us about the particularities of brainspotting and how it is used in patients.

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Interview with José Martín del Pliego: what is brainspotting?

Jose Martin del Pliego he is a clinical psychologist with more than 20 years of professional experience caring for patients. Currently, he is responsible for the psychology area of ​​the Los Tilos Medical Center, located in Segovia, and also conducts online therapy by video call.

Among the different modalities of psychological intervention that he masters, his experience in Hypnotherapy and brainspotting stands out. Throughout this interview, del Pliego will talk to us about this latest technique, based on the stimulation of different parts of the brain.

How would you explain brainspotting to someone who has never heard of the concept?

The term comes from English, referring to pointing the brain through eye contact. This allows us to access neural circuits, where sometimes very high intensity emotional responses are stored and that may be causing problems in the patient's life.

The brain is continually checking the information that the body gives it and, at the same time, checking itself. The technique takes advantage of this circumstance to locate and then process and release areas or neural circuits that were maladjusted, producing maladaptive responses in the person's life.

That is why the technique can also work on physical ailments, since these had a functionality in its time and, by releasing these recordings, the associated somatic ailment also disappears in many cases.

Probably, as a psychotherapist you have seen many cases where brainspotting can be applied. Is it versatile? What are the main problems in which it is used, specifically?

The technique is relatively recent, but its excellent results have already been experimentally verified. therapy in the following cases: physical and emotional trauma, chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia, addictions, phobias, posttraumatic stress, impulse control and aggression, emotional problems, anxiety and depression, and sports performance problems (especially striking in this area).

As a psychologist, at what point did you come to the conclusion that brainspotting is an interesting resource worth professional training?

David Grand is the discoverer of the technique, in 2003, and since then the technique has been spreading among different trained trainers. It is through other professional colleagues that information about this new tool reaches me, which works much more deeply than others. Going into the technique, you are not disappointed at all.

How is it applied to patients?

The patient focuses his attention on the emotion we want to work on. He scores the intensity with which he feels it and then, with a simple pointer, he scans the patient's gaze until he finds that brainspot associated with the reasons for consultation.

From that moment on, the attention will be maintained at that point until the emotions, physical sensations or thoughts that come to the patient's focused attention towards himself are deepened. We use that capacity that the brain has for self-healing and the fundamental bond with the therapist.

What are the keys to the functioning of memory on which it is based?

It is based on the access, release and readjustment of those emotional memories, whose origin is sometimes very primitive, inaccessible to our cognitive area, or It has to do with a high intensity event, the memory of which our brain avoids as a defense but which causes symptoms in the life of the person. person. With the technique, the brain generates the necessary homeostasis for proper global functioning.

And how are the results being produced, the therapeutic progress?

As I indicate, brainpotting works with the self-healing capacity of the brain, in such a way that it not only releases intense emotional response while the exercise lasts, but continues to work when the patient goes to his home; the brain continues to work, relocating what has been worked on in consultation. This makes us act in the depths of the pathology for which the patient comes to the consultation, generating more permanent changes. We act on the basis of the problem.