Despite progress in neuroscience and psychiatry, mental health treatment remains limited in its effectiveness across different patients. This is largely due to our incomplete understanding of the brain mechanisms behind psychiatric illnesses.

When clear solutions are lacking, pseudoscientific practices often gain popularity, offering promises of healing without a foundation in scientific evidence. A prominent example of this trend is Brainspotting.

What is Brainspotting?

Brainspotting is a psychotherapeutic method based on the unproven idea that specific eye positions are linked to unresolved emotional trauma. During therapy, the client follows a moving visual target. When a particular visual point evokes an emotional response, it is believed to signal access to unconscious trauma.

Supporters claim that « where you look affects how you feel », and that the right visual point can trigger healing. However, there is no neuroscientific evidence that eye gaze positions can activate emotional processing areas in the brain.

Lack of Empirical Support

Most of the available support for brainspotting comes from anecdotal reports and small-scale case studies, which lack the rigor of randomized controlled trials. To date, no large, peer-reviewed studies have confirmed its effectiveness.

This reliance on personal testimonials rather than structured clinical trials is a hallmark of pseudoscientific approaches.

A Biologically Implausible Mechanism

One of the core requirements of brainspotting is that the therapist should be able to detect brief pauses in the patient’s eye movements, known as saccades. These movements can reach speeds of up to 700 degrees per second, making them undetectable by the naked eye.

This renders the method unreliable in practice, and if the treatment fails, the blame is often placed on the therapist’s skill, not on the method itself.

Neurological Claims Without Evidence

The creators of brainspotting reference various brain regions involved in vision, memory, and emotion to give their approach scientific credibility. However, no studies have shown a direct link between these brain areas and trauma resolution in this context.

Researchers have referred to this phenomenon as scientific apophenia—the illusion of seeing meaningful patterns where none exist.

Conclusion

A 2024 review by McKay and Coreil concluded that brainspotting:

• It is not falsifiable in scientific terms
• Lacks robust clinical trials
• Relies heavily on theoretical explanations without empirical support
• Shifts blame for failure from the method to the practitioner
  

In summary, brainspotting is not an evidence-based treatment, and its claims are not supported by any proven neurobiological mechanisms related to trauma processing.