Which is better EMDR or Brainspotting?
If you’ve ever found yourself spiraling in anxiety, stuck in old patterns of people-pleasing, perfectionism, or the nagging belief that you’re just not enough, you're not alone. The good news is that there’s real, research-backed help available. In my work as a Denver therapist, I specialize in helping high-achievers and people-pleasers break out of these exhausting cycles. Two of the most effective tools I use? EMDR and Brainspotting. And if you’ve never heard of either (or have but aren't sure what sets them apart), let’s talk about it.
EMDR vs. Brainspotting: What’s the Deal?
Both EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and Brainspotting are brain-based therapies developed to treat trauma, anxiety, and other mental health challenges by accessing the body’s natural capacity to heal. They may sound a little science-fiction-y or like magic at first, but the neuroscience is solid, and the outcomes can be life-changing. Here’s what you need to know.
EMDR: The OG Trauma Therapy
EMDR was developed by Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s and is probably the better-known of the two. It involves bilateral stimulation which is sensory simulation in order to activate parts of the brain where we store painful memories. In EMDR, bilateral simulation is usually eye movements, but sometimes taps or tones that you focus on upsetting or painful memories, thoughts, or emotions. The idea is that engaging in bilateral stimulation while intentionally accessing painful or anxiety-provoking memories or incidents helps the brain reprocess these experiences so they’re no longer affecting you. Let’s say you were humiliated as a child, maybe by a parent, peer, coach, teacher etc. You think you’re over it (it’s in the past right?) but as an adult, you sometimes find yourself getting angry or defensive when you receive criticism, or often think colleagues are trying to sabotage you or make you look like you didn’t know enough, do enough, etc. It might even happen when others question you, even if it seems like reasonable questions to others. This happens because part of you is still stuck in what it felt like to be humiliated, and it comes rushing to the surface when you sense a threat (even if there isn’t one). EMDR helps you reprocess the original events (the humiliation) so you no longer react so strongly. You can remember what happened, but it no longer hijacks your nervous system. You aren’t stuck in freeze, flight, or fawn mode when that trigger hits.
Research has backed EMDR for decades. In fact, it’s one of the most well-researched trauma therapies out there. The Department of Veterans Affairs and the World Health Organization both endorse EMDR as a first-line treatment for trauma and PTSD, and EMDR has also been successfully applied to phobias, anxiety and OCD.
Here’s how EMDR Helps:
Reduces anxiety by addressing root memories, not just symptoms
Breaks the cycle of people-pleasing and perfectionism by healing core wounds (often around worthiness or safety - both emotional and physical)
Helps rewire negative self-beliefs like “I’m not enough” or “I always mess it up”
One study in Frontiers in Psychology (2020) found EMDR effective not only for trauma but also for anxiety and depression. Another study published in the Journal of EMDR Practice and Research (2022) showed EMDR could significantly reduce perfectionistic tendencies by targeting the fear-based drivers underneath.
Brainspotting: EMDR’s Younger, Somatic Cousin
Brainspotting was developed by Dr. David Grand, who was trained in EMDR but wanted a way to treat trauma that wasn’t just EMDR. Although EMDR is helpful and supported by decades of research, it isn’t the best fit for every client. Dr. Grand found that Brainspotting can be helpful with clients who felt stuck even after EMDR, and for those that don’t feel EMDR is a good fit.
So, what is Brainspotting? Have you ever found yourself ‘staring off into space’, deep in thought, and didn’t even realize you were staring off until someone interrupted your thought process, or stepped directly into your visual range and you kind of snapped out of it? You were looking at a specific spot, but not really seeing - just thinking. That’s brainspotting, in a way. In brainspotting it is believed that where we look can affect how we feel and how we process information or experiences. A brainspotting-trained therapist helps you find a specific "brainspot" - an eye position linked to the held trauma or emotional pain - and you hold your gaze there while tuning into your body. What happens next is surprisingly powerful; the brain starts to process, release, and reorganize that stored material.
Brainspotting is a different approach than EMDR. It works directly through the body and nervous system, not just the thinking brain. It’s slower, sometimes deeper, and often more intuitive.
How Brainspotting Helps:
Unwinds stored trauma that doesn’t respond to talk therapy
Calms anxiety by helping the nervous system complete stuck fight/flight/freeze responses
Targets deeply embedded beliefs like "I’m not enough" at the body level
Helps high-functioning people-pleasers slow down and get in touch with their real needs
Key Similarities Between Brainspotting and EMDR:
Both EMDR and Brainspotting target the root cause of issues, not just the systems. They both work through trauma and other issues stored in the brain and the body. They both can facilitate healing without necessarily having to recall everything about a painful event, and they both can occur without having to retell a painful story in great detail. They both can lead to faster, deeper healing than traditional talk therapy. Lastly, they both can be effective in treating anxiety, trauma, perfectionism and negative beliefs and experience that lead to people-pleasing.These approaches are especially great for high-achievers because they bypass the need to “think your way out of it.” (Spoiler: If you could’ve solved it by now with logic, you would have.) They allow your brain to do what it’s already wired to do - heal.
Major Differences
Structure vs. Flow
EMDR is more structured and protocol-driven. That can feel comforting if you like a roadmap and want to know what to expect. EMDR can be a better fit for people who struggle to connect to their bodies and notice how emotions or memories show up physically, because it’s more thinking-oriented. Brainspotting is more open-ended and intuitive, which is great if you’re good at tuning in to your body or open to exploring something different.
Processing Style
EMDR often involves more thinking, memory recall, and sometimes verbalizing what you're experiencing, even if you aren’t going into details about the memories or events. EMDR also involves bilateral stimulation, which means alternating sounds, eye movements, or taps/buzzing sensors in your hands to assist in reprocessing. Essentially, there is a physical element to EMDR that is different from Brainspotting. While Brainspotting can be assisted with bilateral sounds (think alternating sounds in headphones, not unlike splitting sound in a stereo or headphones), Brainspotting tends to be more nonverbal and somatic, or led by what you are physically and emotionally feeling. You might feel shifts in your body or emotions without having to explain them.
Who It’s For
Brainspotting can be particularly effective for people who have done a lot of talk therapy or EMDR and still feel stuck. It can also be helpful for people who struggle to access certain memories, tend to intellectualize their feelings (aka talk about them) but have trouble actually feeling them, and those who are highly sensitive and are highly attuned to their bodies (people who deeply connect with yoga, athletes, etc).
Different Eye Movements and Positions
EMDR involves back-and-forth eye movements (sometimes accompanied by hand buzzers, like we had waiting for tables in restaurants before text alerts) that stimulate the brain’s information processing to help get painful memories ‘unstuck’. Brainspotting is more about where you look and involves finding a gaze point that is held for a period of time in order to process an event, memory or emotion. Subtle but impactful difference.
Treating Anxiety, Perfectionism & People-Pleasing
Here’s how EMDR and Brainspotting help with the issues I see most often in my Denver therapy practice. Both EMDR and Brainspotting can help reduce anxiety by addressing the body’s fight-or-flight responses and calming the nervous system. Instead of trying to reason your way out of anxiety, these methods help you work through it. They target the reasons for your anxiety in specific situations and help you work through them, which reduces the overall intensity and in some cases, eliminates it completely. Similarly, people-pleasing is usually rooted in old relational wounds or experiences like needing to earn love, avoid conflict, or stay safe in a chaotic environment. EMDR helps you reprocess those memories so they lose their emotional charge. Brainspotting can help your body learn that you don’t have to abandon yourself (your needs, wants, etc) to feel safe anymore.
Both modalities help you uncover the real reason you feel the need to be perfect, which is often a deep fear of failure or rejection, or beliefs passed down from your parents that you no longer want to hold (i.e. ‘not being productive means you’re lazy, rest = laziness or lack of discipline, etc). Once you resolve those core fears and beliefs, the pressure starts to lift. You begin to allow yourself to be human. Mistakes are no longer dangerous, just something that happens and that you feel equipped to handle without spiraling. It also helps with negative beliefs like “I’m not enough.” “I always screw things up.” “I’’ll never be _____.” These are deeply rooted beliefs that get triggered when something happens to reinforce them, or when a situation begins to feel similar (like not getting the job, being rejected by a partner, feeling unseen or unheard, etc). EMDR helps rewire these beliefs by reprocessing events that led to these beliefs. Brainspotting helps release the emotional energy that keeps those beliefs stuck in your body. Two different roads, same destination.
Why You Shouldn’t Try to DIY This
You could read every self-help book on the shelf, meditate daily, and journal like it’s your job…and still feel stuck. That’s not because you’re doing it wrong. It’s because some patterns are wired deep into your brain and nervous system and they need a different kind of intervention.
Working with a trained trauma therapist in Denver who understands these methods can help you heal faster and more effectively, access deeper emotional layers without getting overwhelmed and spiraling, feel less alone in the process and actually experience real healing - not just bandaids that make you feel better for a while. There is a time and a place for coping skills, and I teach those too - but they help when symptoms flare up, they don’t treat the root cause. And if you want to feel better long term, you have to treat the root causes.
And when you're dealing with high-functioning anxiety, burnout, perfectionism, or relentless people-pleasing, time matters. You don’t need to spend five years in therapy to feel better. EMDR and Brainspotting can create change much more quickly; often in a matter of days or months, not years.
Final Thoughts:
If you’ve been nodding along while reading this, chances are you’re more than ready for change. Maybe you’ve been the go-to person for everyone else for years, holding it all together on the outside while quietly falling apart on the inside. Maybe you’re tired of chasing some impossible standard of "enough."
You don’t have to keep doing this alone. Healing is possible - and it doesn’t have to take forever.
If you’re looking for a Denver anxiety therapist or a trauma therapist in Denver who gets what it’s like to live in high-functioning survival mode, let’s talk. I offer EMDR and Brainspotting sessions tailored to help high-achievers finally exhale, let go of the pressure, and feel good in their own skin.
Ready to Try Something That Actually Works?
Book a free 20-minute phone consult today. Let’s figure out if we’re a good fit and how we can start shifting things for you—fast.
Because you’re already doing enough. Now it’s time to feel like enough, too.
