What Brainworking recursive Therapy®?

What is BWRT?

BWRT® – BrainWorking Recursive Therapy® – is a new model of psychology and psychopathology that fits comfortably with current thinking on neuroscience. Developed by Terence Watts in 2011 after 35,000 hours of experience working with clients, it is determinedly solution-focused and evidence-based, thus fulfills the requirements of modern therapies.

Download Terence Watts's detailed e-book: BWRT Information for patients (you will need an e-book reader)

BWRT has a featured chapter in the academic book The Bright Side of Shame (published by Springer) and was the subject of a 2018 Ph.D. awarded from Lincoln University in the UK. It is currrently (after a Covid-related pause)) the subject of a clinical trial being funded and conducted by the University of Bergen, Norway. It's fast, effective, and long-lasting - usually permanent - and doesn't require the client to tap, pinch, breathe in a special way, operate an anchor, trigger or any other form of post-therapy device. It just works.

Based on Neuroscience Research

The original inspiration for what was to become BWRT came via an article in the New Scientist magazine in November 2011, about the experiments of Benjamin Libet in the early 1980s. The experiments appeared to prove that we dont have free will in the way we usually think of it - though we do definitely have free won't. That is, you can stop an action after it has started but you have no conscious control over the impulse arising in the first place.


The reports of Libet's experiments created howls of outrage and there were many attempts to dispute the findings. None of them were entirely successful, though, and as more advanced imaging techniques became available, it became obvious that there was, indeed, a 'cognitive gap' where the brain was starting to create a response before conscious awareness.  The following links give you a clear view of the amount of research which has now been carried out: 

How it Works

The truly exciting thing about BWRT is that it works directly in that 'cognitive gap' before conscious awareness. So where more standard therapies will be seeking to access the anxiety-triggering amygdala via conscious processes, BWRT works from the other end of the scale - in the very early brain before the amygdala has even received the message!  We work with the Reptilian Complex, AKA Lizard Brain, which for 600 million years or so has been and still is the first responder in all sentient animals. It's far speedier than even the fastest thought in response to any stimulus but especially to threats against survival, be they real or simply perceived.



The 'engine' of BWRT is a naturally occuring brain state, the 'Freeze' response, a 'synthetic' version of which is induced therapeutically and without trauma. Then we use the primary communication processes of the early brain to reorganise and neutralise the response(s) associated with the presenting symptom.  

Who Uses It?

BWRT is now in use all over the world. It is in regular use by the psychologists in a South African Police Force, thanks to its abilty to resolve even quite severe PTSD in a session or two getting officers quickly back on the road. It's in use in correction facilities, hospitals, university departments and schools, as well as by thousands of professional therapists in private clinics. 

Videos about BWRT