The Heart Of Therapy
Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR)
DBR is a transformative but gentle trauma-processing psychotherapy grounded in neuroscience. It is designed to heal the psychological challenges and mental health symptoms caused by traumatic and adverse experiences and attachment wounds experienced during adulthood and childhood.
What is Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR)?
When a traumatic event occurs at any age, the brain responds in a way geared toward protection and survival. Whether you are aware of it or not, the same response pattern replays every time something happens that reminds the brain in any small way of the earlier event. Many years later, after an event is well and truly over, the brain still responds as if it is happening now, even if the current situation is very different, and you have no awareness of what is being triggered. This can keep you stuck in a loop of unwanted symptoms and patterns of responding (See under "What can Deep Brain Reorienting help with" for a list of these symptoms and patterns).
DBR helps resolve this by gently guiding the brain to revisit and slow down the physiological sequence initiated by the brain stem when the unwanted symptom or response pattern occurs. Research has shown that careful guidance by a therapist to track and slow down the sequence opens it up for lasting change.
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What can Deep Brain Reorienting help with?
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Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) can help with a variety of challenges, including:
Trauma and PTSD.
Anxiety and stress.
Attachment issues.
Depression symptoms rooted in early emotional pain or unresolved trauma.
Somatic symptoms such as tension, pain, and physical symptoms that are tied to emotional distress or early adverse experiences.
Emotional reactivity and chronic emotional dysregulation
Survival response patterns: such as fight, flight, freeze, fawn, dissociation, or shutdown.
Emotional numbing or disconnection and inability to reconnect with feelings, body sensations, and a sense of aliveness.
Unresolved grief.
Self-esteem and self-worth challenges.
Relationship difficulties including difficulties with trust, connection and feeling insecure or fearing abandonment and rejection.
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What Happens in a DBR Session?
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1. Identifying the Target - Your therapist helps you select a target, such as a moment when an unwanted symptom or pattern of response is triggered.
2. Accessing the Deep Brain Response - Your therapist guides your brain to connect with the underlying brain sequence—occurring before thoughts, emotions, or behaviours take over.
They will ask you to start by noticing tension in the areas of your forehead, around your eyes, or at the base of your skull. Neuroscience research has shown that this tension signals the initiation of a trauma sequence from a deep brain structure in the brainstem (the Superior Colliculus).
This sensation will also become an anchor for you to return to at any point within the process if it feels too much or overwhelming.
3. Trauma Processing and Reorienting - Using an understanding of brain structures and functions, your therapist guides you to stay with other sensations that arise, helping to slow down the underlying brain sequence. This process allows the sequence to be altered in a safe and controlled way. It enables therapy to access the trauma at the root of your unwanted symptoms in a manageable manner that minimises overwhelm and avoids the emotional intensity often associated with trauma therapies.
Through this process, the brain reorients itself, releasing old survival response patterns and allowing new, healthier patterns to emerge.
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The Research and Evidence
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In 2023, a randomised controlled trial evaluated the effectiveness of DBR in treating trauma symptoms (PTSD). Participants who underwent eight sessions of DBR showed significant reductions in symptoms compared to a waitlist control group.
These promising results suggest that DBR, by targeting the brain's innate processing mechanisms, offers a gentle and effective approach to trauma therapy. DBR holds the potential to become a widely adopted method for healing trauma at its roots.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/20008066.2023.2240691?um
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306987719309673?via%3Dihub
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Learn More: Books, Articles, and Videos on DBR
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Video: Dr. Frank Corrigan on DBR https://youtu.be/wijwwMuONFg?si=FPeVbquUNIlfw4jl https://youtu.be/oqdK3_ojgeY?si=5riLwy9oBv6ScuCn https://youtu.be/BjCoIHR5sZ0?si=Sth16CNt4BwIoKM- Other: https://youtu.be/XYSpCbH2S6g?si=rRUQ5YQdC0WJn_hq https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvphbpQlHLU https://trauma.blog.yorku.ca/2024/08/research-highlights-a-promising-trauma- treatment-deep-brain-reorienting https://www.routledge.com/Deep-Brain-Reorienting-Understanding-the- Neuroscience-of-Trauma-Attachment-Wounding-and-DBR-Psychotherapy/ Corrigan-Young-Christie-Sands/p/book/9781032556253?
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