Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) is a trauma psychotherapy developed by Frank Corrigan based on an understanding of the mid-brain, it aims to liberate the brain’s basic potential to heal from trauma by getting to the route of the shock.
Although we will meet and talk about the events and the affects of the trauma you experienced in a usual relational way this part of the work is mainly non-verbal as we engage the brains midbrain by collaboratively seeking to find the origin of the body’s response to a traumatic event, which is before our story about it or the high states of alarm and how we consciously remember and describe the initial event and the reliving of the trauma as PTSD, anxiety or depression. Instead we use the knowledge of brainstem processes to identify how the body responded immediately to the traumatic incident and to identify the shock which occurred and has since been stuck.
Without this understanding of the midbrain apparatus and this grounded, focused and deliberate work we miss the moment of shock and so while our therapeutic work identifies and helps later stages residual shock is left and continues to cause us problems.
This work is done well in online sessions where you can be comfortable in your own environment safe in your own space and without any need to travel after the session. The work is very grounded and our aim is to establish emotional regulation processing the difficult material your brain already has access to, we go at a pace you are comfortable with and if the processing feels too much or is in any way overwhelming we will gently stop and you will be shown how to take care of yourself so if you are overwhelmed in day to day life you have some experience of the self-care you can give yourself.
As this work is client centred, slow and consensual and the trauma you are carrying is already a burden to you this process is more likely to be of relief, though it is not always possible to process a whole event in a single session. We will determine a good place to start at the beginning of each session and aim to work systematically through complex trauma and carefully through dissociative experiences.
In this video Frank explains more about DBR and here is a link to an article discussing DBR by an EMDR specialist.