If you’ve tried therapy but still feel anxious, overwhelmed, or “stuck,” you’re not alone.
Sometimes, we can understand what happened to us intellectually, yet our body continues to react as though something is still wrong. Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) offers a different approach to trauma therapy by working with the brain at the midbrain level.
Developed by Dr. Frank Corrigan, Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) focuses on the brainstem responss during the rapid, automatic process involved in detecting significant or threatening experiences, during trauma, attachment disruptions or shock.
What Happens When We Experience Shock?
When something overwhelming happens, the brain and body can respond incredibly quickly often before we consciously understand what is happening.
DBR describes a sequence that can involve orienting, tension, shock, and emotion and meaning:
1. Orienting
Your eyes automatically notices something significant such as a car coming towards you, an angry voice, text on your phone, or loss of contact.
2. Tension
Your body may subtly prepare to respond. You might notice tension around your eyes, face, jaw, neck, or shoulders. In DBR, particular attention may be given to sensations around the eyes and forehead or at the back of the neck near the base of the skull.
3. Shock
An immediate physiological response may occur before emotions are fully organized.
Some people describe this as:
- A sudden gasp or breath-holding
- Shivering or chills
- A jolt or “electric” sensation
- Pressure behind the eyes
- A wave of heat
- Tingling or ringing in the ears
- Feeling frozen or unable to move
4. Emotion and Meaning
Afterward, emotions such as fear, anger, grief, shame, or helplessness may emerge, along with thoughts and interpretations about what happened.
DBR focuses particularly on these early orienting and shock responses what can be thought of as a deeper layer of the traumatic experience that may occur before the more familiar emotional and cognitive responses associated with trauma, PTSD, and attachment wounds.
What Happens in a DBR Session?
A DBR therapist helps you approach a difficult experience slowly while paying attention to subtle sensations in your body.
The process is designed to be gentle, gradual, and carefully paced. You are not expected to force yourself through overwhelming memories or repeatedly retell every detail of what happened.
Instead, you are guided to notice what happens moment by moment while remaining connected to the present. This can allow you to explore the earliest responses associated with an overwhelming experience without becoming flooded by the entire memory.
What Does the Research Show?
Early research is encouraging. In the first randomized controlled trial of DBR, 54 participants received eight sessions. Participants receiving DBR experienced an average 36.6% reduction in PTSD symptoms following treatment. At the three-month follow-up, average symptom reduction increased to 48.6% (Corrigan et al., 2023).
For people who understand their experiences but still feel “stuck,” DBR offers another way of exploring healing by working with the brainstem orienting response and early shock responses that can occur before conscious thought, emotion, and meaning fully take shape.
You’re welcome to contact us at J. Gordon Psychology Group to determine if Deep Brain Reorienting is right for you!
