What Is Deep Brain Reorienting?
Deep Brain Reorienting—or DBR—is a somatic, neuroscience-based therapy developed by Dr. Frank Corrigan through the 2010s. It is specifically set up to treat trauma and attachment wounds.
DBR is based on a theory of the sequence of responses that begins in the brainstem (explored below) when we encounter shocking, horrifying, or overwhelming experiences. This sequence happens incredibly fast. When we experience these events, the impact can be so overwhelming that we’re unable to fully take them in and process the complex sensations, emotions, and cognitive responses they evoke. This can contribute to symptoms associated with PTSD, anxiety, panic, dissociation, emotional dysregulation, and attachment wounds.
In DBR, we work slowly through this sequence, allowing us to gently turn toward experiences that previously felt too overwhelming to fully engage with. This allows the nervous system to begin to respond differently, reducing distress and trauma-related symptoms over time.
What Is the Sequence?
The sequence that DBR proposes begins in subcortical brain structures, particularly the brainstem. It involves: Orienting, Orienting Tension, Shock, and Affect (O → T → Sh → A).
Orienting
Certain parts of our brain are constantly monitoring our surroundings, even before we're consciously aware of them. The first step in the sequence occurs when these brain structures, even before our conscious awareness, register something significant, unexpected, or potentially threatening. DBR refers to this new or threatening stimulus as the activating stimulus.
Orienting Tension
When this happens, our nervous system automatically begins to orient or move us toward or away from that stimulus. This orienting response is often experienced as subtle tension or sensation around the eyes, forehead, or base of the skull. DBR refers to this as the orienting tension.
Shock
Next in the sequence is shock, which is central to DBR. When the activating stimulus is perceived as threatening, harmful, or horrifying, DBR proposes that activation occurs automatically in the brainstem structure called the locus coeruleus. This occurs very early in the sequence, before the more familiar emotional responses and defensive survival responses—like fight, flight, or freeze—become fully activated.
People experience shock differently, but it is often noticed as brief, fleeting sensations in the body, such as a blow to the chest, sinking in the stomach, draining of the arms, pressure in the head or behind the eyes, sudden heat or chill, shivers, shudders, jolts, gasps, electric charge sensations, tingling or ringing in the ears, and more.
Shock is central to DBR because it is believed that the energetic impact of shock amplifies the subsequent emotional responses. This amplification of shock and affect is thought to interfere with our ability to fully orient to and integrate these experiences. The goal is to approach and stay with these shock sensations to help decrease the intensity of subsequent emotional experiences, making it easier to stay present with emotions that were previously overwhelming or unbearable.
Because working with shock helps us remain present with the affect, it's crucial not to rush through it. Sometimes, entire sessions are spent simply being with shock sensations.
Affect
Finally in the sequence, we experience the affects, such as shame, grief, fear, and rage. These will also have somatic, or body-based, visceral qualities, but they often feel different than shock. Rather than fleeting sensations, affect often has a more sustained, emotionally meaningful quality. This may feel like a stuck lump in the throat, a pit in the stomach, or tension in the jaw.
In DBR, we are not trying to eliminate these emotional responses but rather to decrease their amplification and overwhelming quality so they can be experienced, felt, and integrated without the nervous system needing to turn away from them.
Begin Healing
If you have experienced traumas or events that continue to impact you, or you’d like to find freedom from trauma-related patterns, DBR could be a good option. Since DBR works with very early nervous system responses, it can also help process experiences that occurred before the development of language.
If you’re interested in learning more about working with me through Deep Brain Reorienting or another modality, you’re welcome to reach out and schedule a consultation to learn more about my therapy services.
