Deep Brain Reorienting
Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) is a treatment to help you process the shock and turning away response that stays stuck in our systems after we encounter a threat. The stuck shock, as we understand it, leads to mental health symptoms and so processing that shock allows us to reorient and move toward healing.
Threat and Shock
Our brains are specially designed to orient toward or notice threats. The rapid detection of threats is what allows us to stay safe and secure. As we go through life, we experience a wide range of threats. These threats can be things like traumatic experiences, rejection from those who matter to you, or perhaps even your own memories or thoughts of painful experiences.
When our brain recognizes a threat, it sends energy throughout our body so that we can act or react according to that threat. This energy is what we know as shock. Concurrent with shock is the innate urge to move or turn away from the threat. For many threats that we experience, the energy of shock and the orienting away will be enough to handle the threat. But, if the threat is strong enough (or you can’t escape it), it can overwhelm your natural, innate capacity to handle it.
The consequence of experiencing a ‘strong enough threat’ is that you may feel stuck and have a hard time moving past the threat (physically or mentally). You might even develop mental health symptoms or conditions. Moreover, triggers or memories of the threat can keep you within the stuck cycle of shock and overwhelm.
This is where Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) can help.
How Does DBR Help?
According to DBR theory (which is rooted in neuroanatomy), shock and the urge to turn away are located deep within the brain; at the brainstem level. Shock and the urge to turn away are deeply coded in the brain; they lie beneath the parts of our brain that control thought, emotion, and conscious behaviours. The goal of DBR is to digest the shock and the urge to turn away so that you can process the trauma that is leaving you feeling triggered or stuck.
What Does Processing Look Like?
Briefly, a DBR processing session starts by selecting a threat to work on. It may be a memory of an upsetting experience, something internal (like a thought or feeling), or something else. Once we have agreed on what to work on, we use a grounding exercise that activates the part of your deep brain that knows where you are in space. After this, you will be asked to pay attention to the muscles of the forehead, around the eyes, and back of the neck; a tension will emerge in one of these places. We call this the orienting tension (the part of you that first oriented to the threat when it was first experienced). The orienting tension is important to maintain throughout processing; it helps to keep you grounded.
After developing a good connection to your orienting tension, you will be asked to notice signs of shock in your body. You will be asked to communicate what you notice in your body to your therapist; the therapist will help you process through the shock in the correct sequence. During processing, you will experience physical sensations associated with shock, but perhaps also affect or memories, and perhaps even more deeply held pain that is keeping you stuck. Your therapist will help you manage these features in a way that will work you through the shock and
orienting. The session will end due to time or perhaps when you feel a resolution.
Is DBR Good for My Issues?
Given that DBR is so new in the therapy world (it started to form in the early 2020s), we don’t have a lot of published research…yet. There are ongoing research studies at this time. There is one study (Kearney et al. 2023) that has shown that DBR is effective in the treatment of PTSD.
While DBR doesn’t yet have the widespread net of research publications that other treatments have, the network of DBR clinicians across the globe is gathering anecdotal evidence all the time. In addition to PTSD, we are finding that DBR appears to help our clients with symptoms of anxiety, health-related stress, ‘stuck’ ways of interacting in relationships (e.g., people-pleasing), and even dissociative or defensive responses.
If you would like to discuss DBR as an option for your treatment, please reach out to schedule a consultation with Dr. Emily Orr
Threat and Shock
Our brains are specially designed to orient toward or notice threats. The rapid detection of threats is what allows us to stay safe and secure. As we go through life, we experience a wide range of threats. These threats can be things like traumatic experiences, rejection from those who matter to you, or perhaps even your own memories or thoughts of painful experiences.
When our brain recognizes a threat, it sends energy throughout our body so that we can act or react according to that threat. This energy is what we know as shock. Concurrent with shock is the innate urge to move or turn away from the threat. For many threats that we experience, the energy of shock and the orienting away will be enough to handle the threat. But, if the threat is strong enough (or you can’t escape it), it can overwhelm your natural, innate capacity to handle it.
The consequence of experiencing a ‘strong enough threat’ is that you may feel stuck and have a hard time moving past the threat (physically or mentally). You might even develop mental health symptoms or conditions. Moreover, triggers or memories of the threat can keep you within the stuck cycle of shock and overwhelm.
This is where Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) can help.
How Does DBR Help?
According to DBR theory (which is rooted in neuroanatomy), shock and the urge to turn away are located deep within the brain; at the brainstem level. Shock and the urge to turn away are deeply coded in the brain; they lie beneath the parts of our brain that control thought, emotion, and conscious behaviours. The goal of DBR is to digest the shock and the urge to turn away so that you can process the trauma that is leaving you feeling triggered or stuck.
What Does Processing Look Like?
Briefly, a DBR processing session starts by selecting a threat to work on. It may be a memory of an upsetting experience, something internal (like a thought or feeling), or something else. Once we have agreed on what to work on, we use a grounding exercise that activates the part of your deep brain that knows where you are in space. After this, you will be asked to pay attention to the muscles of the forehead, around the eyes, and back of the neck; a tension will emerge in one of these places. We call this the orienting tension (the part of you that first oriented to the threat when it was first experienced). The orienting tension is important to maintain throughout processing; it helps to keep you grounded.
After developing a good connection to your orienting tension, you will be asked to notice signs of shock in your body. You will be asked to communicate what you notice in your body to your therapist; the therapist will help you process through the shock in the correct sequence. During processing, you will experience physical sensations associated with shock, but perhaps also affect or memories, and perhaps even more deeply held pain that is keeping you stuck. Your therapist will help you manage these features in a way that will work you through the shock and
orienting. The session will end due to time or perhaps when you feel a resolution.
Is DBR Good for My Issues?
Given that DBR is so new in the therapy world (it started to form in the early 2020s), we don’t have a lot of published research…yet. There are ongoing research studies at this time. There is one study (Kearney et al. 2023) that has shown that DBR is effective in the treatment of PTSD.
While DBR doesn’t yet have the widespread net of research publications that other treatments have, the network of DBR clinicians across the globe is gathering anecdotal evidence all the time. In addition to PTSD, we are finding that DBR appears to help our clients with symptoms of anxiety, health-related stress, ‘stuck’ ways of interacting in relationships (e.g., people-pleasing), and even dissociative or defensive responses.
If you would like to discuss DBR as an option for your treatment, please reach out to schedule a consultation with Dr. Emily Orr