You Can’t ‘Think’ Your Way Out of Trauma—But Can Deep Brain Reorienting Heal It? 🧠

Most therapies work at the surface level—DBR rewires trauma at its deepest source.(11min Read)

TL;DR Summary

• Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) targets trauma at the brainstem level, rewiring survival responses before emotions or thoughts take over.

• Trauma gets "stuck" in three phases: hypervigilance (SC), shock/dissociation (LC), and fight/flight freeze (PAG).

• DBR helps release these patterns, showing 50%+ PTSD symptom reduction with fewer dropouts than exposure-based therapies.

• Unlike EMDR, SE, or IFS, DBR follows a precise brainstem sequence for deeper healing.

• DIY DBR techniques: Notice tension, slow reactions, and complete defensive actions to help reset your nervous system.

• DBR is a breakthrough for dissociation, complex PTSD, and attachment trauma.

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What If Trauma Therapy Could Work at the Deepest Levels of Your Brain?

Most trauma therapies focus on cognitive reappraisal (changing how you think about what happened) or emotional processing (feeling what you couldn’t feel at the time).

But what if the real key to healing wasn’t in your thoughts or emotions—but in the primal survival circuits of your brainstem?

This is where Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) comes in.

DBR doesn’t just help you “reframe” your trauma or process your emotions.

Instead, it targets the brain’s survival responses at their source—before your body even gets to the fear, sadness, or anger.

Sounds like science fiction, right?

Let’s break it down!

How Trauma Gets “Stuck” in Your Brainstem

To understand Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR), you have to know how trauma gets stuck in your brainstem & nervous system in the first place.

Trauma is not just a psychological event—it’s a full-body, neurophysiological sequence that unfolds in milliseconds.

DBR works by targeting three key stages of this sequence, each controlled by different brainstem structures.

Let’s break down what’s happening under the hood!

A Deep Dive into DBR’s Three Key Trauma Responses

1. Orienting Response → Superior Colliculus (SC)

The superior colliculus (SC) is your brain’s radar system.

It’s constantly scanning your environment for anything that stands out—especially threats.

This happens before you consciously register danger—we’re talking milliseconds before your cortex is even aware of what’s happening.

When something sudden happens (like a loud sound or a fast movement in your peripheral vision), your SC rapidly orients your head, eyes, and attention toward it.

This is an ancient survival reflex—your SC doesn’t care what the threat is yet. It just snaps your focus to it immediately.

How Does Trauma Mess This Up?

In a traumatic event, your SC may lock onto the threat too strongly or too long, creating a stuck-orienting response.

This means your brainstem is constantly on high alert, always looking for similar threats.

You may experience hypervigilance—your SC misfires and makes neutral stimuli (a certain face, a loud noise, a hand gesture) feel dangerous.

Your eye movements and neck muscles may stay tense, reflecting a frozen attempt to keep tracking the threat.

This is why DBR starts by bringing awareness to these micro-movements.

More on that in a minute.

Example: If you grew up in an unpredictable household where a raised voice often led to danger, your SC might overreact to any loud sound, snapping your attention to it even when it's harmless. Over time, this can create chronic tension in your eye and neck muscles, reinforcing an unconscious sense of threat everywhere.

2. Shock Response → Locus Coeruleus (LC)

Alright, next up is the locus coeruleus, one of my favorite brain structures to pronounce!

If the superior colliculus confirms a threat, the next step is shock.

The locus coeruleus (LC), a tiny but powerful cluster of neurons in your brainstem, floods your body with norepinephrine.

This heightens your alertness—your senses become razor-sharp, your body tenses, and your attention narrows to the danger.

It can also trigger dissociation—if the threat is too overwhelming or inescapable, the LC flips into overdrive, flooding your system too much.

This can cause:

• Numbing or “freeze” states (feeling disconnected or paralyzed)

• Tunnel vision (mentally or literally seeing only the danger)

• Memory fragmentation (later, you might not remember parts of the event clearly)

This is where trauma-induced dissociation comes from.

If the LC over-activates too quickly, it can shut down emotional and cognitive processing, making it impossible to fully register what’s happening.

This is how people can experience shock without “feeling” emotions at the time.

How Does Trauma Mess This Up?

If your nervous system keeps looping through shock states, you might experience:

• Chronic numbness, dissociation, or emotional detachment as a default response.

• Panic attacks or sudden anxiety surges when something triggers that deep-level memory.

• Delayed emotional reactions—you feel fine in the moment, but days or weeks later, distress suddenly hits.

• Unexplained exhaustion—because your LC is on a hair-trigger, constantly preparing for the worst.

3. Fight/Flight Activation → Periaqueductal Grey (PAG)

Last, but not least, is the ole periaqueductal grey.

Once the shock response peaks, your periaqueductal grey (PAG) decides whether you should fight, flee, or shut down completely.

If escape seems possible the PAG sends signals to activate “flight” or “fight” mechanisms.

If escape seems impossible the PAG might trigger collapse, freeze, or submissive behaviors (fawning).

This is where your body’s survival movements kick in and your muscles prepare to run or strike.

Blood is redirected to your limbs for action.

Your heart rate spikes to maximize energy output.

This is great for when a bear is chasing you, but not as great when you’re in line at the grocery store.

How Does Trauma Mess This Up?

If your fight/flight response gets interrupted—for example, if you were overpowered, silenced, or restrained during trauma—your PAG never gets to complete its defensive actions.

This can lead to stored impulses of movement that never get released (e.g., feeling the urge to push someone away but never doing it).

Unresolved “readiness” states—chronic tension in muscles, especially the shoulders, jaw, or hands.

Explosive anger or panic because your system is still trying to finish the response.

DBR allows these frozen survival actions to be completed in a controlled, safe way, rewiring the trauma response.

But how on earth does it do this?! Great question!

How DBR Helps Reverse This Cycle

Now that we know what’s happening at each stage, here’s how DBR intervenes to help rewire the nervous system!

DBR slows down the orienting response

In a DBR session, clients track eye movements and subtle muscle shifts to release stuck superior colliculus patterns.

This reduces hypervigilance and stops the SC from constantly drawing attention to false alarms.

It also builds the capacity to remain embodied during trauma recall.

DBR unravels the shock response in real time

Next, instead of overwhelming emotions, clients are taught how to stay with the pre-affective bodily sensations of shock.

This part could include techniques like bilateral tactile stimulation like EMDR, vagal nerve stimulation, and other tools to regulate autonomic arousal.

This prevents the locus coeruleus from re-triggering norepinephrine surges and helps dissociation slowly dissolve.

DBR lets defensive responses complete naturally

And finally, the therapist tracks subtle bodily impulses related to fight, flight, or freeze.

Clients experience micro-movements of completion, which tells the PAG: "The danger is over."

This can happen through imagined protective actions (e.g., pushing away a perpetrator).

Clients then reorient to present safety!

By working in slow motion, DBR reprograms trauma at its source, making deep, durable healing possible—even for people who have struggled with therapy before.

Phase-Based Treatment Structure

Also, to be clear, this does not all happen in one session.

Standard DBR protocols involve eight 90-minute sessions.

Each phase systematically addresses components of the 3 step sequence we just broke down.

Here’s an example session breakdown:

1. Orienting Stabilization (Sessions 1–2)

2. Shock Processing (Sessions 3–5)

3. Affective Integration (Sessions 6–8)

This is just an example I found in the literature, so please listen to your DBR therapist over this blog!

My point, is that all of the things we talked about today don’t happen all at once!

How DBR Differs from Other Trauma Therapies

DBR is similar but slightly different from other trauma therapies like Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Somatic Experiencing (SE), and Internal Family Systems (IFS).

In a way, it seems to combine all of these techniques and the science behind them.

Here are a few ways it differs!

1. It Targets Trauma BEFORE Emotion Takes Over

EMDR engages the amygdala and hippocampus through eye movements to reprocess memories.

These are higher brain regions than DBR targets.

That means DBR works earlier in the trauma sequence before the amygdala even activates.

This makes DBR less likely to trigger dissociation compared to EMDR, which can be overwhelming for some people.

2. It Works With the Body’s Deepest Survival Responses

SE encourages general body awareness, but DBR follows a specific sequence of neurobiological events for structured processing.

DBR offers a roadmap rather than an open-ended exploration like in SE.

This open-ended exploration can make it hard for people with complex trauma to stay present.

Having a step-by-step process, like in DBR, can be very helpful to keep clients present!

3. It Helps Attachment Trauma at a Pre-Verbal Level

As you know, IFS uses “parts work” to heal trauma, while DBR focuses on how early relational wounds disrupt your orienting and shock responses.

This means that parts work isn’t really incorporated in DBR directly.

For attachment trauma that happened before you could talk (e.g., neglect, preverbal abuse), DBR resets your nervous system at the level it was originally wired.

I’ve found that combining parts work with things like DBR & EMDR can be a very powerful way to get to deep brain structures, and work with the psyche as well.

What the Research Says: Is DBR Effective?

This is all fine and well, but does research support any of this?!

A 2023 randomized controlled trial found that DBR led to significant PTSD symptom reductions, with over 50% of participants no longer meeting PTSD criteria after treatment.

Something interesting about this trial is that DBR had only a 3.4% dropout rate, compared to 18–26% for exposure therapies like EMDR.

This suggests that DBR is more tolerable for people who struggle with traditional trauma work.

While these are wild results, you’ve gotta remember, this is one study, with 50 participants.

There is still a ton of research that needs to be done, but this is a great start!

How to Use DBR Principles in Everyday Life

At this point, you might be wondering if there’s any way to apply these concepts in a practical way on your own.

And you’d be in luck, because there is, and this wouldn’t be the Mind, Brain, Body Lab Digest without highlighting some of them!

Even if you’re not in DBR therapy, you can integrate the tools below into your own healing process.

1. Track Your Micro-Tensions

Throughout the day, notice where you automatically tense up when stressed.

Is it your eyes, neck, or stomach?

Bring gentle attention to those areas and allow micro-movements to unfold.

For me it’s holding my breath, it happens all the time.

Even as I wrote that last sentence, I had to take a second and mindfully remind myself to take a deep belly breath!

2. Slow Down Your Reactions

Next up, is slow down to speed up!

If something triggers you, pause before reacting.

See if you can track the very first shift in your body before the full emotion hits.

This can help break automatic trauma loops.

In IFS terms, you’re trying to notice when this Part of you blends with you, meaning it takes over your feelings, thoughts and actions.

An easy way to become more aware of this, and catch the blending earlier is to name the Part!

As long-time readers know, my Anxious Part’s name is Mamba, and anger is Jerry!

3. Let Your Body Complete Defensive Actions

Alright, last, completion!

If you notice an urge to push, turn away, or defend yourself, explore it safely.

Even imagining these actions in a mindful way can help your nervous system discharge stored trauma.

Pushing against a wall, yelling into a pillow, or giving yourself a hug, are all great ways to do this safely.

Is DBR the Future of Trauma Therapy?

Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) is a revolutionary step forward in trauma healing.

By targeting the deepest, most automatic layers of the nervous system, it bridges the gap between neuroscience and therapy in a way that traditional talk therapy cannot.

If you’ve struggled with EMDR, exposure therapy, or cognitive-based treatments, DBR might be the missing link—especially if you experience dissociation, attachment trauma, or preverbal wounds.

As research continues to grow, DBR may prove to be one of the most effective and tolerable trauma therapies available—finally offering a path to healing that feels safe, natural, and deeply rooted in how your brain actually works.

It's not just another therapy.

It's a deeper way of healing, rooted in the way your brain actually works.

I hope this was a helpful exploration into the world of DBR, and as always…

Live Heroically 🧠

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Supporting Research

• Corrigan, F. M., Fisher, J. J., & Nutt, D. J. (2023). Deep Brain Reorienting: A Neurobiological Model for Processing Trauma and Attachment Wounds. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1045672

• Corrigan, F. M. (2022). Neuroscience and Deep Brain Reorienting: Addressing the Shock and Freeze Responses in Trauma. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 35(4), 719-734. https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.22789

• Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation. W.W. Norton & Company.

• Schore, A. N. (2019). Right Brain Psychotherapy: How Neuroscience Informs Clinical Practice. W.W. Norton & Company.

• Van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking.

• LeDoux, J. E. (2015). Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety. Viking.

• Fanselow, M. S., & Pennington, Z. T. (2018). The Danger of the Unpredictable: A Perspective on the Biology of Fear. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 157, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nlm.2018.01.017

• Foa, E. B., Hembree, E. A., & Rothbaum, B. O. (2007). Prolonged Exposure Therapy for PTSD: Emotional Processing of Traumatic Experiences. Oxford University Press.

• Lanius, R. A., Paulsen, S. L., & Corrigan, F. M. (2020). Neurobiology and Treatment of Traumatic Dissociation: Towards an Embodied Self. Springer Publishing.

• Ogden, P., & Fisher, J. (2015). Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Trauma and Attachment. W.W. Norton & Company.