One of the hottest new non-medication-based treatments for trauma is Dr. Frank Corrigan’s Deep Brain Reorienting, also known as DBR.

I learned about DBR in an EMDR therapists’ private Facebook group back in early summer 2023. As often happens, a therapist posted to the clinical commentariat “What interventions work best for you?” 

The therapist wrote, very simply, “ever since I learned DBR, I hardly use EMDR at all.”

She had my attention. I like (or liked, that’s another story) Facebook because you can just reply to someone’s comment and say “What the bleep are you talking about?” 

In a two or three sentence reply, the commenter spelled out ‘Deep Brain Reorienting’–so now I wasn’t going to confuse it with DBT (don’t you either–DBT is great but not what we’re talking about here). 

She said DBR was a newer intervention that at least partially developed as an outgrowth of EMDR (here’s a link if you want a quick-and-dirty video introduction to EMDR–I guarantee this video is more slick than anything you’ll find on DBR at this point).

A simple Google search was enough to help me find the Deep Brain Reorienting website: https://deepbrainreorienting.com. There were links to some of the research that had been done, and information about available training for therapists–cost effective with many held online through Zoom. It was enough. I reached out and found myself signed up for my first DBR training in early November of 2023. A 12 hour course including theory and practice held over two days, the introduction which calls itself Level 1.

A bit of background about my practice

I completed the 50 hour EMDR basic training in 2018 and had been using it in my practice since that time. I’d had some success with remitting my client’s symptoms, but not enough to want to pursue the consultant credential. EMDR was, in my experience, sometimes effective, and sometimes… not so much. Also, it could be very tiring and uncomfortable for the client, at least sometimes.

Another thing about EMDR is that it didn’t mesh too well with the main model around which my practice was built: Satir Transformational Systemic Therapy, based on the work of the late Virginia Satir. 

I have been a Satir therapist since 2016 when I took my initial level 1 training, after a year and a half’s worth of therapy with a Satir therapist who restored my faith that therapy could be effective even for those who thought it could not (me at the time). The Satir model of therapy is both integrative and moderately structured. 

The structure of Satir Transformational Systemic Therapy makes it easy for newbie therapists to learn and be good at (i.e. help their clients meet their goals). The integrative aspect means that it is flexible enough to add other interventions when needed and helpful. I worked between 2018 and 2023 to make Satir and EMDR work together, but I wasn’t fully happy with the results. A senior colleague suggested we might develop an integrated training for EMDR and Satir, and offered some support, but I wasn’t excited enough to both spend the money needed and put the work in to get the consulting credential, then continue on to develop the training. I was getting okay results with my clients, but not terrific.

EMDR has been the non-medication-based standard in transformational trauma therapy for around 20 years. The insurance companies are happy to see PTSD, and even other diagnoses, treated with EMDR.

Back to DBR

Like EMDR, DBR presents itself as a transformational therapy, in contrast to counteractive therapies.

Counteractive therapies essentially try to replace painful or undesired experiences with less painful and/or more desired ones. [Near as I can tell the term was best explained by Bruce Ecker in the development of his Coherence Therapy. Check out his explanation in this interview starting at 1:08, and here’s a link to his paper, the full version is available through ResearchGate.net]. It is important to understand that CBT, or Cognitive Behavior Therapy, at the time of its development, would be considered a counteractive therapy. The newer, trauma-informed CBT, can be implemented to facilitate transformational healing.

Most medical treatment seeks to restore an earlier state of physical, emotional or some other kind of functioning for the patient. Even when surgery or medication are employed, seldom is a new and truly improved level of functioning enjoyed by the patient. Your new hip or knee may be a great improvement for your lived experience, but it’s not going to grow with you.

Counteractive therapy is contrasted with a transformational therapy, which brings the client or patient to a completely transformed experience of self and their world, fully preparing them to move forward and leave the challenges of their prior experience behind.

Satir Transformational Systemic Therapy has long been considered a transformational therapy–it’s right there in the name after all. [My video on the Satir Process of Transformational Change]

Now with the advent of trauma-informed approaches to psychotherapy–including trauma-informed CBT and the various somatic approaches–transformational healing has been occuring before now. Often by accident, certainly a happy one. Not as often as doctors, nurse practitioners and therapists would like it to, but enough for some to notice that getting better sometimes is more than symptom reduction. Sometimes we truly get better.

When contrasted with Satir Transformational Systems and DBR, EMDR did not seem to acknowledge what it didn’t know about what really creates transformation. I think this is a shortcoming worth mentioning. It is quite regimented and structural as it is trained to new therapists, taught in the way it was implemented during research. It can’t always be effectively applied to every client in that same way. It frequently requires the intuitive application of an experienced clinician. This takes time (typically years) to develop, the clinical judgment to deviate from the original training when needed, and good supervisory or consultative support.

During my level 1 DBR training, Frank Corrigan made it clear that DBR is a transformational therapy as opposed to a counteractive therapy. As I experienced it and learned to facilitate it for my client, I began to realize that it was, in fact, ‘the real deal.’ The results were so very good. And compared to EMDR, it was extremely gentle, and more quickly effective.

One reason I prefer DBR to EMDR is because the original EMDR research did not actually study the activity of the brain in real time during its original phase of research in the 1990s and early 2000s. The theory was that trauma was held in the amygdala, and treatment involved using the back-and-forth (bilateral) stimulation (eye movements, binaural sound, or physical taps), then activating the neocortex through verbal and somatic (body awareness) techniques facilitated by the therapist, to sort of “unstick” the trauma from the amygdala and “reprocess” it to the neocortex, allowing for complete physical–and transformational–processing (explanation begins at 2:20). 

This theory is presented in such a way, particularly in the video, the viewer could be excused for believing that this explanation was absolutely known and verified by the people who did the original research. But at the time the research was done, there wasn’t any way to verify what was going on in the brain firsthand. The research was conducted based on client report and practitioner observation, which was, and is, standard for research on therapeutic techniques. The results were essentially persuasive (statistically significant over multiple replications), so the model was launched, and the insurance companies in the US were persuaded--which is hard to do. Getting insurance companies to agree to pay for a type of therapy isn't usually simple or easy! 

Frank Corrigan decided, in 1999, to do a single case study of an individual receiving EMDR while in a functional MRI [Richardson et al (2009). A Single-Case fMRI Study EMDR Treatment of a Patient With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, DOI: 10.1891/1933-3196.3.1.10]. It was through this research that he discovered the involvement of the midbrain in shock and trauma, and the need to involve it in trauma healing.

The addition of the fMRI to the research changed the game so much that bilateral stimulation–which can feel like the essence of EMDR to many clients and therapists–did not become part of Deep Brain Reorienting.

A thorough comparison of DBR to EMDR from a medical perspective is something that I am not qualified to produce, so I do not propose that as the purpose of this post.

As a full time Satir practitioner who has used both with success, I will share my experience. I have become one of those therapists who says “Since I started using DBR, I no longer use EMDR.” It is not because EMDR is not an effective therapy. It is effective for many things. But for those individuals who are experiencing complexity in their trauma healing--often caused by the mild to moderate challenges that occur to everyone during childhood–my experience is that DBR is a gentler intervention that produces faster, better, and more enduring results for my clients. Further, in its development, it is a true transformational intervention that in no way struggles to understand the basis of transformational change: the ability to remain present with one’s self-experience. DBR is fully compatible with Satir Transformational Systemic Therapy, and I have not found a traumatic event for which it is not effective.

I encourage anyone who has read this far to use the links within this post, and your own search engine also, to continue to investigate the therapies and therapists that might work best for you. I add informative links to my website’s resources page as I discover them.

I completed Level 3 DBR training in June of 2024 and at this writing continue to engage consultation so that I might improve. I support the clients in my practice with DBR daily, in conjunction with Satir Transformational Systemic Therapy, through telehealth in Illinois, Iowa, and international territories with minimally or unregulated counseling, and to ex-patriots when obtaining counseling where they live presents obstacles. I also offer in person appointments in my office in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and will schedule intensives for those who wish to travel.

For a referral to a DBR therapist near you, I recommend contacting the organization through the DBR website and stating the jurisdiction where you would like to receive services. And if I can be of help, please reach out to me through the email on my website.