Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR)

Working with trauma at the level of orienting, shock and embodied response

Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) is a trauma-focused approach developed by psychiatrist Dr Frank Corrigan. It works with some of the very early physiological responses that can occur when the brain detects threat, danger or disruption in an important attachment relationship.

What has drawn me to DBR is its attention to what can happen before we reach the emotions we usually associate with trauma.

We often think of trauma through fear, anger, grief, helplessness or shame. DBR asks us to slow down and notice what may have happened just before those feelings emerged: the body's orienting response, followed by shock.

I find this particularly meaningful when someone understands very well what happened to them — sometimes they have thought about it, talked about it and made sense of it for years — and yet their body still reacts as though some part of the experience has not quite registered that it is over.

What happens before fear?

When something significant or threatening happens, the nervous system first has to notice it and orient towards it.

In DBR, we pay careful attention to subtle muscular tension associated with this orienting response. It may be felt around the eyes, forehead, face or at the back of the neck.

These sensations can be very small. Sometimes a person initially says, “I don't feel anything,” and then notices the slightest tightening around the eyes, a pull in the neck, or a tiny impulse to turn.

I have come to appreciate how much information can be contained in these seemingly small responses.

Once the orienting response is sufficiently stable, it can provide a pathway towards the shock associated with the original experience.

The sequence can be understood approximately as:

Orienting → Shock → Emotional response

Rather than moving immediately towards fear, rage, grief or another strong emotion, DBR allows us to stay with these earlier stages.

For me, one of the strengths of the approach is precisely this slowness. We do not have to intensify the emotional experience in order for meaningful processing to happen.

Shock and trauma

Shock is not necessarily experienced as an emotion.

It can feel like a sudden internal impact, a drop, collapse, disorientation, numbness, bodily alarm, a sense of falling, an impulse to turn away, or simply a moment in which something seems to stop.

Sometimes it lasts only a fraction of a second.

In early, repeated or relational trauma, a person may have very little explicit memory of the original experience, while certain bodily or relational responses remain surprisingly persistent.

DBR does not require you to repeatedly tell the story of what happened.

Instead, we slow things down and work with what becomes accessible in the present moment.

I am interested less in pushing towards a particular response than in following very carefully what the nervous system is actually doing.

DBR and attachment trauma

Not every traumatic experience involves obvious danger.

For a baby or a child, losing connection with an important attachment figure, unexpected separation, emotional absence, frightening behaviour or the absence of needed protection can carry enormous biological significance.

This is one of the reasons DBR has become important in my work with developmental and attachment trauma.

Sometimes the experiences we work with are dramatic and clearly remembered. At other times they are much quieter: a face turning away, a parent becoming unavailable, being left alone with something unbearable, or repeatedly discovering that reaching for connection does not bring the response that is needed.

What matters is not only what happened, but how the nervous system registered that moment.

DBR and dissociation

I am particularly interested in the relationship between trauma and dissociation.

Dissociation can be an intelligent protective response when an experience is too much to process at the time it occurs. It allows us, in different ways, not to be fully present to something that might otherwise be unbearable.

But this also means that moving too quickly towards intense emotion or traumatic imagery can sometimes produce more disconnection rather than more integration.

DBR gives me a way of working very slowly around this threshold.

I pay close attention to subtle signs that someone may be drifting away from their experience — becoming numb, distant, confused, suddenly exhausted, blank, unreal or overwhelmed.

When that happens, I don't see it as something that needs to be overcome.

It is information.

We can slow down, pause, reorient or simply become curious about what the protective response is trying to accomplish.

The aim is never to push through dissociation. It is to create enough safety and precision that experiences which were once overwhelming may become a little more possible to approach.

What happens in a DBR session?

Before beginning trauma processing, we establish orientation to the present: awareness of the body, the room, our relationship in the session, and the fact that whatever happened then is not happening now.

We then identify a specific moment, image, interaction or other stimulus connected with what we want to work on.

Rather than analysing the event, I invite you to notice what changes in your body as you very gently orient towards it.

The work can be surprisingly quiet.

There may be tension around the eyes or forehead, a change at the back of the neck, a sense of impact or shock, a movement impulse, an emotional response — or periods when almost nothing appears to be happening externally.

I don't regard silence or stillness as an absence of process.

Often, slowing down enough to notice these small responses is exactly what allows something new to happen.

My role is to stay closely attuned to the process, help you remain sufficiently connected to the present, and avoid moving faster than your system can comfortably follow.

DBR is not intended to be cathartic work. There is no requirement to force emotion, relive an experience dramatically or “break through” anything.

Do I need to remember everything that happened?

No.

Some traumatic experiences are clearly remembered. Others happened very early, developed gradually within relationships, or are remembered only in fragments.

DBR does not depend on recovering memories.

We work with what is already accessible — a known event, an image, a phrase, a relational moment, a bodily response, or another meaningful point of activation.

The work is about helping the nervous system process what is present, not about constructing a story that cannot be verified.

Integrating DBR within a broader psychological and somatic approach

I don't use DBR as an isolated technique.

My background is in psychology and the social sciences, alongside extensive training in body psychotherapy and trauma-focused somatic approaches. This broader perspective shapes how I use DBR.

At different moments, our work may involve talking, reflection, exploring relational patterns, noticing what happens between us, attending to bodily experience, working with DBR, or simply staying with something that needs time.

Sometimes it makes sense to process a specific traumatic experience directly.

At other times, the more important work may be developing trust, establishing enough safety, understanding a recurring relational pattern, strengthening the capacity to stay present, or allowing something previously unrecognised to become known.

My background in the social sciences also means that I don't understand a person's experience only in individual or neurobiological terms. Our ways of responding are shaped within relationships, families, cultures, social structures and the wider conditions in which we live.

I am not interested in applying a technique simply because it is available.

For me, the method has to serve the person and the process — not the other way around.

My experience with DBR

I am an approved DBR practitioner and have been integrating Deep Brain Reorienting into my psychological practice for more than three years, alongside ongoing consultation and professional development, and through assisting at DBR trainings.

Over time, DBR has become one of the approaches I value most when working with complex and developmental trauma, attachment disruption, dissociation, and experiences of shock that can be difficult to reach through verbal understanding alone.

What I particularly appreciate about DBR is its precision.

It asks both practitioner and client to resist the temptation to rush towards meaning or emotion, and instead to stay close to the body's moment-to-moment response. I find there is something important in allowing the process to unfold at this slower level, without assuming in advance what should emerge.

My extensive training in body psychotherapy is equally important in how I use DBR. I don't understand trauma only as something happening in the brain or nervous system.

Our responses take shape through relationships, developmental experience, the body, culture, and the wider world in which we live.

For me, DBR therefore sits within a much broader understanding of the person — one that includes neurophysiology, but also relationship, embodiment, meaning and context.

Is DBR right for everyone?

No single trauma-focused approach is right for everyone.

Whether we use DBR depends on what brings you to therapy, what is happening in your life now, how your nervous system responds to trauma processing, and what we come to understand together about what you need.

For some people, direct trauma processing is not the first priority.

Sometimes we need more time to establish safety, strengthen resources, understand relational patterns, or simply develop a working relationship in which difficult experience can be approached without pressure.

And sometimes another psychological or somatic approach will be more appropriate.

I don't expect you to know in advance which method you need. That is something we can explore together.

DBR sessions online

I offer DBR as part of my online psychological practice where it is clinically appropriate and where professional regulations allow me to work with someone in their location.

Online DBR can work very well, but the setting matters.

I ask clients to join from a private and stable space where they can be alone, undisturbed and physically settled, and where we can maintain reliable visual and verbal contact throughout the session.

The quality of our contact is important to me, particularly when working with subtle states of shock or dissociation.

About Dr Olesya Ovchinnikova

Dr Olesya Ovchinnikova, PhD, FSP is a psychologist and approved DBR practitioner specialising in somatic and trauma-focused approaches, attachment, dissociation, developmental trauma and chronic pain.

Her professional background combines psychology and the social sciences with extensive training in body psychotherapy and contemporary trauma-focused methods.

She is based in Switzerland and works online with international clients where professionally permitted. Sessions are available in English, Italian and Russian.

Interested in working together?

You are welcome to contact me for an initial conversation. We can talk about what brings you to psychological support and whether DBR, another somatic approach, or a different way of working might be appropriate for you.