What Is DBR Therapy?
What Is DBR Therapy?
DBR (Deep Brain Reorienting) is a trauma therapy that focuses on the very early physical responses that can happen when your brain detects something threatening or emotionally significant.
The short answer
Rather than beginning with the full story or strongest emotion, DBR pays attention to subtle orienting tension in the body that may occur before the larger emotional response takes over.
In simpler terms:
Something happens → your system notices it → your body prepares to respond → the bigger emotional reaction follows.
DBR tries to work closer to the beginning of that sequence.
The focus is on the first response.
During DBR, the therapist helps you notice specific physical responses associated with orienting to a distressing experience.
The work is usually slow and focused.
Instead of immediately going into the most intense part of a traumatic memory, attention is given to the earlier tension and physiological response connected with it.
This is one of the main things that makes DBR different from therapies that begin more directly with thoughts, emotions or the traumatic narrative.
The research on DBR.
DBR is a newer therapy, and its evidence base is still developing.
Early peer-reviewed research has reported reductions in PTSD symptoms following DBR, including a randomized controlled trial. However, the research base is currently much smaller than for established PTSD treatments such as EMDR and trauma-focused cognitive therapies.
That means the early findings are promising, but DBR should not yet be described as having the same level of research support as more established PTSD treatments.
Flow’s perspective
How Flow looks at DBR.
We use DBR to work with the response that can happen before you have fully made sense of what you’re feeling.
For some people, that very early physical response may be an important part of what keeps getting activated.
Flow’s approach
How Flow works with it.
We slow the process down and work with what your system does first.
DBR may be one option when trauma feels strongly physical or when approaching the experience through the usual narrative feels difficult.
The goal isn’t simply to understand what happened.
It’s to help the system respond differently to what it still experiences as threatening.
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