Over the past few decades, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) has become a gold standard in trauma therapy, helping countless individuals heal from distressing experiences. Its effectiveness in addressing PTSD, anxiety, and other trauma-related disorders has made it a cornerstone in many therapists’ toolkits. As a person and clinician who works with many clients impacted by these challenging issues, I am always on the lookout to add to my therapy swag. An EMDR friend introduced me to the latest wellbeing healing approach – Deep Brain Reprocessing (DBR). DBR is emerging as a potential advancement in the field of trauma therapy, and it’s worth exploring whether DBR is the next evolution of EMDR.
Understanding EMDR’s Foundations
Before delving into DBR, it’s essential to understand what makes EMDR so effective as a trauma processing therapy. Developed by Francine Shapiro PhD in the late 1980s, EMDR facilitates the processing of traumatic memories through a structured eight-phase protocol. The most well-known aspect is bilateral stimulation (often in eye movements, sounds, or tapping), which is believed to help desensitize and reprocess disturbing memories. It is working to settle cortisol-soaked immune systems down and into a calmer healing state.
EMDR’s effectiveness lies in its ability to link traumatic memories with more adaptive thoughts and beliefs, ultimately reducing the emotional charge associated with the trauma. Many studies have shown that EMDR can accelerate the brain’s natural healing process, offering profound relief from long-held trauma in a relatively short period of time.
The Emergence of Deep Brain Reprocessing (DBR)
Deep Brain Reprocessing, developed by Dr. Frank Corrigan, builds on some of the fundamental principles of EMDR but takes a more integrative, brain-centred approach.
While EMDR primarily focuses on reprocessing memories tied to trauma, DBR goes deeper into the brain’s subconscious layers. The goal of DBR is to access and work with deeply embedded, often non-verbal memories and emotional responses stored in the brain stem and limbic system.
DBR focuses on reorienting brain structures that have become maladaptive due to trauma. In particular, it aims to help patients reconnect to their core self, free from overwhelm of fragmented parts of the psyche. Having a parts therapy like Resource Therapy is essential also. This process is particularly relevant for individuals who experience dissociation, complex PTSD, or trauma from early childhood, where preverbal and deeply ingrained responses are harder to access and process through traditional therapeutic methods.
The Role of the Brain in Trauma: The Shock Comes First
Trauma responses are not just emotional or cognitive; they are fundamentally brain-based. Before a person becomes consciously aware of a feeling or thought, the brain registers the shock of a traumatic event. This shock activates survival mechanisms deep within the brain, particularly in the brain stem and limbic system, long before any conscious processing occurs. This means that trauma is experienced initially as a biological response, hardwired for survival, which often leads to fight, flight, freeze, or fawn reactions. The brain’s immediate response to threat is so rapid that it bypasses rational thinking and emotional awareness.
DBR taps directly into these deep, automatic brain reactions by targeting the very structures where the initial shock is stored. By accessing these brain regions, DBR allows the brain to reorient itself from its survival-based responses to more adaptive, integrated ways of functioning. This is especially crucial for trauma survivors, and those with attachment wounds as the brain’s rapid, unconscious reactions often become maladaptive over time, leading to symptoms such as hypervigilance, dissociation, and emotional numbing.
DBR vs. EMDR: Key Differences
While both EMDR and DBR aim to help individuals process and heal from traumatic experiences, there are some notable differences:
- Depth of Processing: EMDR often works with trauma that can be explicitly recalled and verbally processed. DBR, however, targets much deeper, non-verbal levels of the brain where more primitive and early memories are stored, potentially offering a more profound reprocessing for individuals with complex trauma histories.
- Neurobiological Focus: DBR pays particular attention to how trauma affects brain structures such as the brain stem and limbic system. This emphasis on brain reorientation differs from EMDR’s focus on desensitising traumatic memories.
- Application to Complex Trauma: DBR may be more effective in treating individuals with dissociative disorders or early developmental trauma, as it aims to integrate fragmented parts of the psyche more thoroughly than EMDR alone.
Is DBR the New EMDR?
While it may be too early to declare DBR the “new EMDR,” it certainly shows promise as a complementary or even more profound tool for trauma therapy. Many therapists are incorporating DBR into their practice, particularly when working with clients who have not fully responded to EMDR or who present with complex, deeply rooted trauma.
For clinicians, DBR offers an exciting frontier in trauma treatment, one that delves deeper into the brain’s healing capacities. Contemporary neuroscientific research is encouraging, Corrigan, et al, 2023. For clients, it provides hope—particularly for those who have long struggled with the effects of early or complex trauma.
Ultimately, both EMDR and DBR offer powerful tools for trauma recovery, and the choice between them depends on the individual needs of the client. DBR, however, may well represent the next leap forward in understanding and healing the brain’s inbuilt response to trauma.
Having trained in DBR, I have witnessed as a therapist the firsthand benefits for my clients. Being an explorer, I had the wonderful opportunity to experience working with the founder Frank Corrigan in a seminar in Melbourne. Over Zoom, I was in front of the class with Frank online. Incredibly, the shock and body tension of being in a car accident several years ago was released from my body in 30 minutes or so. Sold! My jaw and neck tension since that session has evaporated. Yay, huge relief, cheers all round indeed.
As research and clinical experiences grow, it will be fascinating to see how DBR continues to develop and whether it will take its place alongside or even surpass EMDR in the therapeutic landscape. For now, both remain invaluable modalities, each with its strengths in helping individuals reclaim their lives from the effects of trauma.
Are you DBR curious? Please reach out and book a session and experience for yourself the shifts. Imagine going from pain to gain in this powerful, ground-breaking approach. Amazing. Perhaps you have already heard of DBR or had some work, love to hear it, please drop a comment in the box below. Sharing is caring!
Sending Love and light,
Philipa
References
Corrigan, F. M., Hull, A. M., & Turner, R. (2023). A randomized controlled trial of Deep Brain Reorienting: A neuroscientifically guided treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 14(2), 2240691. https://doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2023.2240691
