Areas of Expertise

"In the midst of winter I found there was, within me, an invincible summer." - Albert Camus

DBR

Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) is a cutting-edge trauma therapy developed by psychiatrist Dr. Frank Corrigan in Glasgow, Scotland. Unlike traditional trauma modalities that engage cognitive or behavioral processes, DBR works at the pre-defensive level — beneath the familiar “fight, flight, freeze” responses — to access the initial shock, horror, and orienting tension that mark the starting point of traumatic experience.

DBR’s precision makes it especially powerful for working with attachment wounding. Because it targets the subcortical impact of early relational ruptures, it can reach the core of shame, abandonment fear, and what some describe as existential aloneness pain. Clients who struggle with chronic relational patterns, self-loathing, or a sense of being “unreachable” may find DBR uniquely effective.

Importantly, DBR is theorized to operate “under the dissociation” — offering a pathway for healing even in the presence of high dissociative symptoms. For clinicians working with complex trauma or clients who meet criteria for dissociative disorders, DBR offers a somatically anchored, deeply respectful method of facilitating integration without overwhelming the system.

Curious about how to integrate DBR into your work? I offer consultation for clinicians who are new to DBR as well as those deepening their practice.

For clients, DBR often feels slower and more attuned than other therapies — like working from the inside out, rather than trying to talk your way into healing.

EMDR

EMDR (eye movement desensitization reprocessing) therapy is a method of treating trauma that has a large body of research showing it to be effective in helping clients prepare for and reprocess unhealed psychological wounds to reduce common symptoms of PTSD such as overwhelming emotions, panic attacks, anxiety, intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, and avoidance behavior.

EMDR therapy does not require clients to verbally recount what happened in their trauma and teaches clients to create a set of techniques specific to their needs to manage bodily responses to triggering events.

DISSOCIATION

Dissociation is a word that is used to describe the disconnection or lack of connection between things usually associated with each other. Dissociated experiences are not integrated into the usual sense of self, resulting in discontinuities in conscious awareness. In severe forms of dissociation, disconnection occurs in the usually integrated functions of consciousness, memory, identity, or perception. For example, someone may think about an event that was tremendously upsetting yet have no feelings about it. Clinically, this is termed emotional numbing, one of the hallmarks of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Examples of dissociation:

· Feeling removed from the present moment

· Feeling removed from the body, senses, emotions and/or thoughts

· “Living in the past”

· “Made” emotions, thoughts or behaviors

· Feeling as if the self or the environment are not real.

· Confusion about identity

· Amnesia, including fugue states.

I utilize DBR, parts work, somatic interventions, and EMDR to work with dissociative states to facilitate the healing of trauma.

PARTS WORK

Parts work encompasses both Ego State Therapy and Internal Family Systems.

Ego State Therapy (EST)is a psychodynamic approach to trauma work most often used with cPTSD and Dissociative Disorders. This approach includes hypnosis and often EMDR, including special EMDR protocols for pre-verbal trauma and introjects. John & Helen Watkins are credited with developing this modality, utilizing a body of work that ranges back to the 1800’s.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) is an approach that helps trauma survivors identify parts and sub personalities that have become established as a result of psychological wounds. This theory was developed by Richard C. Schwarz in the 1980s.