Complex PTSD is a long standing pattern of trauma that often begins in childhood and extends through the teen and young adult years. The coping mechanisms a child develops to survive a highly dysfunctional environment end up creating problems once they have left that unhealthy environment for a more supportive one.

Trauma that occurs early in life, sometimes even before a child can express their fear and pain, is often stored in the body This kind of pain can come from a number of things, whether it's a traumatic birth resulting in time spent in a NICU, an absent parent, or health issues requiring intense medical intervention.

Attachment wounds are created when an infant or very young child is unable to make a strong, healthy attachment to their caregiver. It creates a deep and long lasting wound that is incredibly painful and difficult to heal. The "painful presence of absence" is one of the wounds DBR is most adept at healing.

Pain that an infant or child has no words for is all but impossible for them to process and heal. That pain ends up stored in their body physically. Getting to the core of that pain to heal it requires a modality that can reach the shock and alarm system of the brain.

When pain is so great the brain believes the person may not survive it, it creates distance between the horror and the person to protect them from having to fully feel what is going on. Numbness, feeling "floaty" or "not all there" is one way dissociation manifests later. Being able to stay in the body while processing trauma is something very difficult for a trauma survivor.