A somatic processing technique centered around processing "shock" that occurs BEFORE affective (emotional responses) and flight/flight/freeze/fawn responses. By processing the initial high-energy shocks, the later emotional response will be reduced and easier to process. The steps are: 1. Identify a trigger 2. Do a grounding exercise ("Where-Self") 3. Activate the Trigger (briefly) 4. Find Tension (forehead, around eyes, back of neck) 5. Process Shock (a wide variety of things: chills, tension, dissociation) 6. Process Affect (fear, rage, grief, panic, shame) 7. Close out the Session The main innovation is the Trigger -> Orienting Tension -> Shock -> Affect sequence. The premise is to process trauma that occurs before the normal emotional/cognitive portions kick in. For example, before anything else, the brain needs to identify *where* it should focus. This is the premise behind finding the orienting tension in the forehead, around the eyes, and back of neck: these muscles are what (supposedly) are activated by the earliest part of this brain system. ## The Process This is the full process, though you don't necessarily need to get through the whole sequence, e.g. you might only get to sitting with the orienting tension or some of your shock sensations. Trigger: Identify a trigger that "grabs" your attention, maybe a specific scene or scenario. Grounding: Do a "Where-Self" grounding exercise where you identify your body in space - distance to walls, the ceiling, your screen. How your body weight is sitting in your chair. This should be more alert. Gently relax tensions in the face, neck, shoulders, etc. Activate the Trigger (Orient): Imagine the trigger. You only need to hold it long enough to find orienting tensions (next step). You don't reactivate the trigger this session. Find Orienting Tension: Locate tension in the forehead, around the eyes, or in the back of the neck (where the neck and skull meet). This becomes the primary "anchor" that you should come back to if you get distracted or other parts get too intense. Process/Sit with Shock: Locate "shock" in the body. Shock can come in many different forms: bracing tension in shoulders/body, pulling sensation behind the eyes, muscle twitches/shudders/shaking/contractions, changes in temperature sensation (chills), a vibrating feeling, numbness in the limbs, changes in breathing, changes in heart rate, etc. I think one thing useful to call out are senses of dissociation -- dizzyness, numbness, sleepiness, and other dissociation signs. If you're able to focus on the orienting tension as an anchor, than this can also be processed. Process Affect: Previously we're focused on these physical sensations, and now we're moving onto affect or emotions like fear, shame etc. Again, if this become too intense, always go back to the orienting tension. Check for Changes: See if any sense of self has changed. This may or may not happen (this part I'm the last familiar with). ## How long? Minimum 30-45 minutes. However you don't need to (or even expect to) get through the whole sequence. You might just to the grounding and orienting tension and that ends up being enough. There's often a lot of shock as well. I've personally sat with it for very long periods of time, maybe ~1.5 hours where I was attempting to process dissociation (drowsiness/sleepiness). ## Session/Post-session experience During the close, the client is prompted to see if there are any shifts in the sensation of the self. I've experienced this maybe once in the sessions I've run on myself, but the shift does feel rather durable. During a session, I typically feel tension in the forehead and back of the neck. Shock would include a lot of neck, shoulder, abdominal tension. Several times I've felt nauseous, and my eyes would be watering or tearing up. I frequently would experience the tension then ~15 minutes in feel quite drowsy/dizzy/numb/distant. Sitting for very long periods of time, would bring me out of it. In my later sessions, that were less dissociated, I had an urge to contract my entire lower body (quads, calves glutes) and had extremely sweaty palms. I would also frequently be holding my breath. Post-sessions I would generally feel tired but otherwise fine. Someone else I've worked with on this had very intense neck tremors during the sessions. The day after if they focused, they could notice a tremoring sensation still, and could lean into it. They woke up the next feeling a sense of the "abandonment depression", but could remain separate from it instead of getting absorbed. They noted this was different from other times they would wake up. In a separate session, they noted that the next day they felt extremely tired, nauseous and had a bit of a headache, but also that they had an intense talk therapy session as well. Since they did notice some nausea DURING the session, and could also feel some tremors, I'm assuming that the DBR had some contribution. They also mentioned that they were leaning into it a bit, since they felt like some sort of processing was happening. I think my post session recommendation maybe to not lean into the sensation. ## Relation to TRE/kriyas? Seems somewhat similar to TRE/kriyas, in terms of what people describe as some of the physical sensations. ## Relation to EMDR? I've heard this talked about like an "EMDR 2.0", but I think they're very different and can probably be done at the same time. EMDR follows the negative + positive pattern, and targets emotions or memories. DBR is much more somatic, and as it's described, only processes negative (though I think there's room for modification to incorporate positive). ## Resources I didn't find any great ones tbh, there's some YouTube videos where some of the creators describe it, and a book they published but it's quite academic (a good read though).