17 of March 2022 we provided the training by Frank Corrigan Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) : healing of emotional shock, attachment wounding, and other traumatic experiences” for Ukrainian collegues
Doctor Corrigan proposed to provide this training for free as a support for Ukrainian specialists, who provides help to survivors from russian war aggression. This event was provided instead of early planned introducing webinar “Trauma and dissociation: the role of the midbrain in symptoms and in therapy”– you may find more information about DBR method following by link.
Besides theoretical support Frank provided practical support for the specialists who will try to use new skills and knowlages in their practice.
Frank Corrigan
Frank Corrigan, MD , began his training in psychiatry in 1977 and was an NHS Consultant Psychiatrist in Scotland from 1985 until 2018, latterly working part-time as a specialist provider of trauma psychotherapy. He now works in private practice in Glasgow and specialises in complex trauma and dissociative disorders. Frank is a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (FRCPsych) and a Member of the General Medical Council (GMC). He is also an EMDR Europe Approved Consultant.
After training in EMDR in 1999 he was, until recently, an accredited practitioner and consultant with the EMDR Association (UK & Ireland). He is the co-author of “Neurobiology and treatment of traumatic dissociation” (Lanius, UF, Paulsen, SL, & Corrigan FM, Springer, New York, 2014) and of “The Comprehensive Resource Model” (Schwarz, L, Corrigan, F, Hull, A, & Raju, R, Routledge, London, 2017). The hypotheses underlying DBR were set out in a paper co-authored with Jessica Christie-Sands in Medical Hypotheses (2020, 136, 109502).
Frank is a highly skilled Consultant Psychiatrist and Neuroscientist with over 30 years clinical and academic experience in various areas of mental health. He combines his extensive clinical experience with research on the neurobiology of trauma and its underpinnings in major psychiatric disorders. His research broadly explores the intersection between affective neuroscience and the science of healing. Drawing on his fluent understanding of the brain, his work brings interior and exterior empiricism into a series of hypotheses that invites us to rethink the dialogue between therapist and client within the context of the nervous system. His work offers us new ways of thinking about how the nervous system organises in relationships, which helps in understanding why some of our clients with trauma histories remain stuck both in therapy and in life.
His treatment philosophy is fundamentally relational and seeks to embed the vital links between mind, brain and body in the therapy. In his clinical work, he emphasises the importance of tracking physiological arousal states and their expression through subtle shifts in body-based defensive patterns. Frank believes that it is not possible to override state driven affective and defensive patterns without building a scaffold of neurobiological resources as a vital regulatory intervention and utilizing the wisdom of the body as a restorative bridge to healing.
Throughout his career, Frank has been dedicated to exploring innovative methods for working with trauma and severe dissociative disorders along with a range of other complex mental health difficulties. His commitment to understanding the unfolding impact of trauma on developing brain systems led him to undertake extensive training in various therapeutic approaches and techniques including; Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, Clinical Hypnosis, Lifespan Integration, EMDR, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (Level 1), Brainspotting and Resource Brainspotting. More recently he has also undertaking advanced training in Comprehensive Resource Model (CRM) as well as Neurofeedback training.
He is a co-author of ‘Neurobiology and Treatment of Traumatic Dissociation: Towards an Embodied Self (Lanius et al., 2014), along with numerous other scientific papers. His most recent book is ’The Comprehensive Resource Model: Effective Techniques for Healing Complex Trauma’ co-written with Lisa Schwarz and Dr Alastair Hull published 2016. This book offers a vital contribution to scientifically-informed clinical practice. He is currently involved in a major research project with Dr Ruth Lanius (Professor of Psychiatry and Director of PTSD Research Unit at Western University in London, Ontario) using brain imaging to explore the possible neural mechanisms underpinning complex trauma and treatment outcomes specifically in relation to CRM as a key therapeutic intervention.
His current research on the role of the seeking system in mediating the urge to attach is invaluable in helping us understand the unfolding impacts of early impaired bonding experiences in shaping the attachment capabilities of the children, young people and adults who access our services.
Short observation of the training
This training offers participants an opportunity to understand the key role of midbrain systems in traumatic experiences which have clinical consequences. There is an emphasis on attachment shock, which may be historic or recent, and on early life adversity. A distinction between brain circuits for shock and circuits for affective and defensive responding underlies the clinical approach of Deep Brain Reorienting.
DBR is a trauma memory processing modality that has developed from an understanding of stimulus-response sequences in the upper brainstem and uses these in a way that diminishes the risk of overwhelm or dissociation. Tracking the sequences, informed by the knowledge of how they occur physiologically, activates a healing process which, optimally, promotes a complete resolution of the clinical consequences of the traumatic experiences.
DBR can also be useful when attachment urges are conflicted because of adverse experiences. For example, when the capacity to orient toward connection simultaneously triggers the impulse to move away, often with negative affects emerging, the urge to connect with significant others is conflicted at a level not readily accessible in talk therapy.
Key learning outcomes
- To develop an understanding of the neuroanatomy and neurophysiology of threat and adversity response systems in the midbrain, the upper part of the brainstem
- To be able to track deep sequences that have occurred so quickly that only their late effects have been recognized – and to wait with these sequences until full processing of them has occurred
- To identify and differentiate the main components of physiological sequences underpinning conflicted orienting patterns in relational connections.
Programe for 17 03 22
10.00 – 10.55 Introduction to theory of DBR, part 1
10.55 – 11.00 Short break
11.00 – 11.10 Group exercise: “The Where Self”
11.10 – 11.45 Introduction to theory of DBR, part 2
11.45 – 12.00 Break
12.00 – 12.45 Demonstration 1
12.40 – 13.00 Q & A
13.00 – 14.00 Lunch
14.00 – 14.55 Demonstration 2
14.55 – 15.00 Short break
15.00 – 15.15 Q & A
15.15 – 15.30 Group exercise: “The Where Self in connection”
15.30 – 16.15 Demonstration 3
16.15 – 16.30 Break
16.30 – 17.00 Review of the O-T-(Shock)-A sequence
17.00 – 17.30 Q & A
17.30 – 17.45 Group exercise: “The Where Self looks inwards towards the Proto Self”
Free entrance!
The language: English with consecutive translation to Ukrainian
Our interpreter : Oksana Lizak
We made a video recording of this webinar.
