Trauma Therapy | Deep Brain Reorienting | Somatic Therapy
Barbara Dugan, MDiv, MLADC, SAP
Discover Contentment.
To discover contentment we start with an intention to release that which no longer serves.
Working collaboratively as a team, we will take a journey to discover the most suitable methods to facilitate your ability to listen to, and trust your self, so that you might live a life that feels centered, grounded, less troubled and less reactive.
Any kind of personal growth provides "side-effects" that may feel uncomfortable at first; but with practice, lasting and meaningful change is attainable and ultimately leads to more balanced, and joyful experiences.
Barbara + Trees, Lovejoy Pond, Maine
Bottom up Practices for Better Experiences
It takes practice to develop body awareness and self-regulation. We begin resourcing with empirically based somatic techniques that give rise to a persistent experience of the self as aware and calm, even in the “storm.”
Rather than beginning only with thoughts or the story of what happened, bottom-up practices work with physical sensations, movement, posture, breath, and the body’s responses to stress. Over time, this work can strengthen your ability to recognize activation, remain present with difficult experiences, and return to a greater sense of steadiness.
The goal is not to eliminate stress or difficult emotions, but to develop a more persistent experience of the self as aware and calm, even in the “storm.” As these skills become more familiar, they can support deeper trauma work while helping you feel more grounded, connected, and capable of responding rather than reacting.
Deep Brain Reorienting with Alexander Technique
Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) is a scientifically based transformational therapy relying on the human brain having an inherent ability to find healing from trauma.
It aims to access and process traumatic experience by tracking the original sequence of physiological responses that occurred when the deep brain was alerted to threat or attachment disruption.
DBR focuses on how trauma affects the deeper layers of the self. Emphasis is placed on core emotional responses. DBR works with the foundational emotional pain beneath dissociation or fragmentation, including PTSD and CPTSD.
Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) has been developed in Scotland by Frank Corrigan, MD, FRCPsych. The DBR treatment sequence releases energetic shocks from traumatic experiences that the body has stored as physical holding, tension and pain.
The DBR sequence is also successful in dismantling triggers that lead to emotional and behavioral reactivity and very often, panic. I began training with Dr. Corrigan in 2019, adding Advanced Intensive DBR Training with Alexander Technique Interweaves in 2024 with Dr. Frank Corrigan and Martin Warner. Martin Warner’s work invaluable to the DBR process.
I have attended many workshops and trainings with Martin and continue to consult with him at least twice a month. I am also in ongoing consultation with Maxine Sherrell whose wisdom and expertise provide invaluable instruction and insight for the development of conscientious and skillful application of the DBR process.
Sound Therapy
Sound therapy uses very particular frequencies to assist vagal system regulation to strengthen energy flow in the body. Instruction in sound therapy techniques using Solfeggio, Fibonacci, OM tuning forks, weighted body tuners, and Tibetan singing bowls will be provided as part of developing personalized home self-care practices.
"One of the best ways to alter dysfunctional patterns is to administer therapeutic doses of frequency specific energy in the form of vibration.” ~Richard Gerber, MD
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
ACT does not operate under Western psychology’s assumption of “healthy normality.”
ACT operates under the assumption that the psychological processes of a normal human mind are often destructive. ACT assists individuals in accessing the transcendent sense of self known as self-as-context—the self that is always there, observing and experiencing and yet distinct from thoughts, feelings, sensations, and memories.
The objective of ACT is not to eliminate difficult feelings but to create scaffolding that prevents an overreaction to them, and avoid situations where they are invoked.
The effect is a better connection to personal truth, because if we can FEEL we can CHOOSE.
And if we can choose, we are free.