By Rolf Dane, the developer of DIR.

It is a well-known fact that our personal history will leave us with emotional and physical scars that past generations had no real answer for beyond the medical patch up - and maybe a "sympathetic ear" of a friend, the advice, "let time heal the wounds" or to make "a change of environment" and the like.
Today there do exist a number of alternative or cutting edge therapies that are quite effective in resolving these traumas. Among the ones we are familiar with and have studied can be mentioned, Traumatic Incident Reduction by Dr. Frank Gerbode, Routine 3X by Robert Ducharme, Transformational Processing by Flemming Funch and Dianetics by Ron Hubbard. These methods are all quite effective. That does not mean there is no reason to look for improved methods of dealing with trauma as such incidents, severe or light, play an important - if negative - role in most people's lives.

In Deep Incident Running (D.I.R.) we define Trauma as an overwhelming of the person. This overwhelm can happen on three levels. It can be an overwhelming of thought, of emotion, or on a physical level - as in physical trauma. The overwhelming can be on just one level or on all three levels at the same time. The degree of overwhelming determines the severity of the trauma.

The basic concept of DIR is to address all three levels and convert any overwhelming found into experience. The "DEEP" in Deep Incident Running stands for Decisions, Emotions, Efforts and Polarities. So we have Decisions on the thought level; Emotions on the emotional level. Efforts or force on the physical level. Finally we have Polarities. It covers the situation that led to the trauma. It was a confrontational situation: it could be two persons in a fight of some kind; it could be an emotional impact (such as from loss or bad news); or it could be a physical impact leading to a physical trauma.

Any situation that leaves the person in an overwhelmed state, analytically, emotionally or physically, is recorded by the person. It is recorded in the mind, on an emotional level - and on a physical level too in case of impact, etc. The person will often suffer lasting negative effects from this. It ties up the person's attention and interest and steals some of the person's energy, vitality and joy of life.
In case of physical trauma, the first thing to do is to attend to any injury using first aide and then get the person competent medical treatment. What DIR addresses is not medical situations. The ambition is to help the person, after medical treatment, to recover faster or overcome lasting effects of the accident or injury.

In DIR we take experiences of overwhelming (traumatic experiences) and convert them from being subconscious beatings to intuitive experiences. Through DIR processing the trauma gets assimilated as part of one's life experience. As a result the person has a new and better chance of succeeding in that field or endeavor and, through running many types of incidents with DIR, the person has a greater chance of success and happiness in life in general.

The Complaint
Incident Complaint: The person can have a complaint about a certain and known traumatic incident. The incident will be addressed as a known event of the personal history. It can be loss of a loved one, an accident, an assault, an operation, a severe illness in the past, a period or situation of extreme stress, etc. It can be loss of any kind; emotional or physical trauma of any kind. Such incidents can be addressed directly.

General Complaint: The person can also have a general complaint of unpleasant emotion and reaction to certain things or an inexplicable physical ailment, such as a pain, a soreness, itch, etc. with no immediate or medical explanation. One starts out by asking for incidents containing this unpleasant complaint; be it negative emotion, unpleasant feeling, a pain, odd body sensation and more. An incident containing this complaint is found and run. Then another incident is taken up, etc. until the complaint is gone or no more incidents can be found.

Area Complaint: The complaint can also be about the person's feelings and reactions towards a certain subject or an area of inability. One would find pains, emotions, feelings, attitudes, etc. connected to that subject or area and run them as general complaints. Examples of area complaints could be "feeling bad about one's time in middle school," "having troubles with study," "having troubles in one's marriage," etc.

Compared to the techniques mentioned above, the DEEP techniques take a greater interest in the person's subjective emotions, feelings and reactions. This is based on the observation and analysis that the same or comparable incidents (such as loss of a loved one) can have a very different effect on different people. Different individuals have different thresholds for being overwhelmed. A paramedic can arrive at an accident scene and just consider it "business as usual" while a bystander, seeing the same thing, can be horrified and traumatized for life. We conclude that it is not the incident itself that does the most damage but that it is actually the person's reactions and decisions and perpetuated reactions to the incident that seems to be the permanent damage. By concentrating on that subjective side, the emotional and cognitive damage can be more easily and fully repaired. Even physical conditions that didn't respond to medical treatment can be unlocked and now respond to treatment or simply heal up.

Relief and significant case improvement also happens routinely using the older techniques; but the end goal of DIR is to exhaust the person's reactions to the event (such as emotions, feelings and pains) rather than have the person look at all the bad things that happened to him or her. The person, in other words, gets an intuitive lesson in his or her own participation and unknowing cause of subsequent troubles and sufferings. These are the subjective elements the person can do something about - and the clinical record shows that this is the fastest and most complete way to overcome such trauma.

DIR is still incident running; but once an incident with the complaint is contacted, the processor works directly on the discomforts contained therein by having the person re-experience and intensify them and even recreate them in the session using various techniques. The theory is, that the person basically continuously, though involuntarily, generates these unwanted sensations him- or herself. By using the DEEP techniques the person can be made to gain control over them and then turn them off.

This DEEP approach makes the need for running past lives incidents less necessary. Some persons have had problems finding such incidents and also in getting all the details of for instance childhood incidents  -  or even getting an earlier similar incident when that is called for. The DEEP method emphasizes the many sensations, pains and feelings that bother the person, also in present time, and exhausts those under competent guidance in session and has less use for scenarios and long stories. The efficiency of DEEPs subjective approach has been supported by plenty of clinical evidence.

Emotions, Feelings
There are several types of emotions/feelings. We sub-divide them into 1) Primary emotions; 2) Secondary emotions; 3) Body sensations; 4) Feelings.

1. Primary emotions: These are emotions generated by the Being and directed at the body or towards the exterior world. These are the emotions of an extroverted person dealing with the environment; the emotions of a hunter, a sportsman, a worker in action, etc. Emotions in this band have a clear physiological function. They control or prompt certain actions and responses and affect the endocrine system directly. Seeing a danger produces fear, produces hormonal response of fleeing from the source of danger. In confident individuals the danger may produce anger: the emotion of attack. This is the "fight or flight" response of the endocrine system.
A skilled public speaker, musician or artist uses primary emotions to convey his or her messages. In essence such a communication is aimed at affecting the audience and manipulating the audience members' emotions and behavior.

2. Secondary emotions: These are not primary reactions to the environment. But they comprise a huge amount of luggage; some of it useful, much of it mainly a burden. It is our emotional response to things less tangible or physically consequential. The person sees a landscape and feels sad as it reminds him of a time that is lost; or sees a certain building and is filled with happy emotions  -  something positive happened there recently and may happen again.  Using secondary feelings is an intuitive way of thinking. How big a role they play can vary enormously from person to person. It can be a very healthy way to navigate in life. For some it is a curse causing depression or unnecessary stress and general unhappiness. It is of course a huge subject so we are only scratching the surface here.

Just a note: animals have demonstrably primary emotions. They also have secondary emotions stemming from physical trauma. They may lack a range of secondary emotions. Animals are not considered capable of reflecting over things by either using reason or emotion.

3. Body sensations: This category is comprised of various feelings stemming from the body, such as ache, soreness, itch, thirst, full stomach and dozens of other impulses, good and bad. The body is trying to tell us about its condition. By perceiving the range of body sensations we are aware of and in contact with the body. Sometimes these signals stem from past situations that should be located and processed as it is unpleasant and distracting "noise" related to the past. Sometimes these signals should be cause of alarm and immediate action. Sometimes one needs to change habits or diet or seek medical help immediately as a consequence of these signals.

4. Feelings: Any given feeling is a complex combination of thoughts and secondary emotions. It cannot be categorized into the well-known clean emotions, such as apathy, grief, fear, anger, antagonism, contentment or enthusiasm; it can be a "gut feeling" or "feeling sort of happy but still not sure of the outcome." It is a way of "thinking" about one's situation, about other people, a project, etc. It is a clear manifestation of awareness or a way to know. It is thinking with one's heart - some say with their gut.

Thought
Thought is mental activity dealing in ideas and concepts. Thought can be verbalized. There is 1. Analytical thought (or reason,) and 2. Reactive thought.

1. Analytical thought (reason) is clear thinking with a high ability to differentiate and see minute differences among very similar things. It is characterized by the ability to discern differences and similarities and recognize things that are identical. Working with, studying or looking at something, one can perceive and classify things correctly and work with the concepts of things in the mind. One can combine ideas and arrive at new ones. One can forecast correctly, be aware of consequences by using logic, etc.

2. Reactive thought is a coarser function of the mind. It has much to do with conditioned reflexes, or stimulus response. Certain stimuli will cause a predetermined response. This can be due to upbringing, education and indoctrination.
Also physical trauma may cause this. The person seems to "learn" certain lessons during such moments. A girl burns her fingers on a stove and will have an involuntary flinch next time she sees one - even when it is cold. She has "learned" not to touch stoves. The conditioned reflex seems to be in place to make sure it doesn't happen again. (This is what we call the "Must-not-happen-again" reaction. If a person has many of those, living a normal life becomes very hard.) When the girl sees a stove the mechanism can be triggered. It will however include much or all of the original discomforts (negative emotion, sensation and pain.) It will also contain decisions and conclusions made at the time. By contacting and running the original burning incident this spell can be lifted. The girl may again touch or not touch stoves as she sees fit. The burning incident has been transformed to experience.

The Shock Moment
Of special interest in DIR is decisions and thoughts made during such traumatic moments. Any thought content has been locked up in the incident together with emotions and sensations. If generalities, destructive, self-destructive, or very emotional decisions or conclusions were made, they can have a very negative effect on one's thinking and behavior later on. Also, decisions that made sense in a certain situation may make no sense or be destructive in just about any other context. They are now simply out of place. They were urgent decisions that, apparently, had to be carried out before the person could react based on reason. Thus they can be hard to detect. They seem to live on in the subconscious mind without the person suspecting them. Also due to the high pain or stress content in the trauma, these decisions tend to stay hidden and uninspected. In processing, any locked up, irrational, out-of-context thoughts and hidden urgent outcries are isolated and processed and the person's thinking is again freed up.

Examples of locked up thoughts in shock moments: A woman gets raped and decides in shock and panic that "all men are bad!" and lives by it ever since. A man gets injured in a car accident and in a flash decides "I should never have driven!" and agonizes each time he is in a car after that.  A boy gets blown to sea in a small boat and gets suddenly really scared and says to himself "I won't make it!" That may act as a decision of defeat for the rest of his life. Getting these decisions - these often urgent exclamations and outcries - isolated and run out may turn things around. The incidents were remembered as nightmares. Through DIR processing they become invaluable lessons of life: on the analytical level, on the emotional level and on the behavioral level (the effort level.) They become accessible without any pain or negative emotion. They add simply to what could be called the person's intuitive understanding of the situation. And this is life experience at its best.

Descriptive words of shock moment: Being shocked, upset, horrified, alarmed, defeated, terrorized, beaten down, dismayed, appalled, overwhelmed, confused, wiped out, nullified, unmocked, betrayed, abandoned, double-crossed, steamrolled, in panic, gone ballistic, exploded, in a tantrum, protesting, collapsed, given up, surrender, panic attack, nervous breakdown, psychotic break, etc.

Running an Incident
When an incident is contacted, the person is first returned or regressed to the time it took place. Then the person is sent through the incident as if it were happening right now, re-experiencing it. This is by the book of the other methods of incident running as well.

Once that is done, one can go into DEEP mode. In DIR, the practitioner would have listened carefully to how the person described the experience and now uses this knowledge in the following step. The practitioner asks into the emotions, feelings, reactions and thoughts expressed and suspected. In physical trauma the force band, recorded as Motor Memory, is the most important area to contact and run. In emotional trauma the emotions, feelings and reactions are, of course, dominant and would be emphasized.
 Using the basic tools of DEEP, the incident is exhausted of emotions and feelings; of effort and force (motor memory); and of any shock moment and thoughts - but not necessarily in that order. Any shock moment of the incident is asked for and carefully run. The shock is what locks up all the negative effects. Sometimes one has to find an earlier incident and run its shock to get permanent resolution.

One thing that can be used in DIR is to explore the two sides of effort and force colliding. This is done by viewing the two (or more) sides separately. First we run the general experience of the injured person. Then we would review the outside force hitting the person and then the person's own efforts in dealing with that, fighting back, holding it off or fleeing  -  whatever the case may be.

This collision of physical objects or energies causes a permanent ridge in the person's energy field as the two sides lock up against each other. The person has a motor memory recording of both sides. Say, a football soccer player was tackled by another player and was injured.  First we run the person's own experience and motor memory of the accident.  But obviously, it was "the other player" who was the negative cause of the person's injury. It is hard to see one's own cause in relation to that. However, it is the injured person's own motor memory recording of the other player's actions that causes the permanent damage. The injured person has this recording of being hit as well as a recording of his own actions and reactions in the situation. To run out the outside force (the opponent), we have the person assume the viewpoint of the other player and have our hurt person run the incident from that perspective. By doing so, we access the injured person's own motor memory recordings of the hostile force hitting him and can now dissolve that side of the ridge as well.

By working both sides, the ridge will dissolve and the person can now move up to present time, so to speak. The frozen moment in time, battling a hostile force or opponent, has become liquid and can now virtually evaporate. The same can be explored when it comes to emotion and thought.
Often you will find emotion and counter-emotion colliding, as in a heated argument. The same could be said about thought, counter-thought. Here it is the clashing of ideas in the argument.

 In running the shock moment, we are interested in the statement contained therein. Sometimes it has to be sorted out as the person didn't put words on it previously. Also impulses, which could be said to contain thought as well as effort, may be found. They should be worded and run out, including acting out any impulses and efforts. If no wording can be found, impulses can simply be acted out under the processor's control.

As said above, it should also be noted that what gives these thoughts such a command value is the force and threat that was present at the time, the threat of consequences, to wellbeing and survival. It is therefore mandatory to get any such force discharged of these moments to make the statements lose their negative command value.

Note: The technique of running viewpoints can also be used to specifically discharge the shock moment. Each viewpoint present in the shock moment is simply run. The person is made to view the moment or short sequence through the eyes of each principal person, group or viewpoint present, one at the time, and the confusion in the shock evaporates. This is not included in DIR-1, the seminar, but is part of professional DIR.
 

Rounding Off
This is the outline of Deep Incident Running as it exists today. More advanced techniques along the same principles are being tested daily and adjusted so they can be published. We are at the time of this writing busy delivering DIR to new and old clients. We find that incidents already run by older methods can be addressed again and new layers of emotional charge, etc. can be gotten off. At the same time the clients get some valuable lessons of life from DIR by getting a better understanding of themselves: their decisions, emotions, efforts and polarities (conflicts.) The DIR techniques take about the same time to administer to one incident as the older techniques do, our claim is that this is a valuable approach that may change the business of running traumatic incidents.

Deep Processing and Conflicts
There is another research undergoing that actually came before DIR. We were engaged in a research of processing identities. This research was done with persons, who had an expressed goal of using processing for self-development rather than simply addressing complaints.

We took up identities, one at the time, the person had trouble dealing with and processed any charge found. Then we found the own identity used in dealing with that trouble person and processed any charge found on that (own) side. Here the "Polarities" (as the P in DEEP) is the obvious clashing of identities, roles or characters. This processing has been very successful in research with selected persons and has been underway for about 5 years.

An easy to read and illustrated introduction to that can be found on our web site: