TRE- My Journey of Discovery into Stress and Trauma

I first came across TRE four years ago when I was actively exploring body based methods of healing. TRE stands for tension or trauma release exercise and in essence is a series of exercises that are designed to activate the bodies own natural tremoring response.

The tremoring response seems to act as a natural de-stressor for the body and afterwards people report a number of beneficial results including feeling calmer, more present and experiencing a better quality of sleep. (More background about TRE can be found here)

For the last year I have been training to become a certified TRE provider and it’s been a truly fascinating journey. Why did it take me so long to decide to train? I have to own up to some arrogance on my side- because TRE looks so simple and it is. A series of 7/8 exercises that anyone could look up and start doing and so I couldn’t really understand why it would take so much time, money and effort to learn how to become a certified provider – until I began the training and then I realised.

Yes, TRE is on one level very simple- exercises that anyone can learn fairly quickly. However what is not simple is the responses that can be elicited through TRE. TRE works in a very powerful way on our nervous system and works directly with the stress response of Fight, Flight and Freeze. Most people have generally heard about these mechanisms within the body and yet understanding them intellectually is a very different experience to having a full-blown experience of intense fear or panic within the body.

When the options of fight and flight are not available then freezing becomes the last option. Many people live quite a lot of their days and sometimes even their lives in a frozen state. What does this mean? To be in a freeze state is to be cut-off from what the body is feeling as it has proved to be simply overwhelming. It means to be slightly dissociated possibly dreamy, spacey or numb and shut down.

Someone who lives a lot of time in a frozen state has difficulty accessing their true feelings and are often out of touch with their bodies seemingly finding it difficult to follow simple body based instructions.

TRE helps to gently relieve the stress that the nervous system has been holding and so it can help it to slowly come out of the frozen state; and yet just as frost bitten hands or feet should not be exposed to the heat too quickly for fear of causing more harm, similarly a nervous system freeze should not be brought out of a frozen state too quickly- this is why so much training is required. Helping us firstly as trainees become acquainted with our own nervous systems, learning to pay attention and monitor our own states so that we can become effective guides for others. Here the classic mantra of “you can take someone else where you haven’t been” is certainly true.

Once we have learned to monitor our own progress and signs of disregulation only then are we ready to begin working with others. It is a truly wonderful experience being alongside someone when they first discover their bodies ability to tremor or shake seemingly by itself. I’ve witnessed a huge array of responses from bewilderment through to delight and often accompanied by varying degrees of surprise. I’ve lost count of the number of people who sit up and watch their body almost like seeing it with completely new eyes. And this is true. The experience of TRE does provide a new window with which to see the body. We suddenly realise that we’re not just a babbling brook of cascading and often contradictory thoughts- we have a body that has access to wisdom that is beyond the limits of the mind. And this is a relevation.

For the past year I have been providing TRE within Hope Rehab a Drug and Alcohol rehab based in Thailand and the results have been astonishing. There are several schools of thought that posit that addiction is a result of an attempt to self-medicate overwhelming emotional distress within the body and in effect addiction can be seen as a frozen, dissociated response. From my experience of working with many of these clients I would overwhelmingly agree. And this is where the support and guidance I received through my training proved to be invaluable.

I learnt to trust what I was seeing and experiencing with my clients rather than simply believe what they were telling me. Someone who doesn’t have much awareness of their bodies or their emotions often is unable to express what they are experiencing and so I learnt to deeply watch and tune into my clients myself. And in the early days I didn’t always get it right. I remember one client seemingly telling me he was fine, doing well until suddenly he wasn’t and he was overwhelmed with extremely distressing emotions. I sat with him for some time to “ground him” and help dissipate some of his distress. That was a big learning moment for me. After that whilst I would always ask clients to tell me what they were experiencing I never again took it simply at face value. And its been amazing seeing and hearing people say things like “I’ve never felt so calm in all my life” “I had the best night’s sleep I’ve had in years” “I can’t hear any of the usual noise in my mind.”

Learning to understand how the nervous system works has been an incredibly rich and powerful addition to how I work with people. I am now close to evangelical about spreading this knowledge; I see our nervous system as being the engine of the body and if this is mis-firing or running too quickly then no amount of changing the petrol supply or learning to be a better driver is going to rectify the underlying problem. Similarly if someone has a nervous system that is set at a high level of stress then interventions aimed at an intellectual level (such as CBT) will be largely ineffective because under high stress our pre-frontal cortex (the part of the brain involved in reasoning and intellect) is off-line.

In conclusion TRE has proved to be one of the most simple and yet powerful modalities I’ve personally encountered in helping bring about more peace, contentment and joy. If you’d like to know more or have a personal experience of TRE please contact me here.