Get Back the Joy of Life with TRE

Article in Mental helse 3/2014

“Get back the joy of life with TRE”

The Mental helse (Mental health) Magazine published an article about TRE in March 2014 and talked to the participants in a course led by chiropractor and TRE instructor Katrine Lindenhoff-Bø.

Most people experience during their life some form of greater stresses or trauma in addition to the usual everyday stresses. A wide range of events, such as sudden deaths, accidents, serious illness, as well as major events such as threats, assaults, violence, war, terrorism, etc, can put us off balance and affect us so deeply that we carry them as painful mental scars through life.

In this article, you can read about how one of the participants regained her own vitality and joy in everyday life with the help of Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) after struggling with a lot of stress, worries, and anxiety when her disabled daughter died. It was only after learning the method from chiropractor and TRE instructor Katrine Lindenhoff-Bø that she gained more inner peace.

“I think that everything is fine more often now,” she says to Mental helse magazine, and is happier with life and feels more relaxed and calmer after only three months of TRE practice.

Katrine Lindenhoff-Bø, who is a chiropractor at the clinic Focus on your health, says to Mental Health “TRE is about stimulating the nervous system.”

The founder of the method, Dr David Berceli, established TRE as a way to be able to process his own traumas that he had sustained after a long stay as an aid worker in war-torn countries.

“Having to run away from snipers on the way to the grocery store became almost a natural part of life,” says Berceli, who was long affected by the experience that bombs could go off without warning and found it difficult to get back to everyday life when he came home again.

The TRE method is a self-help method that is inspired by an older method called bioenergetics.

“Through trembling, we let the body do the work. It is our natural mechanism for dealing with trauma and stress”, says Berceli. Berceli has held a number of courses in over 40 countries. He has also been to Norway and has held courses for those interested in the method.

“Studies show that tremors are a natural reaction. It makes us more relaxed and improves sleep. We will thus be better equipped to meet a new challenge later”, claims Berceli.

The method can also release strong emotions. “The tremor is gentle and allows me to work more holistically. Combining TRE with classic chiropractic often gives faster results,” says Lindenhoff-Bø to Mental helse.

It is a common experience among therapists who combine other methods with TRE, such as massage therapists and other body-oriented therapists, as well as conversation and cognitive therapists, that one gets more done with and gets improved results from other methods after doing TRE. We believe this is due to the fact that TRE at a more fundamental level manages to calm the nervous system, and release flight, fight and freeze reactions, as well as emotions on a physical level, thus making
clients more receptive to other types of treatment.

Barbro Andersen, a specialist in clinical psychology and who was responsible for introducing TRE to Norway and arranged courses here with David Bercelli, says that “TRE reduces everyday stress but can also process shock and post-traumatic stress disorder.”

For some, the method is effective as a self-help mechanism, but those who have severe trauma, psychiatric or some medical conditions should do the exercises under the supervision of a therapist.

“Psychologists compare unprocessed trauma to holding the throttle and the brake at the same time. It can affect both the nervous system and the hormone balance.”

You can read the entire article from Mental helse here.

Are you interested in learning more about TRE? Please read more about our TRE instructor training here.