Shake It Off Naturally - Reduce Stress, Anxiety, and Tension With [TRE]

283 Pages·2015·5.98 MB·English

by  David Berceli

SHAKE
IT
OFF
NATURALLY
REDUCE STRESS, ANXIETY,
AND TENSION WITH (TRE)
Copyright © 2015 by Dr. David Berceli
All rights reserved
ISBN-13: 978-1515065289
All pictures and artwork in this book appear by permission of the respective individuals and artists. No part of this
book may be reproduced, in any form, without written permission from the publishing company or David Berceli.
First Edition
Neither David Berceli nor TRE LLC is responsible for the content of any individual chapter from the contributing
authors.
The model for the exercises illustrated in this book is: Jonas Nordström: [email protected]
www.tre-webinar.com
For information on TRE certification, training and certified TRE Providers go to: http://www.traumaprevention.com
http://www.TREforAll.org
To view the TRE Video Library go to:
TRE Video Album: https://vimeo.com/album/2787696
TRE APP
An APP with videos, pictures and instructions on how to perform TRE is
available. The name of the APP is: Stress Less TRE
Apple iPhone APP
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tre/id854933082?mt=8
Android Galaxy APP
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.interbiz.ptsdhelp
CONTENTS
Foreward by Robert Scaer,MD
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Exploring the Body’s Natural Tremor Response
SECTION I: SELF-INDUCED THERAPEUTIC TREMORS
1. Muscular Tremors, Shaking, and Vibration
By: David Berceli, PhD
2. Trembling with Joy: Anthropology, Trembling Practices Worldwide
By: Erwin Schweitzer, PhD
3. Self-Induced Therapeutic Tremor (SITT): Proposed Nomenclature for TRE
By: Nkem Ndefo, RN
4. Central Pattern Generators (CPG) in Tremorgenesis
By: Riccardo Cassiani Ingoni, PhD
5. Tremor and Trauma: The Brainstem Emotional Motor System and
Recovery from Traumatic Experience
By: Frank Corrigan, MD & Gert Holstege, MD
SECTION II: PHYSIOLOGICAL BENEFITS OF BODY TREMORS
6. Introduction to Section
By: David Berceli, PhD
7. Integral Bodywork® & the Therapeutic Tremors of TRE
By: Alex Greene, LMT
8. Physiotherapy and TRE (Autoriseret Fysioterapeut)
By: Klavs Tarp, BPT
9. TRE and Fascia Release
By: Liza Kimble, LMT
10. TRE & Pain
By: Steve Haines, DC
11. Using TRE with People with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in the Danish
Multiple Sclerosis Society
By: Michael Nissen, CP
12. Urologist Uses TRE in Medical Practice
By: Eric B. Robins, MD
13. Neurogenic Yoga
By: Jennica Mills, ERYT & Maria Alfaro, ERYT
14. The Integration of TRE and Yoga Therapy
By: Donna L. Phillips, BS, CYT, ERYT500
SECTION III: THE PSYCHOSOCIAL APPLICATIONS OF TRE
15. TRE and Psychotherapy: TRE: In, With and Beyond Psychotherapy
By: Heiner Steckel, Dipl. Päd.
16. Attachment: The Movement Between Inter-Personal and Intra-Personal
Relationships
By: David Berceli, PhD
17. TRE Agency-Based Trainings
By: Jessica Schaffer, LMT
18. TRE with Military, First Responders, Police, and Fire Department Personnel
By: David Berceli, PhD
19. TRE Adaptability for Tension Reduction, Enhanced Performance, Recovery
from Bodily Injury, and Increased Flexibility
By: Chris Balsley, LMT
20. TRE: Your Life Coach
By: Kal Jurdi, BS
21. Coaching and TRE
By: Jonah Robins
22a. TRE in Primary Health Care: Promoting Mental Health in an Adolescent
Health Program
By: Marcelo Amaral, MD
22b. TRE na atenção básica de saúde: Promovendo saúde mental num programa
de atenção à saúde de adolescentes (Portugese)
By: Marcelo Amaral, MD
23a. National Trauma: Peace from the Inside Out
By: Pedro Rojas, MS
23b. La Paz De Adentro Hacia Fuera (Spanish)
By: Pedro Rojas, MS
24a. The Presence in the Voice
By: Juan Carlos Garaizabal Jorge, CBT
24b. La Presencia en la Voz (Spanish)
By: Juan Carlos Garaizabal Jorge, CBT
25a. TRE Simplicity & Complexity
By: Maria Verónica Sangrá, ERYT
25b. TRE y la Complejidad de lo Simple (Spanish)
By: Maria Verónica Sangrá, ERYT
26. Cultural and Trans-generational Trauma: The journey of Introducing TRE to
Israel
By: Anya Bloom, PT
27. Post Traumatic Growth
By: David Berceli, PhD
28. Endorphin Soup™ - Using TRE and Add-On Tools: A Recipe for Tension,
Stress and Trauma Relief, or to Just Feel Good!
By: William Oster, MA & Susan Shifman, CPT
SECTION IV: TENSION & TRAUMA RELEASING EXERCISES
29. Illustrations of Tension & Trauma Releasing Exercises
Foreward
By: Robert Scaer, M.D.
Stressful and traumatic events are by definition based on some perceived or real threat
to life, and therefore have close associations with the basic response to survival, the
fight/flight/freeze response. These responses, to a great extent, involve activation of the
somatic musculature, and of both branches of the autonomic nervous system,
sympathetic and parasympathetic. As a result, it has been recognized that the body is
intimately incorporated into these procedural memories of defense and protection that
may be linked to any stressful, threating, or traumatic experience. This linkage will
involve not only the sensory perception of the experience, but also what the muscles of
the body actually did to protect itself.
In any threatening experience, the neck muscles will pull the
neck forward, the shoulder muscles will raise the shoulders and
draw them inward, and the hip girdle muscles will flex the hip
toward the abdomen and curve the spine, pulling the pelvis up
toward the abdomen. All of these movements are hard-wired in
the brains of all creatures for the purpose of drawing the body
inward to protect the front of the neck, the chest and abdomen.
This is known as the fetal response. It is the safest position of
the human body and it replicates the position of the fetus.
However, even the adult response to a danger or threat is to repeat this position. The
reason for this is that these are the areas that contain the most vulnerable parts of the
body that the predator is most likely to attack. These patterns are instinctual and
common to all mammals. They constitute the muscles that are activated in the startle
response to any type of threat, including a loud, unexpected noise. And, interestingly,
they also typify the postures of old age (in some people), chronic pain, depression and
Parkinson’s disease.
Through multiple dangerous experiences in numerous countries as a relief worker, Dr.
Berceli intuitively recognized this universal
somatic response to danger and therefore realized
it was instinctual in all humans. With his expertise
as a therapeutic body worker, he realized that there
was a repetitive activation of very specific muscle
patterns in threatening situations that could result
in increasing tension in those specific muscle
groups. He also surmised that releasing this
specific tension pattern could have beneficial
effects for relieving the stress and survival
response.
Dr. Berceli postulated that these specific muscles must
carry a great deal of excess tension simply because
they are activated very often during stressful events.
He began to explore the possibility of releasing the
tension in this specific muscle pattern. However, since
it was deeply imbedded in the core of the structure and
activated through primitive autonomic reactions, it
would require a different type of exercise routine than
currently exists. He wondered if it was possible to
fatigue, or inhibit the muscles that provided a
counterweight to this muscle pattern, it might be possible to spontaneously release this
tension, and discharge the anxiety similar to the somatic discharge that occurs after a
freeze/dissociative response. Again relying on his knowledge of the intricate interaction
of the pelvic and extremity muscles in normal function, he devised a series of fatiguing
exercises in the lower extremities sufficient to elicit this discharge through a series of
mild tremors. He found indeed, that not only did these clients achieve a sense of release,
relaxation and calmness, but also that even emotional states from old trauma were often
mitigated.
The uniqueness of the exercises in this book lies in the additional realization that Dr.
Berceli had. He observed that the human body often tremors or shakes before, during or
after stressful or dangerous situations. He recognized this shaking mechanism as
inherent in the human body and was not part of the pathological expression of stress or
trauma but was the response of the autonomic nervous system to down-regulate itself. It
appeared as though the body’s shaking mechanism was able to release the
corresponding muscular tension patterns created as a result of the stressor or threat and
restore homeostasis. His operating hypothesis was that, if there are specific muscles of
contraction during stressors, there must be a corresponding reaction from the body to
reduce the stress in these specific muscles. Evolutionary wise, it would be inefficient for
the musculature to contract during stressful or traumatic events without a corresponding
mechanism to relieve the contraction after the stressor is over.
By combining these two insights of using the human bod’s natural tremor mechanism
directed specifically into the core pattern of muscle tension, an autonomic process of
muscular release and nervous system down regulation can be successfully achieved. In
this edited book, David Berceli PhD, and the other contributing authors, provide some
theories about this complex neuro-physiological defense mechanism of the human
body. Likewise they offer a creative method designed by Dr. Berceli to reduce the high
charge of the autonomic nervous system as well as release the muscular contraction
patterns of this procedural memory. The series of simple exercises in this book are
designed specifically to evoke a mild tremor response in a safe manner that can release
the residual tension, stress and trauma patterns that were developed during the
threatening event.
Along with his realization, many other forms of somatically based trauma therapies
have emerged in the past 20 years, a gratifying acknowledgement of the critical need to
address the role of the body in trauma.1 2 3 However, this book represents Berceli’s
bringing together the story of the long journey to his achieving and perfecting this novel
and widely applicable form of stress reduction and trauma therapy. It also provides a
useful manual for learning these exercises on one’s own. One of the unique features of
Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE) is that they can be learned and practiced as a
therapeutic self-help skill, as well as an adjunct to other forms of trauma therapy.
Helplessness is a universal state in the trauma victim, and empowerment through one’s
gaining control of their symptoms, their bodies and their life is an essential part of the
healing process. TRE’s provide a measure of that empowerment as well.
Biography
Robert Scaer, M.D. received his B.A. in Psychology, and his M.D. degree at the
University of Rochester. He is Board Certified in Neurology, and has been in practice
for 33 years, twenty of those as Medical Director of Rehabilitation Services at the
Mapleton Center in Boulder, CO. His primary areas of interest and expertise have been
in the fields of brain injury and chronic pain, and more recently in the study of
traumatic stress and its role in physical symptoms and diseases.
He has lectured extensively nationally and internationally on these topics, and has
published several articles on the whiplash syndrome and other somatic syndromes of
traumatic stress. He has published a book in 2001, The Body Bears the Burden:
Trauma, Dissociation and Disease, presenting a new theory of dissociation and its role
in many diseases. A second edition of this book was released in October 2007. A
second book, The Trauma Spectrum: Hidden Wounds and Human Resiliency, released
in July, 2005, explores the insidious spectrum of culturally-based trauma that shapes our
lives, and how transformation and healing may still take place. He is currently retired
from clinical medical practice, and continues to pursue a career in writing and lecturing.
References