TRE Stellenbosch

WHAT IS TRE? Tremoring is an inbuilt mechanism designed to release the huge energetic charge that builds up in the body and nervous system during the instinctual fight or flight or freeze response to trauma.
These NEUROGENIC TREMORS are elicited in the psoas muscle, the bodyʼs centre of gravity and spreads outwards from there up the back and down the legs and arms. If not suppressed or interrupted it will continue until the entire chemical/hormonal/muscular build- up has been discharged. This returns the entire organism to normal or homeostasis.

Studies on animals in the wild demonstrate that they do not have PTSD as a result of effectively discharging the traumatic experience. Animals in captivity do not do this and their health and life span is greatly impaired as a result.

What has happened in humans? Over centuries of acculturation we have frozen the organic inbuilt tremoring mechanism because we have defined SHAKING as a WEAKNESS or PATHOLOGICAL. We are, in effect, in a cultural cage. By the age of 7 we have given up the tremoring mechanism, designed to protect us from long term damage created by trauma.

Dr. David Berceli, a former monk, spent 15 years in war torn countries. Seeing and experiencing the worst of trauma and PTSD, led to research and eventually developing TRE – a set of exercises which elicit these tremors. Because tremoring is instinctual, it is mediated through the primitive BRAINSTEM. This means the tremoring response will kick in automatically, when certain muscles groups have been stretched and mildly stressed. These muscle groups are the flexors of the lower back and thighs that pull one forwards in a protective movement. When these muscles are worked, then tremoring kicks in all by itself. The person experiences this in the lying down position and tremors may continue organically for up to half an hour.
Dr Berceli has successfully used TRE with survivors of HURRICANE KATRINA, various big EARTHQUAKES and TSUNAMIS over the world, as well as war veterans and survivors.

Tremoring restores the body to a state of deep relaxation and chemical and endocrine balance, the areas of the brain linked to past trauma memories such as the amygdala, actually begin to spontaneously heal.