Trauma and Stress Release Therapy© was developed as a non-invasive intervention to release stress and tension caused by traumatic and stressful life events.
It is an innovative therapy that assists the client to eliminate embedded patterns of stress, tension and trauma that negatively affect their lives and prevent them from achieving their fullest potential.
The therapy is used to remove both the underlying cause as well as the symptoms associated with chronic stress and post-traumatic stress disorders and has been used internationally for several years.
What also makes this intervention so unique is that the client is not required to share any information or details related to any traumatic event. It is not necessary to share your life story or secrets with us as is the case in traditional therapies. The therapy is offered on a one-to-one basis or in the form of workshops to assist individuals, groups, or organizations whose lives are affected by stress or post-traumatic stress to eliminate the trauma and stress.
Trauma and Stress Release Therapy© has been used with great success in organisations where personnel are regularly subjected to severe stressful work conditions.
These include, but are not limited to:
- Police and Security Services
- Emergency Services and Medical Personnel
- Military Personnel
- Political Organisations
- Governmental Organisations
- International Corporations
- Business Environment
- Corporate Environment
The therapy is also effective in eliminating trauma and stress in:
- Couples
- Families including children
- Individuals
- Students
PATHWAY TO HEALING
Trauma and Stress Release Therapy© is used to heal those with physical and/or psychological dis-ease caused by trauma, stress and anxiety as well as those whose quality of life is negatively affected by anxiety and stress.
TRAUMA EXPLAINED
Trauma is experienced as a feeling that overwhelms a PERSON…certain situations are experienced as overwhelming and unbearable.
Three types of trauma:
- Acute trauma results from a single incident.
- Chronic trauma is prolonged or repeated events such as domestic violence or psychological abuse.
- Complex trauma is exposure to multiple traumatic events—often of an invasive, interpersonal nature—and the wide-ranging, long-term effects of this exposure. These events are severe and pervasive, such as abuse or profound neglect, varied and multiple traumatic events often of an invasive, interpersonal nature.
Traumatic experiences are categorized as “hard traumas” or “soft traumas”. A hard trauma is an incident that is easily identifiable such as a car accident, injury, serious harm, or a natural disaster. It is a moment in time that one can identify as having had a severely disturbing experience. Hard traumas are often easier to heal than soft traumas simply because soft traumas may be less identifiable. Soft traumas are normally due to experiences of psychological or emotional abuse during childhood and are usually repressed unconsciously. Trauma due to physical abuse is normally more obvious and easier to recall.
CHRONIC STRESS
Trauma and Stress Release Therapy is not only effective in resolving deep chronic tension created due to trauma but its efficacy has also been proven to eliminate stress caused by everyday life experiences. Regular stress is a natural life experience and the body registers these experiences in the form of muscular tension patterns. Trauma and Stress Release Therapy is effective in releasing these tension patterns and in supporting the body to return to a relaxed state.
EVOLUTION THROUGH EXPERIENCES OF TRAUMA
As humans, we are neurologically, biologically, and physiologically designed to experience, endure, survive, and evolve from traumatic and stressful events. We are genetically coded to release and recover from traumas and experiences that interfere with the natural evolutionary process of the human body. When we are however subjected to regular episodes of stress and trauma, it affects this function causing our sense of self to be overwhelmed and causing our logic and understanding of life to be shattered.
Trauma and Stress Release Therapy enables the individual to think in new ways, experience emotions at deeper levels, and relate to others in more compassionate ways and their lives become richer, more fulfilled and more caring.
This is what the evolution of the human species is all about…to develop compassion, becoming more caring and sensitive to the suffering of others resultant from recovering from one’s own painful life experiences.
This shift occurs because the therapy empowers the individual to explore the depths of human suffering they would otherwise not have chosen to experience. Trauma and Stress Release Therapy unlocks an understanding that leads to a deep sense of connectedness with all of life and facilitates an inner process where healthy associations and bonds with others become possible.
TRAUMA ALSO AFFECTS THE PHYSICAL BODY
All traumatic events, irrespective of whether due to physiological, cognitive, emotional, psychological or interpersonal causes, affect the body on both a psychological and physical level. Since the body is an accurate diary of all our life experiences, both the body and the mind should be included in the healing process.
MUSCLE CONTRACTIONS PROTECT THE BODY DURING TRAUMA
A traumatic event triggers muscle contractions designed to protect the body from harm or possible death. To prevent the body from developing constrictions that lead to physical and psychological distress and disease, it is essential to release the chronic tension that was brought about during the traumatic event.
THE NERVOUS SYSTEM – OUR POTENTIAL TO RESOLVE THE REACTIONS TO REPRESSED TRAUMA
The human nervous system is designed to release muscular tension and return the system to equilibrium once a traumatic or stressful event has passed. This is accomplished through shaking or tremoring that is evoked by the nervous system, much the same as we experience during acute fear or anxiety. It signals the brain to return to a normal relaxed state. It is this function that we use in Trauma and Stress Release Therapy.
OVEREMPHASIS ON THOUGHT
Societal requirements have led to an overemphasis on the mind that has robbed us of our ability to naturally reduce muscular tension invoked during stressful events. Accompanied with this is society’s obsession with a “quick fix” solution that drives us to seek medical intervention as a cure for all. We have become a pill-popping society. The body has been “programmed” to store the tension associated with trauma long after the trauma has ended. Repeated experiences of trauma also cause the mind to direct the body to “numb out” to reduce the inevitable pain that accompanies abusive and stressful experiences. Both these dissociating commands and pharmaceutical interventions override our instinctive mechanism for restoring the body’s natural state and creating effective and lasting healing
POST-TRAUMATIC REACTIONS
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is the term used to explain the continuation of disturbing thoughts, emotions, and feelings that persist even after a traumatic event has ended.
When an experience is emotionally and physiologically overwhelming, the body stores the memories, thoughts, and emotions associated with the trauma to process them at a later stage. The human body has been designed to eliminate the chemical charges left in the body after having experienced a traumatic event or in cases of continual stressful circumstances. If this is not possible directly after such events, it will continually attempt to find ways to discharge the tension. When this does not happen, both the emotional and rational parts of our brain translate the charge into intense emotions such as hatred, rage, shame, etc., or ideas of revenge, distrust, or perpetual negative thoughts, which will inevitably lead to illness.
UNHEALED TRAUMA AND REPETITIVE COMPULSIVE BEHAVIOUR
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is caused by an inability to release the negative energy associated with events of the high excitement or anxiety (biochemical energy) generated at the time of such a traumatic event. The body will continually seek to discharge the energy created during such events. To facilitate this, the brain unconsciously reproduces situations similar to the original trauma. This is the mind’s attempt to replay the traumatic scenario so that the energy can be discharged in the hopes that the victim can survive. A common example of this is when abused children enter into abusive relationships as adults.
TRAUMATIC STRESS AND VIOLENCE
Scientific studies have revealed that the most common cause of social and domestic violence is due to some form of post-traumatic stress disorder in the person that perpetrates this form of violence.
Psychological and sociological studies have also confirmed that hyper-arousal disorders are often caused by experiences that are PTSD in nature. Hyperarousal is a severe symptom of PTSD, a disorder which can dramatically change a person’s life. The fight-or-flight response is perpetually turned on, and the person constantly experiences a state of tension accompanied by a sense of suspicion and panic.
TRAUMA…PART OF THE EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS OF A LIVING SPECIES
All species experience varying degrees of trauma during their lifetime. Traumatic and life-threatening situations equip a species to adapt its lifestyles to assure survival. This process of adaptation assists the species to evolve and become stronger and wiser and handle future traumatic episodes. If the human species did not have this natural evolutionary instinct, it would have become extinct long ago. Trauma recovery is therefore as natural and common a part of existence as the traumatic event itself. Once we recognise and accept this fact of life, however unpleasant it may be, we become equipped to view trauma from an altered perspective…one that aids our evolution as a species.
Should we decide to view traumatic episodes as lessons to be learnt and employ what it teaches us in meaningful ways, we are fortified to accept traumatic events as nothing more than the universe’s way of teaching us how to evolve and become stronger. This may sound paradoxical, but the more we are open to accepting traumatic events as part of our evolution, the more we are equipped to “let go” of the effects of trauma and discover that we have the potential to take control of our lives and participate in the nature of being human. Only when we let go of that which is holding us back can we unlock ourselves from our past, and be delivered to a life that prepares us for the next stage of our evolution as human beings.
HISTORY
Until recently, most research programs on trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder were conducted in the field of psychology. Subsequently, most of the interventions developed to help relieve symptoms of trauma and PTSD primarily addressed the psychological and emotional components of the trauma that impacts the individual. Recent research on trauma has revealed data that is useful to dispel this limited view. The cross-fertilization studies in psycho-biology and neuro-physiology are revealing new levels of understanding of the effects of trauma on the body. This has led to an increased awareness of the critical interaction and mutual interdependency of automatic body responses and neurological processes. Irrespective of whether the trauma occurred in a psychological, physical, emotional, or interpersonal form, it inevitably expresses itself in the body as some form of dis-ease. The field of trauma, more than any other field of study, has established that the body-mind interaction can no longer be denied.
This shift in awareness is increasing the recognition that trauma is primarily an instinctual body reaction. The mind and personality simply readjust themselves to inhabit this vehicle. The body’s natural defensive reaction to trauma thus creates a secondary psychological adaptive behavioural response. Acknowledging that the body has a systematic set of instinctual responses that become engaged during the time of trauma allows us to study the body’s unconscious responses to trauma and stress, and the knowledge revealed by these studies has equipped us to develop programs such as Trauma and Stress Release Therapy. The therapy not only eliminates the effects of trauma and stress but also reverses the impact of the trauma and stress to create a state of well-being. When the instinctual psychological responses to stress and trauma are reversed, the secondary psychological disruptions can be eliminated and the psyche restored to a state of well-being.
THE TRAUMA RELEASING MECHANISM
Every muscle in the human body is so designed to either contract or relax in times of safety or danger.
During danger, an intricate interaction of biological, neurological, and nervous system reactions occurs. This interaction causes the muscles to contract to protect the organism from harm or possible death. Once a real or perceived danger has subsided, the body is designed to remove the excessive muscular tension required during the traumatic episode. Our evolution into an ego-centred species that views the response to trauma as a show of weakness, and therefore prefer to hide them behind the veils of prescription drugs, has led to the suppression of this instinctive mechanism.
THE PSOAS MUSCLES
The psoas is a set of muscles used during the fight or flight or freeze response. These primitive muscles stand guard like sentinels, protecting the centre of gravity of the human body and are located in front of the lower part of the spine. (S3 – see figure). The psoas muscles connect the back with the pelvis and the legs and remain contracted during states of danger to protect the individual’s underbelly. During prolonged and constant states of danger, it forms memories that are embedded within it. To heal from traumatic imprints, the psoas muscles need to release the tension created and embedded during the trauma. Trauma and Stress Release Therapy releases the imprinted memories in the psoas muscles by evoking a shaking response in them. This response causes a reverberation throughout the entire body that facilitates the release of the embedded chronic tension and naturally dissolves it.
CHRONIC TENSION
Most stress release exercises release only surface-level tension. They are therefore ineffective when dealing with the deep chronic tension created during traumatic and stressful experiences. Most physical interventions fail to relieve the tension created by the trauma leaving the individual feeling more helpless and confused than when they started therapy. Trauma and Stress Release Therapy is a simple and painless process specifically developed to release the muscle memories created by severe shock or trauma. The therapy employs the natural mechanisms of the body to dissolve embedded muscle memories.
Animal species that live in natural habitats regularly encounter trauma. They, unlike humans, still have access to their natural ability to discharge the excess energy generated during traumatic and stressful situations that allow them to return to equilibrium and move on.
The response mechanism to eliminate trauma and stress in a human is similar to that of most other animal species. The roots of the instinctive response to trauma used by humans can therefore be found in the animalistic or biological organism. Similarly, the mysterious key that activates the release mechanism of this natural recovery process can be found in the physiology of the human body as well.
Humans are genetically coded to experience, survive and resolve trauma. It is part of our instinct that guarantees our survival and evolution as a human species.
Post-traumatic reactions are caused by the residual biochemical energy generated at the time of a traumatic or stressful event that has not been discharged. When this biochemical energy is not eliminated from the body, it remains trapped in a bio-neural-physiological feedback loop that causes a compulsively repetitive behaviour that keeps the body in a state of anxiety.
The body will continue to repeat the bio-neural pattern of protection and defence until the brain receives a signal from the central nervous system that the danger has passed. The key to a successful recovery from trauma is to activate the organism’s natural release mechanism that signals the body to return to a state of rest and recuperation.
The combination of psycho-bio-neurological research modalities has helped us to understand that trauma recovery is possible when we combine body modalities with psychological interventions. Trauma and Stress Release Therapy is based on this understanding. Studies have demonstrated how the human body reacts during traumatic episodes. By studying these reactions, we have learned how to reverse this anatomical reaction and how to systematically dissolve the neural memories created as a result of traumatic defence patterning. Through systematic cross-cultural studies of traumatic reactions from trauma due to war, political and domestic violence, we have managed to identify and isolate a series of specific muscular contractions and neural memories associated with traumatic experiences. These contractions are instinctual to all humans and transcend cultural differences. Trauma and Stress Release Therapy is a product of these studies.
CONCLUSION
The human species is a living paradox. We have the biological ability to release and let go of trauma and stress but we counter this with a learned egotistical refusal to do so.
Because most trauma recovery interventions have relied on psychological paradigms and ego-centred interventions, they have mostly been ineffective and often very confusing.
Cross-studies in multiple fields of science such as neurobiology and traumatology are discovering that a new paradigm for trauma healing can be found within the recesses of the human body itself. Just as the human organism is designed to experience and endure traumatic episodes, it is also designed to recover from these experiences. The body contains all the anatomical and physiological mechanisms necessary to restore itself to optimal health after a traumatic event has passed. The fact is that trauma recovery is genetically encoded in us.
Trauma recovery is moving towards physiological interventions that capitalize on the human’s biological compulsion to resolve trauma while simultaneously circumventing the ego’s fear of the recovery process.
Trauma and Stress Release Therapy facilitates such a process.