Written Testimonials
Jim Williams
I can’t believe how much Sunday’s workshop both wore me out and relaxed me. It has helped me through a life changing event. On the way home I found myself at times laughing uncontrollably. It was awesome. When I got home I found myself whistling and humming. All the guilt, anger, and frustration seem to be gone. I don’t have to carry that pain any longer. In addition to feeling better mentally and physically, I have also noticed a change with the tremors. Prior to my release with David, the tremors came in more of a jerking motion and I was not able to experience them up through my torso.
Since the workshop the tremors have become more like rolling waves. They seem to penetrate deeper into my body. Last night I actually noticed them rising up to my neck. And instead of crying as I did at the workshop, I found myself laughing and not just chuckling, but deep belly laughing. It was kind of funny because when Taylor heard me he came in my room and asked if I was alright. My response was, I have never been better.
For many years I went to counseling, took medications and tried to deal with the trauma in my life. I was misdiagnosed many times. Words like anxiety disorder, panic attacks, depression, and even Bi-polar were used to describe me. I knew they were wrong, but it seemed no one would listen. The doctors kept text book diagnosing me without realizing the depression, anxiety, and panic attacks were all symptoms of a deeper problem……Trauma.
Jim Williams
Robert Scaer MD, Author of the Body Bears the Burden: Trauma Dissociation and Disease
Helplessness is a universal state for people overwhelmed by traumatic stress. Gaining control of their symptoms, their body, and their life is an essential part of the healing process. TRE is a powerful tool to achieve this. I have personally used TRE and have taught them to friends and patients with remarkable results.
Robert Scaer MD, Author of the Body Bears the Burden: Trauma Dissociation and Disease
Melanie Salmon, MD Psychiatrist UK RSA
Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises, TRE, is a route to healing that I have not experienced from any other modality. I have been a physician, a psychiatrist, and a Gestalt Specialist for 35 years. I am now teaching TRE to all my clients as a healing modality.
Melanie Salmon, MD Psychiatrist UK RSA
Stacey Prillaman
While I was present and emotionally aware during my TRE session, my true ‘aha’ moment did not fully land until about three-quarters of the way into the session. My general emotional response to the exercises had been one of laughter and an increasing sense of lightness in my body. But then something magical happened. I realized that I’ve been living my life with a critical disconnect between my emotional mind and my physical body. It was as if a sort of ceremony was being both created and experienced simultaneously by these two disparate aspects of me. I described this experience to David as ‘it’s so sweet’, but it’s actually more profound.
I was experiencing recognition of an aliveness that is innate within my physical body and allowing it, with gratitude and compassion, an opportunity to fully express itself without any mental censoring. I experienced my physical body’s natural intelligence. My awareness is that if I take my mental mind out of the picture, my body has the ability to tremor me into a more natural state of homeostasis. What is more difficult to put into words is what this reconnection means. It sounds nonsensical, but it’s a bit like finally getting the realization that there is an older wiser part of me that I have somehow unconsciously been marginalizing.’
Stacey Prillaman
Allison
Hullo – its Allison Slater writing to you. I did your Level 2 workshop in Durban earlier this year. You will remember me when I tell you that I am the person who felt I needed to place my hands on my temples when I was tremoring, and when I did this, my hands just started to massage the sides of my head on their own accord! Well I would love to just give you an update, as TRE is helping me so much.
I usually tremor for 20 or 30 minutes at a time, and for the first half of the session I just let my body do its own thing – and here the tremoring remains in the legs and abdomen – then I put my hands on my temples and the tremoring becomes much stronger. After a while my hands start to massage my temples and the sides of my head. At this point the tremoring stops in my legs and moves up into my chest and shoulders.
A couple of weeks ago I went for a second ES Teck scan which showed that the blockages in my carotid arteries have cleared and my blood pressure is now normal. The scan showed that there is still a shortage of oxygen in parts of the brain, but I feel sure that once there is enough life force in these areas, the problem will correct itself and this will happen in time.
But what I am even more excited about, and what I really want to share with you, is how much TRE has helped me to grow spiritually. I am a spiritual healer and reflexologist and I have been able to feel my own inner love and peace, but it has only been since doing TRE that I have been able to access my inner joy as well. This has meant so much to me. To me, these feelings are our soul qualities – they are there within all of us, they are the real us – but we only become aware of them as we shed the layers of negativity, stress and tension. Now I feel that I can move on and nurture these precious qualities and help them to blossom. As I begin to feel these qualities more and more, so I am feeling more clearly the Oneness of all life, my Oneness with God, and this is such a wonderful feeling.
For this I cannot thank you enough.
I have found that when I have my hands on my temples and the tremoring stops in my legs, I feel it very strongly in my psoas muscles. I have heard it said in my yoga classes that as you activate the psoas or hara so you feed the fire that opens the heart to love. So it would seem to me, David, that you are giving us all a way to learn to love again – a way that is incredibly simple, beautiful and will be acceptable to the majority of people because it is seen as a purely physical exercise. And the timing is perfect as this is so much a time when we need to learn to love again.
God Bless and with love
Allison
Sedja
I was born in Bosnia in 1972 and have been living in Denmark for the last 17 years.
When the war started in my country I was 19 years old, and I lived through two years of the horrors of the war before coming to Denmark in 1994 as a refugee.
War is not a pretty thing, and it is difficult to explain the effect it has on those who live it day to day. My home was in Sarajevo, so we were in the middle of the fighting. Most days there was no electricity or clean water, and hunger was constant, and at one point I was wounded by a grenade blast.
I saw people wounded and bleeding. I saw the pain in the eyes of the people and heard the same stories over and over. Everyone was suffering. In my family some were injured and some died. Those who survived the war were left disabled – both physically and emotionally. Besides my family, I lost many dear neighbors, friend, classmates and acquaintances.
Upon my arrival in Denmark, I began to feel pains in various parts of my body. I went to doctors and hospitals to try to find the source, but they told me there was nothing. As the years went by my symptoms got steadily worse – both mentally and physically. I could no longer bare the pain and wanted to die.
I had daily headaches and pain in my pelvis. My legs were heavy and painful, as were my hands, and when I slept I lost all feeling in them. I had nightmares every night, and each day was constant suffering.
My life before the war was not easy, and I had a lot of trauma from childhood. I was the victim of 3 different accidents; and experienced damage to my knees, my face and tongue (which is sewn), and in the last accident a severe concussion and whiplash which then started problems with migraines.
I went to see a psychiatrist and did psychotherapy. I took multiple pills daily for PTSD, depression, sleep and pain. My children and my faith in God sustained me, nothing else.
Last year, in 2010, I was a participant in a workshop in Denmark with Dr. David Berceli, along with my psychiatrist, who was treating me at the time. For four days I attended the workshop at the Jarmsted Psykoterapeutisk Center, and with the assistance of Dr. David Berceli, Ole Ry and Susanne Andres, did TRE 2 or 3 times each day.
After those 4 days I was healed of the trauma and the pain in my body. My daily headaches disappeared along with the pain in my back, pelvis and arms. My energy and enthusiasm for life has returned – BIG! The nightmares stopped and I slept from 8 – 10 hours without waking.
My children noticed the change immediately. I was calmer, my voice more gentle and little things no longer irritated me. My children told me, “Mama, your eyes sparkle and you are so beautiful without make-up!” My life has totally changed. My talks with the psychiatrist have stopped and I no longer take medication.
I continued to do TRE twice a day for the two months following the workshop, and then in the third month went down to about 2 or 3 times per week.
Five months after the TRE workshop I started to work at the psychiatric clinic, not as a social worker – which I am by profession, but as a TRE instructor. This gives me the chance to help people with similar problems and show them that I am living proof of the benefits of TRE. It has been exactly one year since I got my life back, fully healthy, satisfied and happy! I like TRE and I love my body.
I thank God for showing me the way to Svend Thordsen, my psychiatrist, and to Svend for taking me to the workshop. Thanks to Dr. David Berceli for TRE and thank you to Ole and Susanne for all your time and effort.
TRE – thank you for giving me my life back!
Sedja
Carol Swanson, PhD
To have access to releasing trauma without having my clients having to relieve or re-experience trauma events is very exciting. TRE is the most rewarding work that I have become involved in working with clients.
Carol Swanson, PhD