TRE (Trauma Release Exercises): What the Term Means

TRE stands for Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises, a body-based technique developed by David Berceli, PhD, in the early 2000s. A short series of exercises tires the legs and hips until the body trembles involuntarily, a response Berceli calls a “neurogenic tremor,” believed to discharge chronic muscular tension held after stress or trauma.

Who created TRE, and why?

David Berceli holds a PhD and spent more than two decades leading trauma-relief work in conflict zones across the Middle East and Africa, according to his official biography. Watching how people’s bodies reacted to prolonged danger shaped the exercises he later built to deliberately trigger that same tremor response. He laid the method out fully in his 2005 book, Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE).

How does TRE work?

A session moves through a series of exercises, often described as seven, that fatigue the legs and hips, including the psoas, a deep muscle running from the lower spine to the pelvis. As those muscles tire, an involuntary tremor typically starts in the legs and can spread further. Berceli’s theory holds that intense stress braces the psoas, diaphragm, and pelvic floor for protection, and that shaking discharges that bracing once a threat passes, a reflex he argues most people learn to override. That’s a different mechanism from bilateral stimulation, EMDR’s core technique, which pairs alternating left-right stimulation with a specific memory rather than a full-body tremor.

Is TRE backed by research?

Evidence is early and mostly small-scale. A 2019 case report in the Journal of Military and Veterans’ Health described one veteran’s self-reported experience using TRE for PTSD-related self-care, a single-patient account rather than a controlled study. A 2024 study protocol in BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies has registered a randomized controlled trial of a related neurogenic-tremor intervention in mother-and-adolescent pairs, describing the planned trial rather than results. No completed large trial has established how well TRE works yet, a much thinner base than EMDR’s.

Is it safe to try TRE on your own?

Because TRE deliberately triggers an involuntary tremor that can feel intense before it eases, treat it with the same caution as any technique built around a big physical release. Build a grounding practice first, keep early sessions short, and go slow instead of chasing a big release right away. If the shaking brings up distress above a 7 out of 10 that isn’t settling within a few minutes, stop, ground yourself, and consider working with a trained provider instead of continuing alone. EMDR asks for the same care around its own version of an intense release, called an abreaction: pacing the work to stay inside your window of tolerance rather than pushing past it.

How is TRE different from EMDR and Somatic Experiencing?

TRE sits closer to Somatic Experiencing than to EMDR: both use an involuntary bodily release, not talking or memory work, as the way stored stress resolves. TRE gets there with a fixed sequence of exercises that mechanically fatigue muscles into tremoring; Somatic Experiencing gets there by guiding attention to sensation, with no set exercises. Our EMDR vs. Somatic Experiencing comparison covers how both differ from EMDR’s structured, memory-specific protocol.

EmEase, a self-guided EMDR app, offers guided visual and audio bilateral stimulation at app.emease.com if you’d rather work with EMDR’s better-evidenced mechanism instead of, or alongside, body-based approaches like TRE.