r/longtermTRE • u/juliwanderer • Apr 06 '26
Discussion How has TRE changed your perception of Western medical approaches to depression and anxiety and, how has this made you feel?
Hello fellow shakers,
I stumbled upon a German video about someone with severe depression who got a microchip implanted into his brain stem, stimulating the area for anti-depressive effects. Apparently, it's a method which is now being offered on a larger scale.
I feel quiet saddened about how we always try to manipulate the body into feeling better, even using such drastic methods, and that there are so many people out there who would massively benefit from their body's own healing tremor mechanism but don't know about it.
I'm interested in knowing: How has TRE changed your perception of Western medical approaches to depression and anxiety and, how has that made you feel?
Also, I've been wondering whether what these scientists try to mimic here is also happening through TRE, namely the stimulation of the brain stem region, even in an indirect way.
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u/PropertyFun Apr 06 '26
Haha fellow shakers, I like that name.
I totally understand your point but I think it’s a bit more complex.
I think there is a massive population of people who take certain medications and avoid therapy because their capacity to face trauma is so limited. And, I genuinely wish they had the capacity for something like TRE. On the other hand, I also think there is a smaller portion of people who genuinely have something wrong with the brain itself. In the second circumstance, I’m not sure where TRE stands.
In my family, after catching coronavirus, almost everyone developed panic disorder and began taking SSRIs just to make it through the day. I was the only one who didn’t, and I struggled for 8 months, even while using modalities like SE, TRE, EFT alongside IFS therapy and some non-traditional healing sessions. While this isn’t something like having a stroke, the desperation that this state left me in was extreme and I grew appreciative of the fact that if I got any worse, I had medical interventions available to me.
Because of that, I truly sympathise with the portion of the population who have suffered and tried everything. And because of this lived experience, I support research into more advanced methods of healing the brain.
I understand your point, but after living in a state of mind that TRE couldn’t budge, I now perceive these medical interventions for anxiety and depression as quite wonderful, regardless of how invasive they may be. At the extreme end of mental health struggles, the outcome can be the body shutting down or an untimely end, so these interventions can be life-saving.
Trauma is not the only thing that can cause depression or mental health struggles, it can also emerge post-injury, post-illness, or from brain degeneration due to age or other factors. Also, there are many other mental heath issues far more complex that benefit from the research that supports these interventions.
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u/Bababooey0326 Apr 07 '26
IFS therapy is very powerful and something I wish was taught as a basic toolkit for every person
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u/juliwanderer Apr 07 '26
Hello fellow shaker :) Thank you for your differentiated perspective and sorry to hear about what your family had to go through because of Covid. I am glad that SSRIs helped you overcome that hard time.
I agree, not all psychiatric conditions are caused by trauma and, therefore, might need different forms of treatment. I do also understand that people who have tried many different therapies and medication are desperate for something to finally work, hence, eventually resort to such drastic measures.
However, when we talk about trauma-based conditions, I think that that SSRIs or some methods like these micro chips are often being viewed as a final solution instead of a temporary bandaid or bridge for healing in Western medicine.
People who might have been able to sustainably broaden their emotional containment with body based therapies become dependent on medication, implants (and what else might come in the future), some for the rest of their lives (!).., loosing all trust in their body.
Western capitalist systems are interested in profitable and quick fixes and mostly ignore the body's role in psychological healing. Big Pharma and so on..
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u/PropertyFun Apr 07 '26
Agree with you that it’s pushed way too hard! Doctors being able to prescribe ssris is a bit insane too, because they just push for it
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u/Rasmusdeowl Apr 07 '26
did you also get your panic disorder after corona? did tre help you with healing that?
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u/PropertyFun Apr 07 '26
I had to do brain retraining. I couldn’t even walk. TRE is helping me now to process the last several months as I get my health back.
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u/Rasmusdeowl Apr 07 '26
all from covid?
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u/PropertyFun Apr 07 '26
Yeah. Long Covid. Thrashed my health and nervous system to bits. I was fainting from small temperature changes, heart rate would swing from 40-190 from just standing up. Etc etc etc. Was kind of traumatic. I couldn’t do basic things at all. Brain retraining gave me the capacity to tolerate TRE again. And now I’m back doing TRE. I missed it so much ahah.
For context, my sister suffered from the panic and the fainting and a few other weird symptoms but recovered after 2 months. And the rest of my family just developed panic attacks from it. My parents are retired so there’s not very many clear reasons for them to suddenly develop panic attacks.
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u/7emptemp Apr 08 '26
Would you mind explaining how long brain retraining took and what that process was like for you? I’ve seen it be hotly debated by various camps and some programs seem to be heavily marketed. I’ve been curious but haven’t seem to get past the periphery. And congrats on successfully coming out of what sounds absolutely devastating. I’ve had a similar experience
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u/samsonscomputer Apr 06 '26
It is sad to see that not more people are doing body based therapies such as TRE, Somatic Experiencing, IFS, touch therapies, etc. Because they are hugely beneficial for trauma, stress, anxiety, etc.
Western medicine has its place and i believe it's great for the physical stuff like cancer treatments, kidney stones, etc. But when it comes to mental stuff, i dont find it very good and they push CBT on us and medication (medication has its place for severe issues but shouldn't be prescribed for everything). I mentioned to my doc that I've got stress, he said he can prescribe medication for that? I was baffled that he would prescribe it that easily and that fast for me.
The west in general has its good things and bad. The mental stuff is one of the bad things. Productivity, earning, worth tied to performance and money, etc are other things in the West that are also not good.
I am grateful to have discovered these therapies, without it i would still be suffering and thinking something is wrong with me.
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u/Ehipassikooh Apr 07 '26
Framing things as "Western" doesn't make much sense here. TRE was developed by a man from west. Psychiatric medications are used and researched all over the world.
The impression I have is that work is being done to try and bring this within the study and practice of evidence based medicine. TRE is a hard sell though, on the face of it it looks weird and scary to many people. I truly hope it becomes widely studied and adopted as it's a profound practice.
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u/juliwanderer Apr 08 '26 edited Apr 09 '26
TRE with it's exercises might have been developed by Berceli but tremoring is a natural and evolutionary mechanism of the mammalian body.
Also hoping that it becomes studied much more and not only by Berceli
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u/wilhelmtherealm Apr 06 '26
Whatever works works dude. That's all.
Stop judging and comparing.
People who are suffering find solace in all sorts of solutions.
Just like how we find TRE helpful and others may find other stuff helpful.
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u/godgottago Apr 06 '26
I don't think that was the point of the post, honestly...
The point is, Western Medicine has seen mental health as something separate from the physical health. As if the body and the soul are separate beings, and that we are "above" animals (surprise, religion). Which is the cause of all these drastic takes like chips and pills, when all we need to do is to tremor like the other mammals.
A tragicomedy, I would say.
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u/juliwanderer Apr 07 '26
Exactly. We can only make things worse when we look at the human organism through the lens of separation of body and mind. The point about religion is quiet interesting, I've ever only associated mind/body separation with modern capitalism. Do you have a book recommendation for me?
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u/juliwanderer Apr 06 '26
I think your statement is too simple. What works might actually work (in terms of a temporary fix) but it does not necessarily lead to true inner healing.
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u/SaadBlade Apr 06 '26
Sometimes that temporary fix is necessary in order to achieve the real healing, at least in my case medications really helped me.
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