The 5 Best Emotional Release Therapies For Permanently Releasing Trauma

“The terror and isolation at the core of trauma literally reshape both brain and body.”

Nobody has so succinctly described the physical and psychological repercussions of experiencing and holding on to trauma as psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., author of the New York Times best-selling book, The Body Keeps the Score. Van der Kolk’s book describes how trauma is like a “hyperactive alarm system” that molds a body to get stuck in fight, flight or freeze mode. The book also explains how trauma makes changes in the brain that affect emotional control and “promotes the continuous secretion of stress hormones, which wreaks havoc with the immune system and the functioning of the body’s organs.”

For survivors of trauma who want to relieve stress rather than mask it, the good news is that there are several different non-invasive trauma-focused therapies that may help facilitate both physical and emotional healing. 

Innovative Medicine offers several of the best therapies for trauma. This article will highlight 5 modalities that may help ease and overcome any type of past emotional turmoil, including intense childhood trauma. Moreover, research shows that if trauma runs in your family (generational trauma), these therapies may positively influence your epigenetics, protecting you like an energetic forcefield, and arresting the traumatic trends that have been programmed in your DNA. 

Ho’oponopono

The first emotional release therapy we’ll highlight comes from Hawaii. Hoʻoponopono would have worked wonders for Seinfeld character, George Costanza, during the “Airing of Grievances” in the legendary “Festivus” episode. Hoʻoponopono teaches you to reconcile with family members and forgive them, and to take it a step further, the ancient traditional practice helps restore relationships. 

Easier said than done. However, after continuously repeating I am sorry, Please forgive me, Thank you, and I love you, even if deep down you’re still holding on to a negative thought, emotion, or experience, after a while, you begin to experience a cleansing of your memory. 

It’s as if your emotional hard drive has been wiped clean. On a physical level, this clearing of negative feelings and emotions halts negative cycles that block the healing process.

Traditionally, a tribal elder facilitates Ho’oponopono. In a clinical setting like Innovative Medicine, a kahuna is not needed to heal from complicated and traumatic familial relationships.

• Learn more about Hoʻoponopono

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

Dozens of research studies confirm the efficacy of emotional-release psychotherapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy. EMDR works more quickly than conventional talk therapy and is especially beneficial for those living with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). 

Under the supervision of a clinical therapist, a patient is instructed to recall a traumatic memory while the therapist simultaneously instructs the patient to move their eyes in a certain way. The therapist also employs tapping or certain sounds. The purpose of this “distraction” is to rewire the brain so that it processes the memory in a less emotionally intense and negative manner. 

In addition, EMDR therapists instruct patients in trauma-coping skills. Much as the body often completely recovers from physical trauma, EMDR therapy shows that the mind may also achieve homeostasis despite experiencing psychological trauma.

• Learn more about Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)  

One of the more well-known trauma-releasing therapies, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), is also known as “tapping.” The term tapping refers to the act of a practitioner tapping on acupressure points, which, like acupuncture, is believed to revitalize energy and release negative emotions. 

EFT is a relatively simple emotional therapy technique to learn, and may be done without the supervision of a therapist; you can perform EFT on yourself.

In a tapping session, the patient mentally pictures a trauma but while doing so voices positive affirmations.

This combination offers the physical benefits of an acupuncture session—without the needles—along with the cognitive benefits of conventional therapy.  

• Learn more about Emotional Freedom Technique

Bioresonance Analysis of Health (B.A.H.)

Created by the founder of the New York Center for Innovative Medicine, Thomas K. Szulc, MD, Bioresonance Analysis of Health (B.A.H.) combines quantum physics and the latest cutting-edge diagnostic tools.

This unparalleled trauma-releasing modality identifies physical, biochemical, psycho-emotional, and spiritual imbalances. Having been used clinically at the New York Center for Innovative Medicine for over a decade, B.A.H. has helped patients with enigmatic chronic conditions achieve homeostasis. 

You can think of B.A.H. therapy as hiring a holistic health detective who will tirelessly gumshoe until all root causes are discovered and all bodily systems restored to their full healing ability. 

• Learn more about Bioresonance Analysis of Health

ACMOS Method Energy Balancing Therapy

If you’re a proponent of all forms of complementary and alternative medicine, including acupuncture, homeopathy, reflexology, and essential oils, the ACMOS Method might be right up your alley for releasing stored trauma. 

Using these holistic modalities and others, ACMOS Energy Balancing Therapy helps balance the body’s energetic fields. Combining the ancient wisdom of Traditional Chinese Medicine with modern molecular biology, biophysics and bioenergetics, ACMOS operates on the principle that each of the 37 trillion (give or take a trillion) cells in the human body should vibrate within a precise frequency for optimal health. Trauma lowers cellular frequency, thus ACMOS therapy helps raise cellular frequencies to a range that restores vital energy. 

A trained ACMOS therapy practitioner employs several scientific tools to facilitate the restoration of optimal cellular frequency, including: an ACMOS Lecher Antenna to detect the body’s energy fields; an ACMOS Valise, which contains dozens of holistic health therapeutics such as essential oils, herbs, homeopathic remedies, and trace elements; an Acmodermil Energy Stimulator, which uses high-tech circuitry to stimulate energy along entire meridian lines; a QuantAcmos Light Stimulator, which emits laser light to activate acupuncture points; and the “Acmos7″ Biofeedback Energy Testing Unit, which provides the most accurate bioenergetic readings.

Although ACMOS therapy sounds complicated, this trauma therapy protocol often takes no more than 15 minutes to perform.

• Learn more about ACMOS Method Energy Balancing Therapy

Many Names, Many Therapies For Releasing Trauma

Modalities that may help you release the “terror and isolation” of emotional trauma go by many names. “Trauma Informed Therapy,” “Trauma Focused Therapy,” and “Trauma- and violence-informed care” to name a few appellations. Whatever term resonates with you, the important thing to remember is that there is no one size fits all modality for releasing trauma. 

The good news is that the number of trauma-releasing therapies has greatly expanded over the years. Your best course of action is to try several of them to see which one(s) resonate with you.