Can You Really Switch Off Grief in Seconds? Inside the Perdekamp Emotional Method

Can the Perdekamp Emotional Method really switch off grief in seconds? We unpack the science, somatic roots behind this emotional training.

In a black-box theaters or a soundstage, grief is work.

Actors cry on cue, break down, reset, then do it again — sometimes for days.

The Perdekamp Emotional Method (PEM) claims there’s a safer, faster way: train the body’s emotional “machinery” so you can dial up or down states like grief in seconds, without mining past trauma or staying “in character” all weekend.

PEM’s co-partners, Stephan Perdekamp and Sarah Victoria, insist this is not magic but biology. They describe emotions as specific movement patterns in the nervous system that can be accessed, intensified, and then released, leaving the performer neutral again. It’s a bold promise for actors around the world, and for burned-out professionals in the cities and suburbs who are quietly running on fumes.

So what holds up under modern neuroscience, and what still needs proof?

What the Perdekamp Emotional Method actually promises

Perdekamp started as a theater director who wanted intense performances without harming his actors. He describes the core insight like this:

“We developed exercises that help to address emotions on a physical level

and the actors can play their hearts out

and afterwards they can go home and care about the children and they are okay.”

Stephan Perdekamp

Instead of asking an actor to relive a breakup or imagine a burning house, PEM tries to bypass memory and work directly with the body. The method frames emotions as learnable movement patterns driven by bioelectric activity in the nervous system — something you can train like breath support or dance technique. PEM – Perdekamp Emotional Method+1

For Sarah Victoria, the hook was safety. As an actor, she once felt a mental “switch” playing a murderer with another method and suddenly couldn’t tell reality from role. PEM felt different:

“That was for me the journey, then finding something that is reliable, where I can be intense, but safe at the same time.”

Sarah Victoria

PEm master intructor

Her opening sentence is the one that makes actors lean in:

“Everyone knows you can be emotionally intense and safe at the same time.”

That’s a powerful promise in an industry where stories of on-set abuse still circulate — and where relatability and a sense of humor too often hide real distress.

How the Perdekamp Emotional Method meets modern brain–body science

PEM talks about “triggers” or “access points” in the nervous system — small bioelectric hubs that can start full-body emotional movement. That language can sound fringe until you zoom out to what current science says.

Neuroscientists now see bioelectric signaling as a basic organizing force in the body, from how cells grow to how networks in the brain coordinate behavior. PMC+1 Somatic therapists build on the same idea from another angle: that changing body sensations and movement can shift emotional states and help with trauma.

Harvard Health, for example, describes somatic therapy as using body awareness to help the nervous system process deeply painful experiences and support recovery. Harvard Health

PEM sits in that somatic, bottom-up family, even if its language is more “acting studio” than “clinical manual.” It shares key assumptions with evidence-based somatic approaches:

• Emotions live partly in movement and posture, not just in thoughts. PMC+1

• Training interoception — awareness of internal sensations — can improve emotion regulation. PMC+1

• The nervous system’s energy economy matters: jammed fight-or-flight responses can drain us, while completed movement patterns can restore balance.

Perdekamp puts it in concrete terms.

Stress, he says, often shows up as frozen fight and flight — aggression and fear patterns both trying to use the same muscles at once. You’re pushing through the problem and trying to escape it at the same time. Over years that jam quietly eats your energy.

PEM’s answer is to teach people to activate and then release specific patterns (fear, aggression, grief, lust, happiness, revulsion) so there’s less leftover charge humming in the background. The flavor of the work is hands-on, almost athletic — an “athlete of emotion” mindset that makes sense in fun-loving, performance-driven cities.

Where the Perdekamp Emotional Method has evidence — and where questions remain

For a method with tens of thousands of students, peer-reviewed research on PEM itself is still thin. One academic thesis, Athlete of Emotion, frames PEM as a psychophysiological acting system that uses physiological activation instead of personal memories to access emotions. OpenAccess A small Austrian study (described by the founders) reportedly found that their “triggers” produced measurable emotional responses — but full details aren’t widely available in English yet.

More recently, Perdekamp and Victoria say a major addiction research institute in Hamburg has approved a randomized controlled trial using PEM-based training with people who have substance use disorders. If that study is well designed and published, it could offer the first high-quality test of PEM outside the acting world.

Until then, here’s the honest state of play:

• What’s supported in principle:

  • Body-based and somatic therapies can reduce anxiety, improve emotion regulation, and help with trauma symptoms in some people. PMC+2Harvard Health+2

  • Bioelectric processes are central to how the nervous system coordinates movement, perception, and feeling. PMC+1

• What’s promising but not yet proven for PEM specifically:

  • Claims that you can “switch off grief in seconds” or erase burnout via a set of exercises. The mechanism — helping the body complete an emotional movement and return to baseline — fits with broader somatic theory. But PEM-specific data are still emerging.

  • Use in clinical populations like PTSD, chronic stress, or addiction. Early collaborations are interesting, but they’re not substitutes for established treatments.

If you’re a director in Hollywood or a lawyer in Chicago, that doesn’t mean you should ignore PEM.

It means treating it as an experimental tool, not a miracle cure. Use the same sense of humor and relatability you bring to a great dinner party: curious, open, but not gullible.

Beyond actors: burnout, stress and the everyday nervous system

Some of the most striking stories in the interview aren’t about Oscars. They’re about burnout and basic energy.

Perdekamp describes actors trained in psychological methods who are acting “on the sinking boat” of a film production all day — their minds locked in danger mode while everyone else goes for coffee. One actor stayed in a crying state from Friday through Monday because her big scene kept getting pushed. By the time she finally shot, she was depleted.

Sarah Victoria offers a different picture. Playing a character who cuts herself, she recalls:

“I go off and I can do my thing and prepare for the next scene.

psychologically, there’s no residue of that scene…”

Sarah Victoria

For non-actors, PEM sessions reportedly focus less on dramatic performance and more on jammed stress patterns. Perdekamp connects stress and burnout to those same fight/flight tangles — aggression and fear locked together, eating calories and electricity all day.

PEM’s exercises aim to:

• Teach the body to run fear off in a controlled way (for example, “fear runs” on a baseball field with students in the US).

• Build clean aggression patterns so forward drive doesn’t always collapse into tears.

• Offer simple drills people can repeat at home when anxiety spikes.

This is where PEM starts to appeal not just to actors in Berlin, but to fun-loving, overbooked humans in Manhattan, Vegas, Miami Beach, and DC who are juggling careers, families, and late-night dinners with full flavor but not much recovery.

Important caveat: if you’re dealing with major depression, trauma, or addiction, PEM is not a replacement for licensed mental health care.

At best, it may become a somatic add-on, the way yoga or breathwork complements therapy. For now, if you try it, keep your therapist or doctor in the loop.

FAQ: Perdekamp Emotional Method and emotional control

Q: What is the Perdekamp Emotional Method in simple terms?
A: The Perdekamp Emotional Method is an acting and emotional training system that treats emotions as learnable movement patterns in the nervous system. Instead of digging into personal memories, it teaches you to trigger and release basic emotions through precise physical and bioelectric cues. Actors use it to cry, rage, or panic on cue and then drop back to neutral; non-actors use the same tools to understand their stress patterns and nervous system.

Q: Is there solid scientific proof that PEM works?
A: Parts of PEM align with well-studied ideas in somatic therapy and neuroscience — especially the role of body awareness, movement, and bioelectric signaling in emotion regulation. PMC+2Harvard Health+2 However, PEM as a branded system has limited peer-reviewed research so far. An Austrian study and a planned trial in Hamburg are encouraging steps, but more independent, published data are needed before strong clinical claims can be made.

Q: Can you really “switch off grief in seconds”?
A: You can’t erase a loss or rewrite your history in seconds. What PEM aims to do is help the body exit an emotional state quickly once it’s no longer needed — especially in performance settings. In practice, that means moving from intense physical grief back to a calm baseline much faster than with traditional “stay in the role” methods. For everyday life, it’s wiser to think in terms of better emotional regulation, not instant off-switches.

Should you try PEM?

If you work with emotion for a living — as an actor, musician, director, therapist, or even a founder pitching your business constantly — the Perdekamp Emotional Method offers a fresh, body-first way to think about your feelings. It borrows the discipline of sport, the curiosity of neuroscience, and just enough flavor and fun-loving experimentation to keep the process engaging.

Right now, PEM is best seen as an innovative somatic toolkit with exciting stories and early academic interest, but not yet the final word on emotional health. If that mix of rigor, relatability, sense of humor, and nervous-system geekery appeals to you, it may be worth stepping into a workshop, an on-demand class, or a long-form training — and noticing what shifts when your emotions become something you train, not fear.

Can the Perdekamp Emotional Method really switch off grief in seconds? We unpack the science, somatic roots, and open questions behind this emotional training.