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Hi Richard:

Richard asks: "What were the earliest trauma or PTSD techniques?"

Richard folks likely back in prehistoric times naturally
thought about, talked about, or reenacted their traumatic experiences from start to finish and in the process desensitized these experiences. This is a natural
human coping skill that some persons, not emotionally avoidant, use today without formal training.

There's some accounts of American Indian shamen leading the traumatized to repetitively reenact traumatic experiences and tell their stories in sand pictures. Likely too ancient folks in Europe and Asia did breathwork, toning, and emotional meditations on traumatic areas.

In more modern times we know that Josef Breuer, in the early 1900's, led trauma victims through hypnotically induced memory reviews of traumatic events from start to finish. In these repetitive reviews he would go back to earlier traumas related to the trauma being treated.
This hypnotic exposure method desensitized the traumas. His protege Sigmund Freud adopted the same method without a hypnotic induction and called it the "Cathartic Method". He later dropped this excellent method for his "Free Association Method" which was more suited to analytic style therapy.


Take care, Steve