Researchers have shown that survivors of accidents, disaster, and childhood trauma often endure lifelong symptoms ranging from anxiety and depression to unexplained physical pain, fatigue, illness, and harmful “acting out” behaviors. Today, professionals and clients in both the bodywork and the psychotherapeutic fields nationwide are turning to Peter A. Levine’s breakthrough Somatic Experiencing® methods to actively overcome these challenges.
In Healing Trauma, Dr. Levine gives you the personal how-to guide for using the theory he first introduced in his highly acclaimed work Waking the Tiger. Join him to discover: how to develop body awareness to “renegotiate” and heal traumas by “revisiting” them rather than reliving them; emergency “first-aid” measures for times of distress; and nature’s lessons for uncovering the physiological roots of your emotions.
“Trauma is a fact of life,” teaches Peter Levine, “but it doesn’t have to be a life sentence.” Now, with one fully integrated self-healing tool, he shares his essential methods to address unexplained symptoms of trauma at their source―the body―to return us to the natural state in which we are meant to live.
If you want to go slower and deeper than Peter and check out Irene Lyon and her Smart Body, Smart Mind online course, she is trained by Peter and other big names and she has a beautiful online course that is well worth the money because she gives you all the medical info and information and leaves out the spiritual and she really knows her stuff. Check out her YouTube and blog. I currently am in the program and its doing wonders.
Re-reading the book so make you see things in different light each time. Each sentence is full of wisdom and there is a lot to gain here.
Listening to his calming voice on the audio almost makes me feel he’s in the room. I do these practices everyday as and when I can. The audio link is mentioned at the bottom of the table of contents- other reviewers said they couldn’t find it.
iIn addition, I’m seeing a somatic experiencing healer that has speeded up the process.
As the author recommends, read the front portion of the book BEFORE you do the exercises, and seek therapy if the exercises bring up strong emotional/physical reactions.
FYI - If you look at the page opposite the the book's "Contents" page, you will see a box that says, "Medical Alert" (bottom of page). In that box it gives you a website where you can find a trauma competent therapist who understands the exercises in this book. The book inaccurately lists the website as being a dot com website. The correct website is a dot org website.
I plan to go through all 12 exercises slowly as the author recommends (Currently on exercise 3). As I start each trauma exercise I plan to continue to practice the prior exercises while incorporating one new exercise at a time. The author seems to hint to that being helpful anyway. I am also listening to the book, "The Body Keeps Score" for a second time.
I am hopeful the exercises in this book are what I have needed all along as I did not realize how disconnected my mind and body were until I started doing the exercises. I have always left my talk therapy sessions feeling like, "Well that's money I can't get back." And, "I still feel empty, sad, and anxious. Why won't they help me?" I always thought maybe I picked the wrong therapist, but no matter what therapist I went to, I left feeling the same way.
Hope and healing for all of us...
So important if a subject
This has helped me heal lots of trauma!
What I like most about this book is how easy it is to read. The author has a way of writing that gets to the point and makes complicated issues quickly understandable. This book is a healing gift to yourself. I got the book with the CD version and I would agree with other reviews that the kindle version without the CD would not be the same. Plus the price for this kind of help is unbeatable!
I think it could be very helpful to anyone who is working to recover from trauma.
My biggest problem is moving from my head into my body, however, I am slowly climbing mountains- and Dr. Levine's work is unique, unlike any other approach I've experienced. It's not easy and it's not supposed to be easy. Somatic Experiencing focuses directly on the work that needs to be done. To care about your body enough to go through mundane, extremely simple exercises and be dedicated.
In 3 years I had been to 13 different doctors in fields of psychology and neurology. I had only a few good experiences, and only in finding Somatic Experiencing have I discovered something radically different. It reminds me of what I learned in overcoming a visceral, biological anti-needle reaction. Your brain doesn't change until your body does.
It's not perfect, it's not easy, you may have the greatest doubts and least faith in the midst of these exercises. It might feel boring and uneventful, as if you are doing nothing and it doesn't feel traumatic or even real. But that is just part of how it is, when we are numb, stuck off, unaware, or stuck on, blind. There is no "wrong" way to do these exercises. At first I could feel that I was bad at them somehow, and I had to just keep doing it poorly to get through those bad parts and get better. Doing it poorly was freeing enough that it allowed me to get better. The difficulty of these exercises helped me realize that I don't have to have high standards or be so great at achieving this healing, I can take it much slower. For much of my life, I have been able to lean on my over-active mind as a crutch, a spontaneous creator. But to really learn, I have to struggle. It has to be uncomfortable.
I would recommend these exercises to anyone struggling to get out of repetitious habits, addictions, or struggling to gain autonomy & willpower.
to work through. It helped having a voice to listen to as I did the exercises.
How surprised I was when I discovered the small, instructive manual, with CD teaching of its exercises, "Healing Trauma: A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body"! This small book with its very concise distillations of Levine's understanding of how trauma affects the body, together with specific healing exercises, is invaluable for patients and their therapists working together. Another Levine triumph: helpful, informative, with the same caring concern for the healing journey.
understand what happens in the body in the process of trauma, and each time I read another book on this topic,
it makes it easier to cope, to heal, to understand....this is one of the best ones, plus having the CD with it,
with exercises to do, just adds to its effectiveness. Thank you Dr. Peter Levine, for your excellent book that will
aid in recovery of thousands (millions?) of people!