What Resets Our Nervous System After Trauma
What Resets Our Nervous System After Trauma Peter Levine, PhD Dr. Levine: When I first started developing my approach to trauma, I noticed how many different kinds of seemingly ordinary events could cause people to develop symptoms that would be later defined as trauma, as PTSD. I also was really curious why animals in the wild […]
Trauma – The Vortex of Violence
Trauma – the Vortex of Violence By Dr. Peter A. Levine Teddy ”Daddy, daddy, let it go, let it go….Please don’t kill it….let it go.” These are the terrified screams uttered by ten-year-old Teddy as he bolts from the room like a frightened jackrabbit. Puzzled, his father holds an immobile tree shrew in the palm […]
Thailand Tsumani Surveys – Summary of Results
Thailand Tsumani Surveys – Summary of Results Foundation for Human Enrichment Analysis prepared July 2006 The following report summarizes the results from surveys administered to 66 Tsunami survivors. Of these 66, a total of 53 persons participated in one or more SE sessions facilitated by Foundation for Human Enrichment Staff. Another 13 surveys were completed […]
Somatic Therapy Treatment Effects with Tsunami Survivors
Published in Traumatology, Vol. 14, No. 3, September 2008. The journal version of the article can be ordered in electronic or hard copy format from http://articleworks.cadmus.com/buy?c=1143143&p=1168488&fromsearch=true. Somatic Therapy Treatment Effects with Tsunami Survivors Catherine Parker, Ronald M. Doctor, and Raja Selvam1 This is an uncontrolled field study of the outcome effects of a somatically based […]
Memory, Trauma & Healing
Memory, Trauma & Healing by Peter A. Levine, Ph.D. The brain’s function is to choose from the past, to diminish it, to simplify it, but not to preserve it. — Henri Bergson from The Creative Mind, 1911 For therapists, the current controversy surrounding so-called false ”recovered” traumatic memories raises a number of compelling questions. Where […]
Understanding Childhood Trauma
Understanding Childhood Trauma Dr. Peter A. Levine Although anyone – regardless of strength, capability, or experience – can be traumatized by a threatening event, those at greatest risk are infants and young children. Johnny, age five, proudly riding his first bicycle, hits loose gravel and careens into a tree. He is momentarily knocked unconscious. Getting […]
Nature's Lessons in Healing Trauma
Nature’s Lessons in Healing Trauma by: Dr. Peter A. Levine Trauma is a Fact of Life A single brief exposure to an overwhelming event can throw a normally functioning individual into an abyss of emotional and physical suffering. Whether or not a person rebounds from this dark edge of near insanity or tumbles more deeply […]
Preventing and Healing the Sacred Wound of Sexual Molestation
Preventing and Healing the Sacred Wound of Sexual Molestation by Dr. Peter A. Levine Unless you have personally experienced the deep wound of sexual trauma, it may be difficult to imagine how complex, confusing, and varied the long-term effects can be. This is especially true when the molestation was perpetrated by someone the child trusted […]
The Neurophysiology of Dissociation and Chronic Disease
The Neurophysiology of Dissociation and Chronic Disease Robert C. Scaer Abstract Dissociation as a clinical psychiatric condition has been defined primarily in terms of the fragmentation and splitting of the mind, and perception of the self and the body. Its clinical manifestations include altered perceptions and behavior, including de-realization, depersonalization, distortions of perception of time, […]
SE™ in the Treatment of Automobile Accident Trauma
Somatic Experiencing® in the Treatment of Automobile Accident Trauma by Diane Poole Heller, Ph.D. and Larry Heller, Ph.D. Originally published in US Association for Body Psychotherapy Journal, vol.3, #2, 2004, pp.42-52. www.usabp.org Abstract This article on the role of the body in auto accident recovery describes some of the basic elements of Somatic Experiencing® developed […]