In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness

I first studied with Peter Levine in 1983 long before his Somatic Experiencing theory had been developed, and then again in 1988 as he was first developing it. After a twenty year stretch in which my life took a diversion I have come back and studied his work again, and have became certified as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. During this time Dr. Levine's work has become exquisitely refined and the theory has become teachable. In the early days we would watch him work and could not follow the subtleties but would always be amazed as almost miraculous healings would unfold before our eyes. In his first book, "Waking the Tiger" he was able to articulate his theory of healing trauma in a way that was readable and informative. In this book he has made the work fully approachable. With examples from his own life he shows us how we can go through life-threatening experiences and not only avoid being traumatized but actually come out of such experiences a healthier human being. This is by far his best book to date and I practically demand that all of my clients read it so they can understand many of the symptoms they are experiencing. For, it turns out that trauma is the great imposter. It can look like just about any medical or psychological disorder in the diagnostic books. Many people are not even aware that they are suffering from the hidden effects of trauma until they read this book and understand the mechanisms by which long forgotten traumas have crept back into their lives and even taken them over. In my marriage counseling business I see a lot of couples who are not actually incompatible but whose nervous systems have become stuck in fight or flight as a result of trauma and who therefore end up in an escalating cycle of fighting and resentment. As we work the trauma issues these relationships begin to fall into place and support the partners instead of activating and agitating them. This is the book that puts the jigsaw pieces together and makes the whole mystery begin to make sense.

As a professional bodyworker for 15 years I deal with chronic physical (and linked emotional)pain on a daily basis. This book was excellent and extremely insightful - many thanks to the author! He provides a very clear and well-researched description of how and why trauma gets stuck in the body, and how the body provides a language to understand and resolve it. Get your mind out of the way and stop trying to figure it out, and just let your body process the energy that was built up at one point and never found full expression. I was originally looking for specific exercises and techniques to use, and while there are some general guidelines there isn't really a step-by-step how to do this. By the time I finished the book I was glad there was no step-by-step, and the information provided gives so much insight into tapping into the natural intelligence and uniqueness of each individual and their pain. I have already helped 3 clients in a significant way by watching what their body language was saying as they spoke about their pain, and then providing a safe place to explore the physical sensations happening without looking for a hidden meaning. This makes so much more sense than talk therapy. I have seen many people that are very discouraged by the amount of self-improvement work they've put into themselves, thinking that if they figure out the emotional reasons behind their pain it will go away - only it hasn't and they are left desparate for relief. While there is the mind-body physical and emotional connection, the body is the intelligent part of us that experiences everything, and the mind just interprets these experiences and gives them meaning. Peter Levine brings us back to honoring the body's intelligence over and over again. If you are a bodyworker of any kind I can't recommend this book highly enough. If you are someone in chronic pain (trauma), please buy this for your bodyworker and work through it together.

An amazing, amazing read. It paints the symptoms of trauma as normal experiences rather than “bad” or “wrong” which is healing in itself and provides a way out — or rather, through — the suffering we put ourselves through unnecessarily. Information heavy but also lots of everyday examples that are easy to understand. This is the book I never knew I needed.

Excellent read. Deep research on trauma and sufferings based on brain-body interaction. Very recommend.

A powerful and useful book for anyone who has experienced trauma as an adult or in childhood, or who works with people who have. Having not too long ago experienced a protracted traumatic experience I found the book very useful to better understand the functioning of the nervous system. It helped me to be more compassionate toward myself because I understood better why I responded to the trauma as I did and why I continue to have the responses I do. I only wish that somatic therapies were more common. Having primarily experienced "talk therapy" at any time I have experienced therapy, I know that it has not always created permanent healing for me and that old traumas linger in my being, even though talk therapy was certainly useful in that it has always provided a safe container with a skilled therapist. Peter Levine is also a humble and compassionate writer and I appreciated that. The "academic" in me also valued learning more about neuroscience while I applied the learnings to my own experience. It is a great reference to go back to.

really amazing and interesting book! thanks Peter Levine for your really good work about the trauma recovery and thanks for sharing your ideas and thoughts

Peter Levine is an outstanding therapist and scientist who has made important breakthroughs in the treatment of trauma through understanding its physical impact on the body of the victim. To paraphrase Levine, trauma arises from the ill effects of frozen energy locked into a person's body by a desperate experience, by which he means a shattering experience of utter helplessness and life threatening terror from which the body's autonomic system desperately seeks to escape physically but from which, for whatever reason, such escape is impossible at the time. Because of this, a significant part of the trauma survivor's being remains trapped in that time and place, from which it cannot be freed without more or less reliving and seeing through those instinctual physical actions which in turn finally calm the hyper-aroused and non-rational limbic system and reptilian brain, older areas of the brain (in evolutionary terms) that are not directly controllable by the rational frontal cortex. A trauma that cannot be physically worked off by action freezes these areas and condemns people's lives to be dominated by a past from which they cannot escape through conscious mental effort or rational will alone. In this book Levine discusses the results of several decades of his research and practice, beginning with a personal story in which he recounts his own brush with potential trauma following a road accident of which he was the victim. While innocently using a pedestrian crossing one day, he was struck by a car. For someone else, this accident might have resulted in post-traumatic stress disorder but it did not for Levine, thanks to his personal understanding of the causes of such trauma and of how to defuse them. It would be so helpful if well-meaning emergency services personnel were to read this chapter as it might stop them from immobilising accident victims at the worst possible time and thus assist them to avoid PTSD by aiding the body's own physical coping mechanisms rather than thwarting them. The book contains other case studies as well as wide-ranging scientific and explanatory materials, including a section on the animal kingdom (to which humans ultimately belong) that was quite fascinating to me but might be less so to others. This is not a DIY handbook for treating one's own trauma -- which does not seem like a good idea to me anyway -- but no doubt would be of great interest to and use by professionals.I certainly found it very helpful in explaining the beneficial aspects in my own painful experience during a recent episode of retraumatization brought on by changes in my personal life. It is not as comprehensive as Bessel van der Kolk's inspiring and remarkable 2014 book, "The Body Keeps the Score", but his praise for Levine's work (which is what brought me to read this book) has been fully justified by this excellent study. Strongly recommended.

Un libro que profundiza en las reacciones del sistema nervioso al trauma y como comprenderlas. Un libro profundo.