Unraveling Trauma in the Body, Brain and Mind—a Revolution in Treatment

Peter A. Levine

In this culmination of his life’s work, Peter A. Levine draws on his broad experience as a clinician, a student of comparative brain research, a stress scientist and a keen observer of the naturalistic animal world to explain the nature and transformation of trauma in the body, brain and psyche.

In an Unspoken Voice is based on the idea that trauma is neither a disease nor a disorder, but rather an injury caused by fright, helplessness and loss that can be healed by engaging our innate capacity to self-regulate high states of arousal and intense emotions. Enriched with a coherent theoretical framework and compelling case examples, the book elegantly blends the latest findings in biology, neuroscience and body-oriented psychotherapy to show that when we bring together animal instinct and reason, we can become more whole human beings

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Peter A. Levine

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 refl ecting these painful events. Today, millions in both the bodywork and the psychotherapeutic fields are turning to Peter A. Levine’s breakthrough Somatic Experiencing methods to eff ectively overcome these challenges. Now available in paperback for the first time, Healing Trauma offers readers the personal how-to guide for using the theory Dr. Levine first introduced in his highly acclaimed work Waking the Tiger (North Atlantic Books, 1997), including:How to develop body awareness to “re-negotiate” and heal trauma–rather than relive them. Emergency “first-aid” measures for emotional distress. A 60-minute CD of guided Somatic Experiencing techniques “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 we are meant to live in.

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Peter A. Levine Ph.D. , Maggie Kline

The number of anxious, depressed, hyperactive and withdrawn children is staggering—and still growing! Millions have experienced bullying, violence (real or in the media), abuse or sexual molestation. Many other kids have been traumatized from more “ordinary” ordeals such as terrifying medical procedures, accidents, loss and divorce. Trauma-Proofing Your Kids sends a lifeline to parents who wonder how they can help their worried and troubled children now. It offers simple but powerful tools to keep children safe from danger and to help them “bounce back” after feeling scared and overwhelmed. No longer will kids have to be passive prey to predators or the innocent victims of life’s circumstances.

In addition to arming parents with priceless protective strategies, best-selling authors Dr. Peter A. Levine and Maggie Kline offer an antidote to trauma and a recipe for creating resilient kids no matter what misfortune has besieged them. Trauma-Proofing Your Kids is a treasure trove of simple-to-follow “stress-busting,” boundary-setting, sensory/motor-awareness activities that counteract trauma’s effect on a child’s body, mind and spirit. Including a chapter on how to navigate the inevitable difficulties that arise during the various ages and stages of development, this ground-breaking book simplifies an often mystifying and complex subject, empowering parents to raise truly confident and joyful kids despite stressful and turbulent times.

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Peter A. Levine Ph.D. (Author), Maggie Kline (Author)

An essential guide for recognizing, preventing, and healing childhood trauma, from infancy through adolescence—what parents, educators, and health professionals can do.

Trauma can result not only from catastrophic events such as abuse, violence, or loss of loved ones, but from natural disasters and everyday incidents such as auto accidents, medical procedures, divorce, or even falling off a bicycle. At the core of this book is the understanding of how trauma is imprinted on the body, brain, and spirit, resulting in anxiety, nightmares, depression, physical illnesses, addictions, hyperactivity, and aggression. Rich with case studies and hands-on activities, Trauma Through A Child’s Eyes gives insight into children’s innate ability to rebound with the appropriate support, and provides their caregivers with tools to overcome and prevent trauma.

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Peter A. Levine

Healing the wounds of sexual trauma has long been considered by many psychotherapists to be one of the most challenging tasks a person will ever face. The good news, teaches Dr. Peter A. Levine, is that new and more effective tools are emerging. On Sexual Healing, Dr. Levine a pioneer in the field of healing trauma teaches you his innovative series of body-based practices to release the sexual trauma of your past. Join him to learn: What new research reveals about the way we store the energies and memories of distressing events in the body Understanding the signs of sexual trauma How to create a “container” for your emotions and release them safely – without becoming overwhelmed Gentle exercises to reconnect with your body and recover your ability to experience pleasure and joy Your body has a natural process for healing trauma and restoring resilience in your nervous system. Unfortunately, few of us are taught to identify and allow this process to happen when it arises. Sexual Healing shares the principles and skills you need to restore your sacred inner space and move forward in your life with greater presence, focus, and passion.

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Peter Levine

Your child has just experienced a distressing event a bicycle fall, a medical procedure, a frightening encounter with a dog. What do you do? Most of us would try to comfort the child, and then hope for the best. There is more you can do than just hope, teaches Peter Levine. On It Won’t Hurt Forever, Dr. Levine offers his 35 years of expertise in healing emotional trauma to show you a better way to help your child. Stress researchers now know that after a painful or fearful experience, children may endure such symptoms as unexplainable pain, nightmares, bedwetting, nervousness, aggression, and other problems. Why? Because all animals, including humans, possess a natural physiological process for discharging the energy of such experiences, explains Dr. Levine. When that process is thwarted, a child may suffer long after the event. Now, with this groundbreaking audio-learning program for parents and caretakers, you can gain the skills you need to help a child recover from frightening events in a healthier, more natural way using the body’s own healing mechanisms. Children possess the innate ability to respond and recover from potentially traumatic circumstances. With It Won’t Hurt Forever, you will learn how to activate this priceless resource within any child in need. Includes 18-page study guide and ten full-color illustrations

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Jasmin Lee Cori

Cori’s guidance for choosing a therapist and a therapy, as well as her numerous, practical ideas for self-help, is full of common sense. With her variety of treatment options, Cori effectively (and refreshingly) dispels the popular belief that there is only one way to deal with trauma. If you or a loved one continues to suffer from long-past or recent trauma, reading Healing From Trauma should be a part of your over-all treatment plan.” — Babette Rothschild, MSW, LCSW, author of The Body Remembers: The Psychophysiology of Trauma and Trauma Treatment

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David Emerson , Elizabeth Hopper, Bessel van der Kolk (Introduction), Peter A. Levine (Foreword)

Survivors of trauma—whether abuse, accidents, or war—can end up profoundly wounded, betrayed by their bodies that failed to get them to safety and that are a source of pain. In order to fully heal from trauma, a connection must be made with oneself, including one’s body. The trauma-sensitive yoga described in this book moves beyond traditional talk therapies that focus on the mind, by bringing the body actively into the healing process. This allows trauma survivors to cultivate a more positive relationship to their body through gentle breath, mindfulness, and movement practices.
Overcoming Trauma through Yoga is a book for survivors, clinicians, and yoga instructors who are interested in mind/body healing. It introduces trauma-sensitive yoga, a modified approach to yoga developed in collaboration between yoga teachers and clinicians at the Trauma Center at Justice Resource Institute, led by yoga teacher David Emerson, along with medical doctor Bessel van der Kolk. The book begins with an in-depth description of trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including a description of how trauma is held in the body and the need for body-based treatment.
It offers a brief history of yoga, describes various styles of yoga commonly found in Western practice, and identifies four key themes of trauma-sensitive yoga. Chair-based exercises are described that can be incorporated into individual or group therapy, targeting specific treatment goals, and modifications are offered for mat-based yoga classes. Each exercise includes trauma-sensitive language to introduce the practice, as well as photographs to illustrate the poses.
The practices have been offered to a wide range of individuals and groups, including men and women, teens, returning veterans, and others. Rounded out by valuable quotes and case stories, the book presents mindfulness, breathing, and yoga exercises that can be used by home practitioners, yoga teachers, and therapists as a way to cultivate awareness, tolerance, and an increased acceptance of the self.

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Robert C. Scaer

A neurologist’s view of our response to trauma
Our experiences of trauma sow the seeds of many persistent and misunderstood medical problems such as chronic fatigue syndrome and various maladies of the immune system. Because of our inadequate understanding of the relationship of mind and body in processing these traumas, many of us suffer needlessly from our exposure to life’s traumas. Robert Scaer offers hope to those who wish to transform trauma and better understand their lives.

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Robert Scaer

New edition provides updated concepts and ideas in simplified medical language

The Body Bears the Burden: Trauma, Dissociation, and Disease, Second Edition is the update of the classic book that explains the reasons behind some of the most common symptoms and conditions that previously defied a medical explanation. Respected author, Robert C. Scaer, MD, has diligently simplified the complex medical language that was used in the first edition to make it easier for lay readers and patients to understand—all without sacrificing accuracy. This valuable text presents a new theory of the neurophysiology of traumatic stress and dissociation and includes several updated chapters and new concepts that have been developed since the previous edition.

Human response is quite different than other animals’ response to trauma. This response is discussed in detail in The Body Bears the Burden: Trauma, Dissociation, and Disease, Second Edition, including the fight/flight/freeze cycle and how the human response causes abnormal regulation of many body systems which then may lead to many illnesses or conditions. The emotional and physical experiences of patients with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and other syndromes such as whiplash are comprehensively examined. Patients and lay readers alike who have been told it is “all in your head” may well feel like this book was specifically written about them and the unexplained complex symptoms they experience.

Topics in The Body Bears the Burden: Trauma, Dissociation, and Disease, Second Edition include:
• the role of the fight/flight/freeze response in traumatic stress
• the neurophysiology of traumatic stress and dissociation
• the Whiplash Syndrome as a model for procedural memory in trauma
• analysis of traumatic repetition
• the theoretical concept of somatic dissociation
• the varied syndromes and medical diseases of trauma and dissociation
• a theoretical analysis or therapy for trauma
• illustrative case histories of trauma and the body
• and more!

The Body Bears the Burden: Trauma, Dissociation, and Disease, Second Edition is valuable information for physicians, psychologists, psychotherapists, social workers, physical, occupational, and speech therapists, nurses, and those lay people looking to better understand the physiologic rationale for a large number of perplexing chronic medical diseases and syndromes.

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[This book is dense and technical, the e-book, which follows on this topic, is for the lay-person, written in easy to understand terms.]

Stephen Porges

A collection of groundbreaking research by a leading figure in neuroscience
This book compiles, for the first time, Stephen W. Porges’s decades of research. A leading expert in developmental psychophysiology and developmental behavioral neuroscience, Porges is the mind behind the groundbreaking Polyvagal Theory, which has startling implications for the treatment of anxiety, depression, trauma, and autism. Adopted by clinicians around the world, the Polyvagal Theory has provided exciting new insights into the way our autonomic nervous system unconsciously mediates social engagement, trust, and intimacy.

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Dr. Lori Parker

Dr. Lori A. Parker, is an Aikido Instructor with her own private school and an ordained Zen Buddhist Priest. She is also a Certified Practitioner of one of the most exciting and effective methods of mind-body coordination – the Feldenkrais Method® – and a Practitioner of one of the most innovative and effective trauma resolution modalities – Somatic Experiencing®.
I wrote Polyvagal Theory: What Is It & Why Should We Care? in an attempt to clarify Stephen Porges’ new theory about the Autonomic Nervous System. His theory is set forth in his article Orienting in a Defensive World: Mammalian Modifications of our Evolutionary Heritage: A Polyvagal Theory. Porges’ article is recommended reading for advanced students of the Somatic Experiencing® Training Program. The article, though, is extremely technical and difficult to understand (even for those with a background in physiology, biology, or neuroscience). For that reason, I enlisted the services of my friend and colleague, Dr. Benjamin Shield, to help clarify the theory.

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Carol Springer RN, Massage and Trauma Touch Therapist™

Return to your Senses Handbook
• is a guide for using simple self awareness skills;
• is designed with illustrations to simply explain the physiological and experiential impacts of trauma;
• is a tool for therapists, counselors and people in recovery;
• is designed to help interface body-centered experiences with counseling or psychotherapy;
• is designed to add a little structure to the often chaotic process of post traumatic recovery

Judith Herman

When Trauma and Recovery was first published in 1992, it was hailed as a groundbreaking work. In the intervening years, Herman’s volume has changed the way we think about and treat traumatic events and trauma victims. In a new afterword, Herman chronicles the incredible response the book has elicited and explains how the issues surrounding the topic have shifted within the clinical community and the culture at large.Trauma and Recovery brings a new level of understanding to a set of problems usually considered individually. Herman draws on her own cutting-edge research in domestic violence as well as on the vast literature of combat veterans and victims of political terror, to show the parallels between private terrors such as rape and public traumas such as terrorism. The book puts individual experience in a broader political frame, arguing that psychological trauma can be understood only in a social context. Meticulously documented and frequently using the victims’ own words as well as those from classic literary works and prison diaries, Trauma and Recovery is a powerful work that will continue to profoundly impact our thinking.

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Bessel A. van der Kolk MD (Editor), Alexander C. McFarlane (Editor), Lars Weisaeth (Editor)

Now in paperback, this bestselling classic presents seminal theory and research on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Together, the leading editors and contributors comprehensively examine how trauma affects an individual’s biology, conceptions of the world, and psychological functioning. Key topics include why certain people cope successfully with traumatic experiences while others do not, the neurobiological processes underlying PTSD symptomatology, enduring questions surrounding traumatic memories and dissociation, and the core components of effective interventions. A highly influential work that laid the foundation for many of the field’s continuing advances, this volume remains an immensely informative and thought-provoking clinical reference and text. A new preface to the paperback edition situates the book within the context of contemporary research developments.

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Babette Rothschild

For both clinicians and their clients there is tremendous value in understanding the psychophysiology of trauma and knowing what to do about its manifestations.
This book illuminates that physiology, shining a bright light on the impact of trauma on the body and the phenomenon of somatic memory.

It is now thought that people who have been traumatized hold an implicit memory of traumatic events in their brains and bodies. That memory is often expressed in the symptomatology of posttraumatic stress disorder-nightmares, flashbacks, startle responses, and dissociative behaviors. In essence, the body of the traumatized individual refuses to be ignored.

While reducing the chasm between scientific theory and clinical practice and bridging the gap between talk therapy and body therapy, Rothschild presents principles and non-touch techniques for giving the body its due. With an eye to its relevance for clinicians, she consolidates current knowledge about the psychobiology of the stress response both in normally challenging situations and during extreme and prolonged trauma. This gives clinicians from all disciplines a foundation for speculating about the origins of their clients’ symptoms and incorporating regard for the body into their practice. The somatic techniques are chosen with an eye to making trauma therapy safer while increasing mind-body integration.

Packed with engaging case studies, The Body Remembers integrates body and mind in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder. It will appeal to clinicians, researchers, students, and general readers.

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Babette Rothschild

This is the first book of its kind to advocate utilizing and combining an assortment of trauma treatment models.
Based on ideas put forward in the bestselling The Body Remembers, Babette Rothschild emphasizes the importance of tailoring every trauma therapy to the particular needs of each individual client. A breath of fresh air in the competitive ‘mine is best’ atmosphere currently so divisive in the field of trauma therapy, each varied and complex case (presented in a variety of writing styles: case reports, session-by-session narratives, single session transcripts) is approached with a combination of methods ranging from traditional psychodynamic and cognitive approaches and applications of attachment theory to innovative trauma methods including EMDR and Levine’s SIBAM model.

Read on its own on or in conjunction with The Body Remembers, clinicians from all disciplines will discover new strategies and gain insight into how to combine various treatment models for increased success with traumatized clients.

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Babette Rothschild

Safe and effective principles and strategies for recovery from trauma.
Trauma recovery is tricky; however, there are several key principles that can help make the process safe and effective. This book gives self help readers, therapy clients, and therapists alike the skills to understand and implement eight keys to successful trauma healing: mindful identification of what is helpful, recognizing survival, having the option to not remember, creating a supportive inner dialogue, forgiving not being able to stop the trauma, understanding and sharing shame, finding your own recovery pace; mobilizing your body, and helping others.

This is not another book promoting a new method or type of treatment; rather, it is a necessary adjunct to self-help and professional recovery programs. After reading this book, readers will be able to recognize their own individual needs and evaluate whether those needs are being met. They will have the tools necessary to put themselves in the drivers seat, navigating their own safe road to recovery.

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Daniel J. Siegel (Editor), Marion Solomon (Editor)

Born out of the excitement of a convergence of ideas and passions, this book provides a synthesis of the work of researchers, clinicians, and theoreticians who are leaders in the field of trauma, attachment, and psychotherapy.
As we move into the third millennium, the field of mental health is in an exciting position to bring together diverse ideas from a range of disciplines that illuminate our understanding of human experience: neurobiology, developmental psychology, traumatology, and systems theory. The contributors emphasize the ways in which the social environment, including relationships of childhood, adulthood, and the treatment milieu change aspects of the structure of the brain and ultimately alter the mind.

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Barnaby Barrett

This unique text explores both the remarkable history and the contemporary burgeoning of somatic psychology, and addresses the theoretical challenges that must be met if it is to realize its impressive potential. Somatic psychology and bodymind therapy examine the body and the mind as a whole, emphasising the reciprocal relationships between the two. This branch of psychotherapy focuses on the body, body language, emotional expression, psychosomatics, and sexuality. Somatic psychology is challenging the contemporary scene – shaking up our understanding of what it means to be human and how to heal human suffering. This book guides us to consider what life might be like when we relinquish the mind/body dichotomy. For example, what therapy means when we acknowledge the functioning of memory in every tissue of our embodiment.

Rooted in the ancient holistic disciplines or energy sciences, and becoming established in the work of early psychodynamic pioneers, this new discipline, with the current growth of its bodymind methodologies, draws from phenomenological philosophies, depth psychologies, and from the latest neuroscience.

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Kathy L Kain

This is the first book on Ortho-Bionomy, a bodywork technique which is quickly gaining popularity among laypeople and therapists from all bodywork disciplines. Kathy Kain gives clear descriptions of the philosophy and concepts of Ortho-Bionomy. The illustrations and easy to understand technical instructions show the standard releases taught in Ortho-Bionomy classes. The student is guided from the beginning of a session to the end in learning this gentle, effective approach to somatic re-education. Ortho-Bionomy’s primary benefit lies in helping people to break the cycle of pain by learning how to correct structural and somatic dysfunction and to release stress. This noninvasive, quick acting approach is an effective preparation for mobilization, movement and therapeutic exercise.

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Kathy L Kain, Stephen J. Terrell

Offers an introduction and practical, integrated approach for therapists working with people (both adults and children) who have been impacted by developmental trauma and attachment difficulties

Kathy L. Kain and Stephen J. Terrell draw on fifty years of their combined clinical and teaching experience to provide this clear road map for understanding the complexities of early trauma and its related symptoms. Experts in the physiology of trauma, the authors present an introduction to their innovative somatic approach that has evolved to help thousands improve their lives. Synthesizing across disciplines–Attachment, Polyvagal, Neuroscience, Child Development Theory, Trauma, and Somatics–this book provides a new lens through which to understand safety and regulation. It includes the survey used in the groundbreaking ACE Study, which discovered a clear connection between early childhood trauma and chronic health problems. For therapists working with both adults and children and anyone dealing with symptoms that typically arise from early childhood trauma–anxiety, behavioral issues, depression, metabolic disorders, migraine, sleep problems, and more–this book offers fresh hope.

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