Healing Trauma: A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body
Peter Levine, Ph.D.
Sounds True Publishing – 2005
When it comes to trauma, EFT and Peter Levine seem to be speaking slightly different dialects of the very same language. Levine’s book comes with a CD of 12 steps to healing trauma, and the attention is on the physical body. As with the experience of EFT, Levine’s research shows that trauma gets stuck in the body. His observation of wild animals is that after a traumatic event, they go through a physical event of literally shaking off that trauma. If they go through that shaking off, they then quickly get back to normal and walk away from the traumatic encounter. If they don’t get a chance to shake off that trauma, they do not recover.
In EFT, we use language and tapping, and trauma does release for people. I can understand how Levine made this his life work – once you see that happen for a person, you want to have the healing happen for as many people as possible.
Levine has worked personally with thousands of people. Healing Trauma is his attempt to put the work directly into the hands of people so they can self-help their healing. I admire the attempt, and I wonder what writing this book was like for Levine. In my experience with EFT it seems that a skilled practitioner helps a person heal much faster than they would on their own – basically it seems because our subconscious is hidden from each one of us, and a person trained in observation can help us see what we are blind to about ourselves