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    Trauma and Memory: Brain and Body in a Search for the Living Past: A Practical Guide for Understanding and Working with Traumatic Memory
    Unavailable
    Trauma and Memory: Brain and Body in a Search for the Living Past: A Practical Guide for Understanding and Working with Traumatic Memory
    Unavailable
    Trauma and Memory: Brain and Body in a Search for the Living Past: A Practical Guide for Understanding and Working with Traumatic Memory
    Audiobook5 hours

    Trauma and Memory: Brain and Body in a Search for the Living Past: A Practical Guide for Understanding and Working with Traumatic Memory

    Written by Peter A. Levine, Ph.D. and Bessel A. van der Kolk

    Narrated by Rick Adamson

    4.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    In Trauma and Memory, bestselling author Dr. Peter Levine (creator of the Somatic Experiencing approach) tackles one of the most difficult and controversial questions of PTSD/trauma therapy: Can we trust our memories? While some argue that traumatic memories are unreliable and not useful, others insist that we absolutely must rely on memory to make sense of past experience. Building on his 45 years of successful treatment of trauma and utilizing case studies from his own practice, Dr. Levine suggests that there are elements of truth in both camps. While acknowledging that memory can be trusted, he argues that the only truly useful memories are those that might initially seem to be the least reliable: memories stored in the body and not necessarily accessible by our conscious mind.

    While much work has been done in the field of trauma studies to address "explicit" traumatic memories in the brain (such as intrusive thoughts or flashbacks), much less attention has been paid to how the body itself stores "implicit" memory, and how much of what we think of as "memory" actually comes to us through our (often unconsciously accessed) felt sense. By learning how to better understand this complex interplay of past and present, brain and body, we can adjust our relationship to past trauma and move into a more balanced, relaxed state of being. Written for trauma sufferers as well as mental health care practitioners, Trauma and Memory is a groundbreaking look at how memory is constructed and how influential memories are on our present state of being.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateAug 22, 2017
    ISBN9781623171605
    Unavailable
    Trauma and Memory: Brain and Body in a Search for the Living Past: A Practical Guide for Understanding and Working with Traumatic Memory

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    Reviews for Trauma and Memory

    4.5/5

    17 ratings2 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 2/5
      Quite dry and dogmatic. lots of assumptions about processes based on correlations, inaccurate statement made about other therapeutic options for ptsd. The case studies were quite bizarre and unbelievable at times particularly the one about birth trauma.

      3 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Peter Levine is really a revolutionary in the field of psychology dealing with trauma recovery and I'm so grateful I came across his work a few years back.

      "Trauma and Memory" isn't a self-help, how-to book but an overview explanation of how trauma works, gets processed, and released, what part memory plays in perpetuating and triggering trauma and the different types of memory we have.

      For those not yet familiar with Levine's work, this is a must read and 5 star material. For those who are familiar, having already read his previous works, I don't find there to be much new here but it's a good refresher on the importance of somatic and mindful therapy techniques.

      For those who have been through other forms of therapy, namely talk therapy, and find little progress, this also is a must read.

      What makes Levine's therapeutic ideas different and what the heck is somatic therapy?

      In a nutshell, Levine realized and associated a few things:

      1) Animals that suffer trauma (i.e. get attacked by a predator) are able to move on from their life harrowing experiences with no adverse affects because their bodies go through a physical process of releasing the trauma.

      2) People who endure traumatic events and somehow do not get PTSD or have some trauma but are able to move on much more quickly and not be left with chronic PTSD occurs most often in the scenarios where the person physically took action during the traumatic event (i.e. escaped from the burning building, fended off the attacker, etc)

      3) Trauma in people is not intellectual, but a trapped body memory or impression that is stuck

      4) If the body is later able to finish the cycle it needed, the trauma can be released

      5) The memory or traumatic event doesn't even need to be true or remembered in detail or even recalled fully in order to process the trauma

      In practical terms, what does that mean? We induce the triggers, follow that trigger in our body, determine what it needs, give it what it needs, and then bring us back to our present. And, it's done in a way that is not overwhelming.

      Somatic therapy is a totally different from other therapies and, dare I say, gentle and effective. With it, I'm finally seeing true changes with my own chronic PTSD and use its practical techniques every day.

      I wouldn't say to take this book and do everything on your own. No. Read the book to educate yourself and then seek out help from a professional that uses somatic and mindful therapy techniques.

      Levine is really a pioneer and is a must read for anyone with trauma.

      For those interested on the audiobook version, I listened to the book and found the narrator to be engaging. He read it dynamically enough to keep my interest in the material.

      6 people found this helpful