AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A TRAUMA

Peter Levine is famous as the developer of Somatic Experiencing, although his early career involved a doctorate in medical and biological physics with the colourful Prof Dick Strohman, who originally took the view that his work was too interdisciplinary (!). He is the author of the best-selling Waking the Tiger that has sold over 1 million copies in 33 countries. He has a worldwide network of 70 trainers, who have taught over 50,000 therapists and healers in 44 countries. This remarkable book is well summarised by Jack Kornfield when he writes that it is ‘Brilliant, moving, and wise. Honest and vulnerable enough to redeem your broken heart and then visionary enough to learn deeply from his intensely curious mind.’ I have no doubt that every reader will find some level of their experience mirrored in this autobiography.

The author defines the Somatic Experiencing (SE) method as ‘a naturalistic and neuro biological body oriented approach to healing trauma and other stress disorders. The SE approach releases traumatic shock and restores connection, which is key to transforming PTSD and the wounds of emotional and early developmental attachment trauma.’ We have an innate ability to overcome the effects of diverse traumas where thwarted survival energy is stored in the body and nervous system. It has taken real courage and commitment for Levine to write this book at all, given that he is exposing many intimate details of his life and reawakening a sense of vulnerability. But it is precisely the exposure of this vulnerability that makes the book so valuable and gives it the potential to act as a catalyst for the reader.

As a child and adolescent, Levine and his family suffered prolonged life-threatening intimidation from the New York Mafia, as his father was called to testify against Johnny Dio, and even went to prison for refusing to do so. Levine himself suffered traumatic rape from affiliated gang members, and never told his parents about it at the time. In relating the incident many years later to his mother, her response was that this didn’t happen but that she herself had been raped by his father at his conception. Later in the story, he learns of her earlier true love, which enables a deep healing in their relationship. Extraordinarily, his parents nearly drowned in a canoeing accident and were rescued by none other than Albert Einstein with his stepdaughter. Earlier in the narrative, the reader learns about an interaction with the deceased Einstein over a period of months where he served as a mentor – Levine had no idea about this incident at the time. He is also guided and instructed by a number of powerful dreams.

Many readers may have experienced wounds of abandonment and betrayal. Levine gives an account of his own experience, in addition to his reaction to a video where a young child is left in a strange room by its mother with an unknown female researcher. The separation effect is deeply traumatic and long lasting, representing utter and complete obliteration – also arising with the fear of death. In relation to parents, the child may split them into two versions – one dangerous, and the other and supportive, creating a deep ambivalence represented by fear on the one hand and love on the other. These need to be woven into a coherent narrative. Later in the book, he recounts his experience of attending a graduate seminar in Skinnerian operant conditioning where the child is considered an object or thing to be conditioned with positive or negative reinforcement, an approach that does not take thoughts or feelings into consideration. It is horrifying to read about how JB Watson and BF Skinner raised their own children along these lines. Three of Watson’s four children attempted suicide, while Skinner’s daughter was raised in a box, illustrated for the reader to see. Such a cold, unemotional and behaviourist upbringing is deeply damaging, and one can only shudder at the inhuman prospect of artificial wombs and deprivation of intimate touch; behind this is the neobehaviourist view of the human as a biochemical machine or algorithm.

The chapter on sexual awakening and healing will also resonate with many readers with stifled Eros and the challenge of making real intimate bonds, both emotional and sexual. Eros is about being fully alive and embodying our lifeforce through our knowing, sensing body. Levine has a powerful encounter with Sanju, a woman of numinous presence, elegance and rare splendour. Here, he has a powerful Tantric experience. Later chapters describe some powerful indigenous experiences and rituals, including a reincorporation ceremony for warriors in the Navajo tribe. He realises how traumatised these soldiers must be, and the account of the drumming ceremony and releases is of remarkable potency as the warrior is returned to a state of balance and beauty within the universe. There is of course no such procedure for returning US Army veterans and no place for perceived unacceptable weakness. Touchingly, another incident occurs in the Middle East, ‘a land of endless wars and recycled trauma’ – need one say more?

Levine describes the influence of a number of remarkable men and women, including Ilya Prigogine with his dissipative structures applied to the therapeutic process by shifting energy to a higher level of organisation, Ida Rolf, Mira Rothenburg, Rene Thom and Stephen Porges. He stresses the importance of emergence, also represented in the psyche by the floors of a building. The final two chapters consider his prophetic legacy reflected in his own journey of harnessing his living, knowing body in the healing and transformation of trauma. Living his dying echoes the wedded unity of Eros and death, which is simulated in a powerful psychedelic experience of total disintegration and annihilation. However, where there is death, there is also rebirth - another chapter, another journey of renewal. I encourage you to read and reflect on this remarkably touching and illuminating memoir.