Waking the Tiger

Healing Trauma

By: Peter A. Levine, Ann Frederick

Narrated by: Chris Sorensen

Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

Waking the Tiger offers a new and hopeful vision of trauma. It views the human animal as a unique being, endowed with an instinctual capacity. It asks and answers an intriguing question: Why are animals in the wild, though threatened routinely, rarely traumatized? By understanding the dynamics that make wild animals virtually immune to traumatic symptoms, the mystery of human trauma is revealed. Waking the Tiger normalizes the symptoms of trauma and the steps needed to heal them. People are often traumatized by seemingly ordinary experiences. The listener is taken on a guided tour of the subtle, yet powerful impulses that govern our responses to overwhelming life events. To do this, it employs a series of exercises that help us focus on bodily sensations. Through heightened awareness of these sensations trauma can be healed.

©1997 Peter A. Levine (P)2016 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Fascinating! Amazing! A revolutionary exploration of the effects and causes of trauma." (Mira Rothenberg, author of Children with Emerald Eyes)

Unless you have to listen, buy the book and read it!

This book is excellent and interesting, but the narrators voice is basically unbearable, flat irascible and grating on the nerves. Of all the great narrators out there, I can’t imagine why.... Anyone’s mother who’s ever read a bedtime story to anyone could probably deliver a more pleasant experience.

Read this if you’re ready for an abundant life

This book has been absolutely transformational in the search for a fulfilling authentic life. I am recommending it to anyone that wants to understand themselves and the world around them.

I just can't listen to this narrator

I'm going to have to suck it up and buy a hard copy of this book because I know I want to understand what the author is saying, but the narration of this is so bad I can't even believe it. I have heard many good things about this book, but don't get the audible version, the weird drone like voice will put you to sleep instantly. How did this get through quality control? Listen to a sample, you will scratch your head.

Uninspiring Narration, great content

Nothing personal, but I was not able to relax with this performance. The book itself was excellent and I found that I could relate to so many of the examples. The familiarity is scary though when you think of how you had to navigate a wild river of sewage to get here. I applaud the survivors in so many ways.
What would a society be like where trauma is adequately handled and stop the insanity.

Content great, narration quite robotic.

The content in this book is excellent, but the narration makes it a very hard listen. Perhaps it’s all a matter of taste, but the overall tone is flat and rather robotic. I listen to a lot of books as I drive, but in this case I wish I had purchased the printed version.

Great Foundational Material

Waking the Tiger provides a solid start in understanding the possibilities of working with trauma. As someone mentioned in a previous review, it is much easier to listen to this narrator at 1.25 speed, and there isn't a lot of time spent on the trauma of politicized identities. With that said, the fact that Dr. Levine began trauma informed work 45yrs ago, this book is truly the foundational piece that set our contemporary trauma informed and somatic work and perspective into motion.

Content fantastic, narration tough to endure.

I love audible. This book is amazing. If having a challenging narrator is hard for you I cannot recommend it. I am really surprised that this person is a book narrator. I wanted to much to give it 5 stars, but can't. It helps a lot to listen to it at 1.5 speed. Even then just so monotonous, but made it possible for me to get through it.

Good book, Intolerably boring Reading

I am listening to it at 120% speed. This makes the reading of the book only *mostly* atonal but I don't immediately check out. I have ready several books on trauma, being a therapist, and was very much looking forward to this one, yet I can barely register the content beyond the droning voice of the reader. Can we get some radio or podcast people to read this book? How about the Vsauce guy? Just because it's a clinical or academic text doesn't mean it should he read like you're trying to put a university lecture hall to sleep, yet that is exactly what is happening here. I think I may have to go out and buy the paper book, I doubt I will finish this.

easy read, complicated trauma doesn't really apply

the narrator was really hard to listen to. It felt repetitive and I feel like it didn't apply to complex trauma or deep rooted trauma. it did remind me of EMDR, which is done with a professional

Get REAL book

Narrator is AWFUL!!!!!! Sped up the reading and still NOT doable. Good content having taken the SE training but awful narration made it unbearable