Trauma and Memory

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

By: Peter A. Levine Ph.D., Bessel A. van der Kolk - introduction M.D.

Narrated by: Rick Adamson

Designed for psychotherapists and their clients, Peter Levine's latest best-seller continues his groundbreaking exploration of the central role of the body in processing—and healing—trauma.

With foreword by Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score

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.

Very insightful. Easy to read & understand.

So, this is NOT a self-help book written in extremely easy language. If words like implicit and explicit scare you then this book is not for you!

This book is written very well and it is very easy to listen to. The language in the book is clear. All terms are explained at their first mention, which is why it is so easy to understand for non-clinicians. I for sure will listen to it more than once.

great read for working clinicians

this book was informative and allowed me to piece together information from other reads and knowledge related to the field...

An Effective Summary of Trauma and Memory

Dr. Levine gives a compelling and in-depth summary of trauma and memory. The only downside to this book, as a graduate level mental health professional, is that it can at many times read a bit jargon heavy and can use a lot of scientific terminology that makes understanding the concepts a bit more difficult. Aside from that the book is incredibly informative and engaging, as well as being well read by the narrator. I enjoyed the process of listening to this book and look forward to reading and listening to more of Dr. Levine‘s literature in the future.

Case studies shared to understand birth trauma better

Loved chapter on generational trauma, it was very eye opening, as well as backed by science!

Gifted

Dr. Levine has a GIFT and I am so glad he is sharing it with others!!! I hope his techniques become widely used.

In light of the recent elections, I didn’t like the political reference early on. I’m a female working in a male dominated field and I am SO sick of hearing Hillary is a liar. We all lie and studies have shown lies increase when social acceptance is on the line. I don’t think Dr. Levine meant to be sexist. This is my hang up so I kept listening...

The potential for healing is enormous, I suffered greatly as a child and see the huge potential for Dr. Levine’s techniques. But was turned off once again to hear him say most rape can be worded of by a WOMAN firmly saying NO. Yikes! That sounds too close to saying rape is a women’s problem.

I respect Dr. Levine and his work! I hope to learn his techniques so I can help others one day. I obviously have a lot of work to do.