Waking the Tiger:  Healing Trauma

 Peter A. Levine, author of Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma, tells us that we have an innate capacity to transform overwhelming experiences, and he offers insight into the process of healing.

He states that if we are experiencing repeated symptoms that no one seems to be able to explain, that these symptoms could be arising from a traumatic reaction to a past event that we may not even remember.  For example, you could have been terrified during a situation and have that terror locked into your body.  While psychology traditionally approaches trauma through its effects on the mind, Levine states that without the body and mind accessed together as a unit in the healing, we may not be able to deeply understand or heal the actual trauma. 

There are also different types of trauma.  While “shock trauma” may refer to that experienced during a severe accident or life-threatening incident, “developmental trauma” may refer to psycho-logically based issues that are a result of inadequate nurturing and guidance through periods of one’s life.

Levine says that the involuntary and instinctual portions of the brain and nervous system are virtually identical to those of other mammals and even reptiles.  Three primary responses to trauma occur:  freezing, fight, or flight.  Levine explains all three responses; however, in focusing on the freezing or “immobility” response, he suggests that while animals may “play dead” during situations of trauma, that when out of danger, they will generally “. . .shake off the residual effects of the immobility response and gain full control of the body.”  Levine believes that a key to healing traumatic symptoms in humans lies in our being able to mirror the fluid adaptation of wild animals as they shake out and pass through the immobility response and become fully mobile and functional again.  In fact, Levine says that “...in our often-unsuccessful attempts to discharge these energies, we may become fixated on them….repeatedly creating situations in which the possibility to release ourselves from the trauma trap exists, but ... we remain stuck in the traumatic maze.”  In his terms, “trauma resolved is a great gift.”