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VIDEO: Peter Levine on Trauma Treatment's "Greatest Tool"
Tapping into the Power of the Body
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What does it mean to be traumatized? And what does it look like when someone gets triggered? According to trauma expert Peter Levine, acclaimed author of Waking the Tiger, trauma lives on in the body even after the traumatic event has passed.
In this brief video clip, Levine explains why investigating the root cause of trauma isn't necessarily a prerequisite for healing. Instead, it's important for clients to temporarily put aside their triggering event and listen to how their body reacts to it.
According to Levine, since trauma has such a strong biological connection, the body acts as one of the therapist’s most valuable resources. “Trauma is encoded in the brain stem, the thalamus, the limbic system, and the hypothalamus,” Levine says. “And the language of that part of the brain is bodily sensation. To investigate trauma, we have to be able to talk in that language, to guide the person in that language.”