Dr. Peter Levine's Theories

[pixel]

I'm reading Trauma & Memory: Brain and Body in Search for the Living Past by Peter A. Levine, PhD.
(Quotes below are from this book.)
He is the developer of Somatic Experiencing.

I find it difficult to accept his reasoning because when he states something, he uses that statement to launch onto a new concept without explaining the process.
Also, he scarily lacks credible scientific backing for his research.

For Example
In Chapter Four, page 49 he explains that:

Once we understand the process of renegotiation and engage its transformative power, biology works to move the experience along. It follows naturally that when the client's bodily responses are elaborated and become conscious in the safety of the present moment, the thwarted procedural memories come to an intrinsic corrective experience and there is resolution.

There are 3 massive statements here, and not one reference, quote or study cited.

1. "Biology works to move the experience along." This is extremely vague. What biology? The human body as a whole, the body systems, the cellular matrix, endocrine function etc... What? Please explain.
2. "It follows naturally that..." No. This doesn't work in science. We expect proof.
3. "There is resolution." Again, no statistical referencing.

There are four references cited in the bibliography for Chapter 4, and 2 of them are from Levine's own work.

Chapter 5 is an even bigger joke.
I just can't take this guy seriously.

Do you find him credible?

 

[Rani G2]

Thanks Pixel! I guess I've got to read it in German to really be able to grasp.

What I can say is that I prefer Nijenhuis.
Link Removed

I know, this aint no answer to your question.
:-)

 

[Deleted member 37085]

I'm reading Trauma & Memory: Brain and Body in Search for the Living Past by Peter A. Levine, PhD.
(Quote...

@pixel Never read Levine's book(s); thank you for the heads up; sounds certainly that Levine does not back up his conclusions/facts with any science and sounds like ramblings of someone who hasn't much a clue about trauma and resolution except in theory. Love, peace, and tons of hugs in new year @pixel. @JadesJewel

 

[Big H]

Hi Pixel,

Sounds dodgy to me......

However, my far too clever daughter is at Uni studying military psychology, and last month walked me through the biological changes / trauma that the brain receives from the initial environment stimuli. A study of PTSD confirmed individuals showed via MRI that there were anatomical changes in all of their behaviour associated areas it did expakin this in much more detail in generalizing apologizes !. There's a growing group that are looking at PTSD being a physical injury caused by actual brain shrinkage in key behaviour areas. I'll try to get the study she was referencing and post the link.
All the best for the New Year

 

[heyheyhey]

Ehh hmmm. Well I have had Somatic Experiencing and have found it very, very helpful and I have pretty minimal symptoms to deal with most of the time as a result of partaking in it. I know other people on the board have found it very helpful too.

He does state it is not something extensively studied and that they hope that there are more studies in the future (there are a few here - Link Removed). I understand that it is more theoretical and based on his studies of animals in the wild, and how they resolve trauma. But it's also something he has been using for 30 years to help successfully treat people, I'm sure if it was all BS then the tract would be changed?

It's also something that is supported by leading trauma researcher Bessel A. van der Kolk - and is one of the key treatments he uses on his patients (along with EMDR).

What I take away from it, is that a large part of trauma is physiological and rooted in the body or the over triggered nervous system. This idea is something supported by a variety of researchers in the field.

I guess what I think is that yes, it definitely needs more research behind it and they should be organising more studies, but in my experience it works and it seems to work for other people, so there must be something to it? I do combine it with cognitive methods though, but only started them after the SE therapy, because I was too hyper-aroused for them to help much before.

Also comparatively, how kooky and unfounded does EMDR seem? Many people saw that as a laughable treatment when it was first being used. Without any prior knowledge, if someone had told me that waving a finger in front of your eyes would do anything to resolve trauma, I would have laughed. Yet now it's regarded as one of the most effective trauma treatments in the world, and is recommended here in the UK as the most effective treatment, alongside CBT. We still don't quite know HOW it works, but it works. Could this not be approached in the same way?

Yeah, we can be skeptical but I don't think that should put us off trying things that could potentially work. The main thing to ask, I think, is are people getting results? People whose opinion we can trust, and are we seeing the same results occur with many people? If yes, then let's continue and let the science and theory follow - such as the case with EMDR. Just my 2 cents ;)!

 

[Tinyflame]

@pixel I think he's correct- or rather the mind-heart-body-soul connection is more integrated than anyone imagines- but I am also wary of absolute conclusions with 'bad science'. I shouldn't comment because I haven't read the book, but it reminded me I realized that's what gets me with Brene Brown. I agree with some of what she says. But, for example, she said guilt (vs shame- 'I made a mistake vs I am a mistake' ) is inversely coorelated to suicide. But so many vets / driving accident fatalities/ fatal mistakes etc, attest otherwise. But spoken with conviction it goes unquestioned. And when peppered in to truths that are substantiated gets me.

 

[Anarchy]

What readership is the book aimed at?

Interested general readers? Therapists who are potentially interested in adding SE or NARM to their skills set and who would then attend training? Or researchers?

A good number of people on the forum here are like yourself, very intelligent and very rational, and realise that an assertion cannot stand alone, unless it's an irreducible axiom, and that to deny it would require a logical contradiction.

You know that unless an assertion is self evidently irrefutable (eg a ball cannot be both red all over AND green all over at the same time), that it requires a supporting argument and/or evidence.

If the book is written for a general readership, I'm not sure that many of them will have your logical mind set, and would quite likely switch off, if the chains of reasoning were presented.

Interested therapists would expect to get the in depth reasoning and philosophy as part of the training course, qualifying in the treatment.

If it's researchers, we've got an interesting problem, that if the researchers are invested in a certain paradigm, they may not accept the evidences and exemplars from a different paradigm as "scientific"
An example from physics was Ernst Mach, who did not accept Newtonian mechanics, because Newton's "laws" of motion can never be empirically falsified.

I understand the frustration.
I personally detest Freud, and his invocations of all sorts of unobservable infant libido shite, and his landing his poor patients with shitty double binds in which heads, they're wrong and tails, Freud was right... For goodness sake, I'd much rather have homeopathy ;)

First guess without reading the book is it was probably written for the first two groups of readers
Is there anything up on YouTube where he might give more in depth background? Does he have an academia.edu page with his papers up on it?

Van der Kolk's page is good

 

[pixel]

Yeah, we can be skeptical but I don't think that should put us off trying things that could potentially work.

Of course. I would never discount anyone's experience. This discussion has nothing to do with whether or not somatic experiencing works.

What readership is the book aimed at?

Great question @Anarchy, I quote:

Written for mental health care practitioners as well as trauma sufferers

I'm not a mental health care practitioner, but as a sufferer I cannot accept the explanation of a theory where 1+1=4.
If he doesn't know how stuff works or would like more studies conducted on it, then state this.
I am perfectly willing to accept that more research needs doing.

 

[Anarchy]

You'd sort of hope that he'd explain his logical chain in a book length work aimed at practitioners.
I've just downloaded these, I haven't listened to them yet, so don't know what they're like http://www.thetraumatherapistproject.com/podcast/peter-levine-phd/

One of the things that I've become aware of recently is how like a small wild animal's our infant mind is. No words, no concepts or previous experiences, no meanings, it can recognise faces and one or two voices, warmth and a tit, but even then, is mother safe or is she going to get stressed out and eat you?
Even instinctive threats are ambiguous, is a wolf going to break your neck and eat you or take you to her den and adopt you as hers?

Htf to do trauma therapy with something so small, pre verbal and with so little in the way of concepts and references?

 

[pixel]

Htf to do trauma therapy with something so small, pre verbal and with so little in the way of concepts and references?

Exactly.
Levine declares he helps toddlers to deal with their traumatic births. You know when you have a toddler on your lap and they want to push away from you with their legs and arms? He states that this is the child completing the birthing movements and brings resolution to the traumatic birth.

I would be interested to hear what your thoughts are, @Anarchy, on the podcast.

 

[Gs172003]

Exactly.
Levine declares he helps toddlers to deal with their traumatic births. You know when you have a...

Um...what???

 

[Leighlee87]

Okay that last bit is freaking crazy.

I have heard of him before because he covers a freeze response I experience and its not being explained by anyone else.
If I become very emotionally overwhelmed/fearful (ex. Intense flashback) I will begin to dissociate, and then become completely catatonic. First losing the ability to speak and then the ability to move at all. No matter how much I will my body to move, it wont. I will focus on just trying to lift a finger and it won't happen. I can hear my therapist talk to me and I scream the response in my head but my lips won't move. I just sit and cry because I'm trapped and can't communicate to her that I can't "come back" and I don't know how. Im not scared, my heart rate slows down, physically I cant feel pain, the tears are out of frustration and whatever hurt brought on the experience to begin with. It usually takes 30 minutes or more to come back. I've had this response ever since I was a little kid.

The DSM links it to schizophrenia, which I don't have any other markers for, so let's go ahead and rule that one out for now. And which honestly, their description of catatonia differs slightly from how mine presents.

Levine is the only one I've ever seen record and link the response to trauma. And his description very much resembles and explains what is happening to me.

When I first told my therapist that this is something that happens to me (before she saw it), she told me that something horrific would have happened at a really young age. Given my history, I'm not at all surprised.
So to an extent, with some of his stuff, Levine is on to something. And it's stuff other theorists haven't been looking at or studying.
I'm obviously not the only person with this response, I'm not the first person my T has come across who freezes like this. And even if not common, it is something I, and probably others, would like more answers to.