Summary of Peter A. Levine & Gabor Mate's In an Unspoken Voice

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 We are all susceptible to the effects of trauma and loss. They can strike us down in a fraction of a second, and we can be utterly devastated. We become hopelessly frozen by terror and helplessness.
#2 I was hit by a car while crossing the street. I was sent flying, and when I came to, I was lying on the road, unable to move or breathe. I was terrified that I had a broken neck. I was confused and unable to think clearly. I needed someone to hold onto.
#3 I am rushed to the hospital, and as I am being stretchered into the emergency room, I hear a garbled radio communication requesting a full trauma team. My heart sinks. I am afraid that my injuries may require the major trauma center in La Jolla, some thirty miles away.
#4 I feel a strong tension developing from the spine in my upper back. I sense my right arm wanting to extend outward, and I see a momentary flash. The black asphalt rushes toward me, and my hand slapping the pavement feels like a raw burning sensation. I feel tremendous relief, along with a deep sense of gratitude that my body did not betray me.

Sujets

• Santé et bien-être
• Développement personnel
• développement personnel
• Personal development
• Général

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 25 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669365143
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Peter A. Levine & Gabor Mate's In an Unspoken Voice
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

We are all susceptible to the effects of trauma and loss. They can strike us down in a fraction of a second, and we can be utterly devastated. We become hopelessly frozen by terror and helplessness.

#2

I was hit by a car while crossing the street. I was sent flying, and when I came to, I was lying on the road, unable to move or breathe. I was terrified that I had a broken neck. I was confused and unable to think clearly. I needed someone to hold onto.

#3

I am rushed to the hospital, and as I am being stretchered into the emergency room, I hear a garbled radio communication requesting a full trauma team. My heart sinks. I am afraid that my injuries may require the major trauma center in La Jolla, some thirty miles away.

#4

I feel a strong tension developing from the spine in my upper back. I sense my right arm wanting to extend outward, and I see a momentary flash. The black asphalt rushes toward me, and my hand slapping the pavement feels like a raw burning sensation. I feel tremendous relief, along with a deep sense of gratitude that my body did not betray me.

#5

The ability to bounce back from trauma is important, as it can help us recover faster and avoid PTSD. The small protective spontaneous movements we make after a traumatic event can help us bounce back faster, as they allow us to continue the defensive and orienting responses.

#6

The healing approach that I present in this book helps clients develop an awareness and mastery of their physical sensations and feelings. It is based on the theory that humans have always tried to cope with powerful and terrifying feelings by doing things that contradict their perceptions of fear and helplessness.

#7

I have drawn upon findings in the neurosciences to explain how our nervous system has evolved a hierarchical structure, how these hierarchies interact, and how the more advanced systems shut down in the face of overwhelming threat.

#8

The capacity for self-regulation is what allows us to handle our own states of arousal and difficult emotions, thus providing the basis for the balance between authentic autonomy and healthy social engagement.

#9

The paramedic’s readout of my heart rate indicated that my body was ready to take evasive action, which is how I survived my accident. If my body had not been prepared for action, I could have developed posttraumatic stress disorder.

#10

Our ability to self-regulate is what allows us to survive beyond the brutal grip of anxiety, panic, night terrors, depression, and physical symptoms that are the hallmarks of prolonged stress and trauma.

#11

The shaking and trembling I experienced while lying on the ground and in the ambulance are a core part of the innate process that helped me recover from trauma. They are mechanisms that help us restore our equilibrium after we have been threatened or highly aroused.

#12

When we are able to live through states of high arousal, we are able to maintain equilibrium and sanity. When we are unable to do so, we are more likely to be traumatized.

#13

The stress response is a complex system that varies from person to person. It can be activated in different ways, and it can vary in its intensity. It can range from shaking to trembling to the restoration of biological defensive and orienting responses.

#14

The right way to wholeness is made up of fateful detours and wrong turnings. The experience of being touched by the revelation of love or scientific discovery is among the greatest and most wondrous blessings of being alive.

#15

I began to teach Nancy how to become aware of and then release her chronically tense neck and shoulder muscles. She appeared to be relaxing deeply, but moments later she became intensely agitated. Her heart began beating wildly, and she seemed to be paralyzed.

#16

The session turned Nancy’s life around. Her symptoms improved significantly, and some disappeared altogether. The panic attack that occurred during the session was her last.

#17

When any organism perceives overwhelming mortal danger, its body goes into paralysis and shutdown. This is called innate response tonic immobility. Humans experience this frozen state as helpless terror and panic.

#18

Humans are different from animals in that they frequently remain stuck in a sort of limbo after experiencing overwhelming terror or horror. They also have a tendency to freeze in situations where a non-traumatized individual might only feel danger or even excitement.

#19

I realized that, if not for trusting my gut instincts and a little bit of blind luck, I might have inadvertently retraumatized Nancy, leading to a worsening of her already severe symptoms. I also learned that the shaking and trembling, which constitute the discharge reactions, are often so subtle that they are barely noticeable to an outside observer.

#20

I was fascinated by the broadly observed phenomenon of animal paralysis, and spent countless hours in the musty, dusty stacks of the Life Sciences graduate library. I was eventually able to talk to a Nobel Laureate about it, and he encouraged me to pursue this line of investigation.

#21

I was able to plant my observations on firmer ground in 1978, when I worked at the NASA Ames labs in Mountain View, California. I was able to find a paper that described how animal paralysis was evoked experimentally, with variables controlled. This gave me the key that allowed me to weave observations of my body-mind clients with an appreciation for how certain fear-based survival instincts shape trauma.

#22

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, is the book that psychologists and psychiatrists use to diagnose mental disorders. The previous versions of the PTSD diagnosis have been careful not to suggest a mechanism (or even a theory) to explain what happens in the brain and body when people become traumatized.

#23

Trauma is something that can also happen in the body. It can be paralyzing fright, or it can be the bereft feeling of losing your way in the world and being severed from your very soul.

#24

After World War I, combat trauma was renamed shell shock. This blunt term almost sounds like the maddening explosions of shells, which shatter the stunned and trapped men into shaking, urinating, and defecating uncontrollably in the cold, wet trenches.

#25

The current terminology, derived from the experiences of the Vietnam War, is posttraumatic stress disorder. While this provides objective scientific legitimacy to the soldiers’ suffering, it also separates doctor from patient.

#26

In a common therapy, the therapist instructs the PTSD victim to assert control over his feelings, to manage his aberrant behaviors, and to alter his dysfunctional thoughts. However, in shamanic traditions, the healer and the sufferer join together to reexperience the terror while calling on cosmic forces to release the grip of the demons.

#27

The healing process has been hindered by a nomenclature and a paradigm that, in separating the healer from the wounded, has denied the universality of our responses to terror and horror.

#28

The Greek myth of Medusa describes the path of trauma, and how we must not confront it directly. If we do, then Medusa will turn us to stone. Instead, we must reflect her image with the shield of our body’s instinctual nature.

#29

The word trauma is a fact of life. It is possible to learn from mythology, clinical observations, neuroscience, and the behavior of animals, and then to harness those primordial and instinctive energies to move through trauma and transform it.

#30

We share with our proximal ancestors, the monkeys and apes, a heritability of predation anxiety. This destiny prompted one author to call primate existence, one continual nightmare of anxiety.

#31

We are troop animals, and we have a close kinship with other pack mammals. We live in family groups and tribes, join clubs, and rely on neighbors and friends. We also form political parties and identify with our national community.

#32

Our posture and facial muscles signal emotional states, not only to others, but to ourselves. We must be able to resonate with the same emotions as those around us in order to communicate.

#33

The brain of an observer reacts more strongly to the body language of a person in a posture of fear than it does even to a fearful facial expression. We are particularly affected by the serenity, compassion, and profound quiet of people like Nelson Mandela, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Dalai Lama, or a loving mother peacefully nursing her infant.

#34

The body is extremely important when it comes to understanding the post-trauma client. The posture, gestures, and facial expressions of people tell the story of what happened and what did not happen when they were threatened or overwhelmed.

#35

The therapist must strike a balance between mirroring the client’s distress enough for them to learn about the client’s sensations, but not so much that they increase the client’s level of fear as in contagion panic.

#36

The Serengeti is an example of how our nervous systems are constantly on alert. When we hear a twig snap, our brains instantly go into fear paralysis, a state in which we are not pretending to be dead, but actually are.

#37

The human immobility response to threat is the third instinctual response, and it occurs when we are intensely frightened and are either physically restrained or perceive that we are trapped. We freeze in paralysis and/or collapse in overwhelming helplessness.