Latest / The Trauma Therapist / From the archives: Peter Levine, PhD (Part 1 of 2)

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From the archives: Peter Levine, PhD (Part 1 of 2) · The Trauma Therapist

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  Speaker 1: Today we even another episode from the archives with one
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  Speaker 1: of my incredible guests. Enjoy. Welcome to the Trauma Thephists podcast,
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  Speaker 1: a show about the incredible people dedicated to helping those
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  Speaker 1: of experienced trauma. My name is Got McPherson, and my
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  Speaker 1: mission is to raise awareness of trauma and to inspire
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  Speaker 1: each of us to help those around us. All right,
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Gay McPherson,
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  Speaker 1: and this is the podcast where we interview master trauma
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  Speaker 1: therapists from all over the world to learn about what
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  Speaker 1: inspires them and the steps they've taken to become masters
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  Speaker 1: in their field. If you're a trauma therapist, if you're
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  Speaker 1: interested in trauma therapy, or if you're simply interested in
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  Speaker 1: helping other people, this is it today. I'm so excited
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  Speaker 1: to introduce my guests, doctor Peter Levine. Peter, are you
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  Speaker 1: ready to go?
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  Speaker 2: Ready? All right?
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  Speaker 1: So, Peter Levine is your originator and developer of Somatic
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  Speaker 1: Experiencing and the director of the Somatic Experiencing Institute. Peter
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  Speaker 1: holds doctor degrees in medical biophysics and in psychology, and
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  Speaker 1: during this thirty five year study of stress and trauma,
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  Speaker 1: He's been stressed consultant for NASA in the development of
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  Speaker 1: the first space shuttle, as well as a member of
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  Speaker 1: the Institute of World Affairs Task Force with Psychologists for
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  Speaker 1: Social Responsibility. Additionally, he served on the AP Initiative for
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  Speaker 1: Response to Large Scale Disaster and ethno Political Warfare. Peter
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  Speaker 1: is of course, author of the best selling book Waking
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  Speaker 1: the Tiger Healing Trauma, as well as four audio learning
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  Speaker 1: series for Sounds True. All right, Peter, just a a
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  Speaker 1: little bit about you, But take a moment share with
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  Speaker 1: us something personal about you, you know, perhaps where you're from,
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  Speaker 1: where you're calling from, and then we will dive in.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, at the moment, since I'm looking out the window
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  Speaker 3: and I see the ocean, it means I must be
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  Speaker 3: in California and in Nsanitis. Because of the classes I do,
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  Speaker 3: postgraduate classes I do for our training program, I'm in
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  Speaker 3: Europe a fair amount of the time, in South America,
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  Speaker 3: particularly Brazil, and in Europe.
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  Speaker 2: So this is this is my downtime and the time
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  Speaker 2: I used to.
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  Speaker 3: Hopefully to complete another book that I'm working on, kind
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  Speaker 3: of a book that follows in the footsteps of of
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  Speaker 3: in an unspoken voice about trauma and memory. So I
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  Speaker 3: you know, if you asked me about my interest in
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  Speaker 3: you didn't exactly ask me about my passion.
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  Speaker 2: So let me throw it in. Well, a couple of things.
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  Speaker 2: One time I was.
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  Speaker 3: Doing a TV interview and the interviewer asked me, well,
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  Speaker 3: how come how is it that you've studied trauma for
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  Speaker 3: actually at that time it was about thirty five years
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  Speaker 3: now it's more like forty five. And don't you you know,
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  Speaker 3: don't you get burned out? You know, how is it
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  Speaker 3: you came to study trauma? And I saw it, you know,
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  Speaker 3: for a while, and I couldn't think of anything. And
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  Speaker 3: you can imagine on live TV and live TV that's
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  Speaker 3: not something that you do, you don't think.
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  Speaker 2: So I could see the people in the control.
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  Speaker 3: Room waving their hands, gesticulating wildly, you know, telling me
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  Speaker 3: to basically to talk, and I knew the worst thing
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  Speaker 3: I could do is to talk. I really just needed
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  Speaker 3: to follow this through. And finally I, ah, it came
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  Speaker 3: and I said, you know, I think really the truth
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  Speaker 3: is that.
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  Speaker 2: Trauma invented me to study it.
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  Speaker 3: And I think that's probably in a way why most many,
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  Speaker 3: if not most of us find our way into the
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  Speaker 3: field of therapy because you know, researches, researches, always research, researches, research,
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  Speaker 3: And first initially that's for sure.
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  Speaker 2: And then theoretically I retire.
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  Speaker 3: Theoretically I retired a few years ago, but when I
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  Speaker 3: actually look objectively at what I'm doing year by year,
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  Speaker 3: it seems to have like almost doubled.
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  Speaker 2: In every year.
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  Speaker 3: Since the year where I theoretically retired. But I realized
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  Speaker 3: what I'm doing now is what I'm most passionate about,
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  Speaker 3: and it's you know, the different directions that I've been
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  Speaker 3: going in. For example, one thing that came out of
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  Speaker 3: the work in developing somatic experiencing is that people.
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  Speaker 2: Who who.
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  Speaker 3: Get the diagnosis or trauma PTSD, it's really a very
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  Speaker 3: narrow diagnosis. There's a specific set of symptoms including intrusion,
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  Speaker 3: hyper vigilance, insomnia, and so forth. But I found that
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  Speaker 3: the great majority of people who were suffering from the
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  Speaker 3: aftermath of trauma had rather problems with depression and somatic complaints.
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  Speaker 3: Very often the people who would be going from doctor
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  Speaker 3: to doctor with complaints like midrange hoybromyalge iconic fatigue or
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  Speaker 3: double bowel, urinary problems and so forth, that these were
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  Speaker 3: somanization symptoms that were also related to prolonged stress or
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  Speaker 3: single impacts relatively simple impact. Stress is added to the
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  Speaker 3: stress of the life of development, and that people with
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  Speaker 3: these symptoms we really had underlying trauma. Indeed, one of
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  Speaker 3: the person.
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  Speaker 2: That I'm going to be being meeting with, I think
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  Speaker 2: in a few.
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  Speaker 3: Weeks, Vincent Filetti did a study equally a ACE study,
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  Speaker 3: the Adverse Childhood Experienced Study.
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  Speaker 2: And they they marked how many.
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  Speaker 3: Particular and stressful events a person had, and no, surprisingly
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  Speaker 3: it correlated very highly, you know, like almost a complete
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  Speaker 3: correlation with anxiety, depressions, suicidality, and so forth. But also
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  Speaker 3: that these people suffered from a whole spect highly more
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  Speaker 3: highly uh suffered too with health problems such as diabetes,
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  Speaker 3: heart disease, run disease, and so forth. So really it
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  Speaker 3: turns out that trauma is really at the root of most,
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  Speaker 3: really most medical problems, not directly indirectly. So I've been
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  Speaker 3: involved in trying to set programs that people with these
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  Speaker 3: symptoms could come into a web based format and be
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  Speaker 3: able to get some help with resolving some of these symptoms.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love, I love what you're saying. I mean
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  Speaker 1: you're just laying it out as you're speaking. I'm just
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  Speaker 1: thinking about so many things and all the all the
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  Speaker 1: you know, the books you have, and the website websites
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  Speaker 1: plural that you have, all of us. I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: link up in the show notes page. But and I
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  Speaker 1: am going to ask you about what what got you
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  Speaker 1: into this, Peter. But before let's kind of move, let's
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  Speaker 1: kind of transition into the first topic here, which which
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  Speaker 1: is the quote or the mantra? You know, this podcast
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  Speaker 1: is about trauma therapists and really getting to know you
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  Speaker 1: and what's inspired you really with the goal of inspiring
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  Speaker 1: other trauma clinicians. So share with us, if you will,
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  Speaker 1: a mantra, a quote, something that's kind of driven you
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  Speaker 1: in the work that you do.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, how about this, Trauma is a fact of life.
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  Speaker 2: But it doesn't have to be a life sentence. But
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  Speaker 2: it's even more than that.
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  Speaker 3: When we meet trauma and transform trauma, different portals.
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  Speaker 2: Are opened up that probably never would have been.
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  Speaker 3: Opened up had a person not experienced the trauma and
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  Speaker 3: dealt with it.
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  Speaker 2: I have been able to transform it. So I think
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  Speaker 2: that the.
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  Speaker 3: Shortest sentence would be trauma is a fact of life.
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  Speaker 3: We all experienced trauma, that it does not have to
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  Speaker 3: be a life sentence. Is there a way to move
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  Speaker 3: through trauma, even the worst trauma? Actually, it's one thing
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  Speaker 3: you might want to link to is.
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  Speaker 2: A video that was.
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  Speaker 3: Made by a documentary filmmaker about work I did with
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  Speaker 3: an Iraq Afghanistan marine who was blown up by two
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  Speaker 3: IEDs and so if it's severe symptoms of PTSD, traumatic
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  Speaker 3: brain injury, chronic pain, depression and so forth, and you
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  Speaker 3: really see how he transforms this trauma and.
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  Speaker 2: How he and his family heal together.
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  Speaker 3: You know, I think I was very fortunate when I
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  Speaker 3: first started developing this work was in the late sixties
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  Speaker 3: and early mid seventies, and at that time there was
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  Speaker 3: no definition of PTSD the way it is now in
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  Speaker 3: the DSM, the Diagnostic Statistical Manuals.
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  Speaker 2: So I fortunately was not privy to the common wisdom
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  Speaker 2: of the time that trauma was.
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  Speaker 3: A life sentence, that once you got trauma, it was
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  Speaker 3: a brain disease and you had it forever the rest
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  Speaker 3: of your life, and the best you could do would
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  Speaker 3: be learned to manage it or somehow to control your thoughts,
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  Speaker 3: to control your emotions, your anger, and so forth.
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  Speaker 2: So I was able to start with a clean slight
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  Speaker 2: as it were.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so that was I think that was very fortunate.
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  Speaker 1: So trauma is a fact of life, but it doesn't
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  Speaker 1: have to be a life sentence. When I mean, you
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  Speaker 1: talked about you know when you when you were doing
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  Speaker 1: this work in the sixties, and at that time, PTSD
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  Speaker 1: wasn't even a diagnosis per se. But why that quote
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  Speaker 1: and when when did that quote become resonant for you?
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  Speaker 2: Gosh?
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  Speaker 3: I think you know, I think probably ethic people would
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  Speaker 3: ask me, when you're traumatized, doesn't can you ever get
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  Speaker 3: over it? And again, most everybody has experienced some trauma,
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  Speaker 3: and you know, human beings, we are resilient creatures. One
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  Speaker 3: of the key actually in the beginning my work was
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  Speaker 3: in appreciating that animals in the wild, even though their
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  Speaker 3: lives are threatened on a routine basis, that they rarely
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  Speaker 3: if ever, and this is wilds, and the animals in
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  Speaker 3: the wild they.
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  Speaker 2: Really developed symptoms like PTSD.
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  Speaker 3: Now, animals easily if they're in the laboratory or even
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  Speaker 3: in the home environment, they can easily develop PTSD. But
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  Speaker 3: I mean, if animals were unable to shake off each predation,
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  Speaker 3: so when the rabbit escapes from the coyote, if it's
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  Speaker 3: more uptight, if.
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  Speaker 2: It doesn't, you know, want to go out of its burrow.
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  Speaker 3: And he said, well, I guess, say and you know,
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  Speaker 3: and eat the old parrots and dirt.
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  Speaker 2: I don't really need to know. Like a rabbit's.
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  Speaker 3: Version of a glorifolia, the animal wouldn't survived.
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  Speaker 2: To see wouldn't survive.
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  Speaker 3: So there had to be innate mechanisms that restore our
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  Speaker 3: nervous system, our brain, mind, and body back to equilibrium.
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  Speaker 2: And that was.
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  Speaker 3: A really important guiding principle because I realized that when
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  Speaker 3: I could help people learn, no unlearn what they had
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  Speaker 3: learned about being frightened of the very sensations body sensations
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  Speaker 3: that bring them back into equilibrium. When they were able
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  Speaker 3: to learn that and to get out of the way,
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  Speaker 3: then we were as resilient as any other animal. In
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  Speaker 3: some ways, maybe even more resilient, because we could enlist
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  Speaker 3: the thinking parts of our brain in our service. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 3: when people have become traumatized, that part also becomes the enemy,
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  Speaker 3: the thinking part, the judging part, the shaming part.
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  Speaker 2: So it was a concurrent study of the thought.
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  Speaker 3: I the study of animals and their natural environments and
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  Speaker 3: brain nerve physiology, because I realized at the time the
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  Speaker 3: parts of our nervous system, our brains that are involved
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  Speaker 3: in survival responses are the same for animals, for all mammals,
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  Speaker 3: for all the Maerland species, and so putting those together
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  Speaker 3: and the Nason field at the time of mind body healing,
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  Speaker 3: I was able to begin to get results.
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  Speaker 2: And again I wasn't necessarily surprised.
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  Speaker 3: I was to some degree surprised because again I didn't
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  Speaker 3: have the imprint that this.
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  Speaker 2: Was something that was not possible.
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  Speaker 3: It just seemed natural because again it's natural for the
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  Speaker 3: animals to shake off their encounters. Why wouldn't it not
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  Speaker 3: be natural for humans? And so I developed it. I
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  Speaker 3: thought of it as a naturalistic approach to the healing,
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  Speaker 3: to the resolution, to the transformation of traumatic symptoms, leading
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  Speaker 3: to greater resilience and slow Now, if an animal escapes predation,
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  Speaker 3: and there's a wonderful video I saw in television once
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  Speaker 3: Geographic National Geographic, where these three cheetah cubs are chased
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  Speaker 3: down by a lion and they climb a tree. In
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  Speaker 3: this gate, lionsman climb trees and serving out little.
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  Speaker 2: Branches, and so they were, you know, they were waiting there,
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  Speaker 2: and then when the when the lion.
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  Speaker 3: Left, they climbed down and each one took turns playing.
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  Speaker 3: It was obvious to me playing the role of the
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  Speaker 3: lion while the other two practice escaping.
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  Speaker 2: So in dar in selection that it's.
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  Speaker 3: If you escape, you get the gold metal, but there's
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  Speaker 3: no ronds or even silver, and so in each encounter,
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  Speaker 3: evolution really requires that we become more resilient, more capable.
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  Speaker 2: And again, this is one of the side effects that
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  Speaker 2: I discovered in.
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  Speaker 3: Trauma therapy is that people did after they did work
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  Speaker 3: on traumas that it happened to them that they became
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  Speaker 3: more resilient.
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  Speaker 2: Actually, indeed, that was.
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  Speaker 3: The motivation for writing one of the books I did
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  Speaker 3: with my colleague Magie Kline called Trauma Proofing Your Kids Parents,
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  Speaker 3: Guided for instilling confidence, joy, and resilience. What if we
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  Speaker 3: give these tools, we help children with these tools when
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  Speaker 3: they're very young, we reason they would develop into highly
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  Speaker 3: highly resilient and autonomous, are authentically autonomous adults, And indeed
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  Speaker 3: that that really does need to be the case. So
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  Speaker 3: I think we're talking more about resilience, about what's right
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  Speaker 3: with the person rather than just what's wrong. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: we have to understand psycho pathology. Of course you do
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  Speaker 3: have to understand that. Any therapist really has to understand that.
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  Speaker 3: But it's easy to get harked there or or fixated
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  Speaker 3: there and not seeing the tremendous capabilities that.
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  Speaker 2: We have as human animals, as human organisms. Yeah, I love.
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  Speaker 1: I love what you're uh, you know talking about here, Peter,
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  Speaker 1: And to hear you talk is just really inspiring because
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  Speaker 1: basically you're you're you're talking about, you know, how pro
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  Speaker 1: how the process of trauma kind of sets in, and
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  Speaker 1: in so doing we can hear how your work has
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  Speaker 1: evolved because you've understood that and because you were understanding that,
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  Speaker 1: And I think that's so inspiring. And of course this
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  Speaker 1: is really well laid out in your in your book, uh,
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  Speaker 1: Waking the Tiger, which I love.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you.
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  Speaker 1: So let's move on here. You know, this is about
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  Speaker 1: highlighting your journey to become a master trauma therapist. You know,
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  Speaker 1: people get into this field for a variety of reasons.
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  Speaker 1: I you know, often talk about my inspiration my brother
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  Speaker 1: coming back from IRAP with PTSD and Special Forces, and
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  Speaker 1: I just so wanted to you know, talk to him
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  Speaker 1: and find out what was going on. And I pushed
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  Speaker 1: him and pestered him, and of course did everything wrong.
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  Speaker 1: But share with us how and I'm reminded of you
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  Speaker 1: know when you were asked on TV. But but share
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  Speaker 1: with us, Peter, what got you into this field, the
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  Speaker 1: specialization of trauma in particular.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I mean I was again in the sixties.
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  Speaker 3: I was developing a mind body approach to deep relaxation.
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  Speaker 3: And in nineteen sixty nine there was a particular singular
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  Speaker 3: event that really helped me to crystallize this.
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  Speaker 2: And I was asked to see a woman.
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  Speaker 3: Her name was we shall call her Nancy, and she
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  Speaker 3: was referred by a psychiatrists who knew about my interest
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  Speaker 3: in mind body healing. And she was referred to him
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  Speaker 3: after she had gone to see a whole bunch of
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  Speaker 3: different doctors and.
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  Speaker 2: With little, little help. And this was what I was
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  Speaker 2: talking about at the beginning.
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  Speaker 3: She had migraine from amyalga, chronic fatigue, a little vowel,
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  Speaker 3: severe PMS, and so forth, And.
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  Speaker 2: So he reasoned and he tried.
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  Speaker 3: They were only at one I think at that time
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  Speaker 3: there were one or two antidepressants and.
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  Speaker 2: One anti anxiety drug.
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  Speaker 3: And so he prescribed them to her, and it really
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  Speaker 3: didn't make much difference so well, so he figured that
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  Speaker 3: maybe some relaxation. And also, not surprisingly, she suffered from
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  Speaker 3: severe panic attacks and agoraphobia, and she just basically couldnt
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  Speaker 3: leave the house without her without her husband.
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  Speaker 2: So so her husband brought her in.
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  Speaker 3: To see me, and I could see her at the
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  Speaker 3: beginning her by looking at her carorotic pulse that she
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  Speaker 3: was at her heartbeat with about one hundred and thirty
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  Speaker 3: hundred forty beats a minute. So I got her to
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  Speaker 3: begin to relax her neck muscle. This is something I
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  Speaker 3: had discovered that when I'd worked with people with high
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  Speaker 3: blood pressure, sometimes the blood pressure would go down as
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  Speaker 3: much as twenty points when I could teach them.
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  Speaker 2: How to relax their the muscles in their neck. Well,
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  Speaker 2: it seemed to be working for Nancy quite well.
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  Speaker 3: Her heart rate went down and down, and she looked
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  Speaker 3: more relaxed, less frantic, and then boom, it just out
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  Speaker 3: of blew shot up to about one hundred.
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  Speaker 2: And sixty deets a minute.
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  Speaker 3: And what do you think the stupidest thing I could
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  Speaker 3: possibly say, Well, I said it. I said, Nancy, you
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  Speaker 3: must relax. You need to relax, so, you know, the
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  Speaker 3: last resource of the resourceless. Well, anyhow, to my relief,
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  Speaker 3: her heart rate started going down and I could take
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  Speaker 3: a deep breath, and it went down and went down
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  Speaker 3: to ninety eighty seventy normal fund in sixty five, sixty
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  Speaker 3: fifty five, maybe even to fifty best, and she was
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  Speaker 3: just completely pale. Could see that she was having a
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  Speaker 3: panic attack basically, and she said, doctor, I'm dying.
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  Speaker 2: Don't let me die. Help me, help me, don't let
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  Speaker 2: me die.
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  Speaker 3: And even as I tell you that story that I
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  Speaker 3: was in nineteen sixty nine, I still get that little
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  Speaker 3: titans in my.
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  Speaker 2: Chest which expands very quickly, so concerned I'll be able
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  Speaker 2: to complete the interview.
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  Speaker 3: And without without thinking about it, because it came in
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  Speaker 3: the form of an image of a almost like a
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  Speaker 3: day dreaming image or almost time I loosenery, lootenery quality,
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  Speaker 3: I had the picture of a tiger crouched ready to spring,
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  Speaker 3: And without even really thinking why I said this.
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  Speaker 2: Of the later, of course, I realized, I.
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  Speaker 3: Said, Nancy, there's a tiger chasing you. Run, run, climb
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  Speaker 3: those rocks and escape, And to both of our astonishments,
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  Speaker 3: her legs started to shake and tremble, and they started
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  Speaker 3: to move as though she were running, and her hands
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: would sometimes become icy cold and then really warm. She
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: would her body would become just her face warm and
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: rosy colored, and then she would get cold and shake
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: some more, and then she would take some deep spontaneous grass.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: And it's not a voluntary thing, as I soon realized
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: that it was this.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: Combination of these spontaneous movements be shaking and trembling, and
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: then the spontaneous breathing movements which was critical in helping
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: to reset the nervous and recept her nervous system.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: Anyhow, this went.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: On for a period of almost forty five minutes, and
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: then she was just in Her color was just, you know,
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: the pink. Her face was completely relaxed. Her heartbeat was
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: about seventy two each a minute. She opened her eyes
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: and she looked at me and she said, do you
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: want to know what happened? And I said, yes, I do,
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: And then she recorded that when she was four years old,
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: she had undergone a tonsilectomy with ether, and she was
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: terrified and she tried to run to escape what happened,
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: and then the doctors and nurses held her down held
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: her legs down in her and her arms down while
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: they were holding.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: The suffocating mask on her face.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: And ether is also hallucinot in a substance, and it's
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: not a very good anesthetic actually, and especially with children,
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: it can be extremely terrifying.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: So what she her body had wanted to do.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: Twenty years ago, she was twenty four, was to escape
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: from this terra and of course she was unable to escape,
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: but that was laying in wait. It was coiled in
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: her body, waiting for when she had this safe moment
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: so when she could revisit that that terror, but instead
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: of succumbing to it, she was able to escape, just
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: the way that the cheetah cubs were escaping from the
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: from the lion that was that was praying on.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: So now.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: Her symptoms, that was that was the last anxiety attack,
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: chronic attack she had, woraphobia was she didn't even realize
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: that the next day she went out to get the
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: mail and her husband said, sweetheart, you just went out
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: to get the mail, and she said somebody had to
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: do it, and she said, I know, but you never
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: go out to get the mail.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: So you got the picture and we did a few.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: More sessions, and the physical symptoms were, you know, between
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: eighty and ninety or some even completely gone after a
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: few more sessions.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: But I realized that.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: In some way it was luck that I hadn't refraumatized her,
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: because I could have easily refraumatized her if that image
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: of the tiger hadn't come and I hadn't given her
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: the right instructions, you know. And so for years after that,
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: for really the decade of the seventies, I tried to
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: hone this approach to what I call titration, to bring
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: the person in contact very slowly with these peritraumatic sensations
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: and feelings, one small bit at a time.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: An illustration I give her this is if you take
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: hydrochloric acid, very strong acid, and sodium hydroxide caustic soda
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: LIE and you put them together. You take them and
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: you just put them together. When it happens, when you
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: get a tremendous explosion. But at the end of the explosion,
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: what you notice is that the final products are sald
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: and water. They've completely neutralized themselves, right, and broken down
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: into H two zero and an acl.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: I guess that's right. But the explosion if you were
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: doing this in.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: Your chemistry lab, you would have you know, injured or
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: killed yourself or other people because the explosion was so violent.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: So what I discovered was a way of doing this
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: one small amount of of time.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: So going back to this analogy from.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: Chemistry, So if you take the sodium hydroxide, and you know,
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: there's a device in chemistry called a stop cop Basically
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: it allows you to put one drop at a time,
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: one single drop of one substance into another. So you
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: have a beaker full of hydrocoric acid, and you put
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: one drop of the sodium hydroxide, the cough the sodium,
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: and you get a little little alpha celsic fizzle, and
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: then another, and then another and then another and I
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: don't know, and each time it's just a teeny little fizzle.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: Nothing happens that you notice. Let's say on the sixty
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: fourth pop time, the sixty fourth bubble, all of a
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: sudden you see salt crystals specificating up on the side
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: of the beaker of the vessel and water they perform.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: So again the idea is to just do this.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: One small amount at a time, so the person befriends
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: these previously traumatic sensations and can change them. You see,
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: trauma is a bad having feelings of collapse of frozenness
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: in our bodies, and we carry these sensations, these feelings
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: with us and in that sense, that's the way we
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: we carry the memory of our trauma.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: But it's not memory in the normal sense that.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: We think of when we are going to go to
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: the supermarket to buy to buy food and we have
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: a list of things in our mind that we need
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: to get. This is something that the body does that
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: happens in primitive purses of the brain that that well,
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: that just is not it's not it's not available to
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: normal waking consciousness. And when you're talking about trying to
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: get your brother to talk about what happened to him,
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: people who are traumatized can't do that.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: In a way.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: That's one of the symptoms of trauma is the inability
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: to put these events.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Back to the past where they belong.
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: Because they're constantly playing, replaying in the present. And my
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: calling Bessel vander Kop, you know, one of his early
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: research studies was to show that the parts in the brain,
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: specifically what's called brokers area, gets shut.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: Down when the when the brain is exhibiting trauma.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: So the person is unable to put into words that
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: which what that which? What happened to them? And the
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: more they try, the more frustrating it is. And when
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: in therapists try to get their clients to talk about
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: their traumas, which again seemed like a reasonable thing to do,
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: it's sort of like, and I guess, an extension of
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: Freud's hawking. Sure, but they get more and more frustrated
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: and finally break down into and ab react out of
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: the frustration, out of the fear and the rays that
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: they're unable to process. So that that's the key in
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: working with the body, because when you work with the body,
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: you help people who gain a gain bodily experiences that
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: contradict those of overwhelmed and helplessness and overload. So and
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: when this happens, then the person is no longer traumatized.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: It seems maybe too simple to be true, but it is.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: It's both simple and true. However, in reality, you know,
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: working with a traumatized person takes a lot of different skills,
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: takes a tremendous amount of the therapist's own capacity to
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: be present but also to have worked with their own traumas,
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: and in some ways, semantic experiencing has I would say
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: in greater roots, even in shamanic conditions, than it doesn't
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: in traditional psychological systems, because they're the shaman always has
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: to do his own confrontation with his or her darkness.
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: They have to deal with that which was completely overwhelming
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: to them, and to be a psychosist, it could be
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: an illness, but they had to deal with their own
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: trauma first before they were entrusted to work with the
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: traumas of their clients. And indeed, I've had the opportunity
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: to interview shamans throughout the world all shamanism that of
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: anybody I've ever talked about sees the primary cause of
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: all disease as trauma. They don't call it trauma, they
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: call it well for example in Portuguese and Spanish systems
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: and justus.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Which means fright paralysis are so lost.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: So as therapists, we don't use those primitive ideas. We
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: talked about association, but it's really I would say, it's
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: completely the same thing, but there's a lot of similarity.
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: And again, nobody would entrust themselves to a shaman who
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: hadn't done their own journey and learned from their own
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: journey so they could be fully present with a client.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: You know, I want to give you.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: One example that might be illustrating and also relating to
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: working with people who were, you know, soldiers during the
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: during the sixties and early seventies. I was fortunate because
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: I was in a medical scientific graduate program. I got
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: a deferment to not have to go to dynam But
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: a number of people I knew and friends did go.
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: Some didn't come back, some came back, but they were changed.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: They wanted the same, mostly for the for the bad,
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: but occasionally for the good. And I felt that I
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: owed because again this is I was in the process
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: of developing somatic experiencing them, and so I was invited
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: first to what these groups they had together, which are
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: called rap groups, and they trusted me enough to let
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: me offer my services promono one day a week in
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: my office in Berkeley. So the first the first Thursday,
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: one person came and we'll call him Bill, and he
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: came in and started by telling me the worst unbelievable
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: atrocities that he had committed, that he had been made
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: to commit. And I felt myself getting busy, feeling nauseous, lozy,
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: and I said, Bill, you know when you told me
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: about that, I felt I felt nauseous, I felt like
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: I was going to cute.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: I felt like I might faint. And it's not because
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: I was judging what you did.
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: I imagine I could have done the same thing if
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: I were.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: In your shoes.
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: But when it happened to me, I knew what to
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: do about it. I knew how I could feel it
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: in my body, and I had the tools to let
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: it move through. And I imagine that tools like that
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: could be helpful for you. And it was incredible relief.
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: He didn't have to tell me the story. He could.
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: He was he learned some of these tools, and he
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: was able to come back.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: To himself anyhow.
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: The next Thursday, there was a line around the entire
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: block in Berkeley, and I was there from nine am
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: to about midnight. And then finally I said, let's just
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: do a group and I invited that people to come
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: in group, and we work together in group, and again
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: you can We'll get you the link. My assistant, Justin
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: can get you the link if you want to connect
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: to the work with Ray, the marine who returned from
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: Iraq and Afghanistan to see how I mean again, this
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: is five sessions and some interviews put together in twenty minutes,
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: but it does give an idea of how much change
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: people make when they're able to changed the experience.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: In their bodies.
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: And I think that's the thing that's been so missing
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: in trauma therapy. And one of the things that was
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: really an important acknowledgement for me is that I think
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: there was In twenty twelve, I was awarded the Lifetime
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: Achievement for my work in trauma by the United States
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: Association of Body Psychotherapy, and I think that for the
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: first time in a way, I realized, thank god, I
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: really did something here, I really left the world in
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: a better way. And the tools that therapists and individuals
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: can use to not only transform trauma, but to live
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: more vibrant lives. So anyhow, this because so much emphasis
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: in the past has been on talk or has been
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: on repeated to tharsis.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: You know, one of the travel and treatments for.
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: Military PTSD is what's called prolonged exposure, and people are
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: made to relive the most traumatic moments over and over
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: and over again, and in my opinion, that's probably the
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: worst thing you could do. With the traumatized person. Now,
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: in all fairness, some people did find this helpful to
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: some degree, but these were people who had a relatively
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: single trauma. But most people don't have a relatively sense
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: of the trauma. They may have that, but they have
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: other traumas and other early stressors that have affected their lives.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: And children them so forth.
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: So anyhow, I'm not sure I'm going with this to
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: say that the two polarities are trying to talk about
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: it and trying to control old one thoughts or just
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: mindlessly going and reliving it over and over again, are
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: both equally dysfunctional polarities. I noticed some people are going
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: to be angry at me for saying this, but I
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: really believe that.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: And you know, a person who.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: I really developed a relationship over decades is a person
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: who's who comes not from the field of body psyco
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: therapy or body therapy that comes from research.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: And he was also a commission in the DA Round
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: the same time.
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: That I was working with the best and he was
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: one of the few people you know, relatively early in
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: his career who also realized that the body is what's
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: absolutely essential in changing traumatic experiences.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: And he wrote a paper at that time in a
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: book called The Body Keeps the Score. And very very
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: dear friend of mine.
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: A neurologist and in Volder, who brought ess into the
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: entire rehab program at the at the hospital, he.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: Wrote a book called The Body Bears the Burden.
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: So again, this theme that stresses affects the organism, it extracts,
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: it affects mind and bodies, motions, spirit, soul, And that
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: to really heal trauma we have to work holistically. And
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: again in you know, in an in an unspoken voice,
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: I try to really outline exactly how therapists can work
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: with these kinds of with these kinds of trauma.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: And of course it.
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: Always hope that the therapists will at least take the
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: beginning level of our training program to learn some basic
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: skills on how you interweed the body with whatever practice,
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: even if it's cognitive behavior practice, A lot can be
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: expanded if people who are CBT therapists learn some of
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: these body tools. Their their results have been at least
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: the ones that I've known, have been tremendously expanded.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Peter, you are just giving us a mini workshop
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: here already in trauma and the work you do. I mean,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: it's amazing your your story about you know that that
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: client that you're calling Nancy was just phenomenal. H