Product Description

Nature's Lessons in Healing Trauma...

Waking the Tiger offers a new and hopeful vision of trauma. It views the human animal as a unique being, endowed with an instinctual capacity. It asks and answers an intriguing question: why are animals in the wild, though threatened routinely, rarely traumatized? By understanding the dynamics that make wild animals virtually immune to traumatic symptoms, the mystery of human trauma is revealed.

Waking the Tiger normalizes the symptoms of trauma and the steps needed to heal them. People are often traumatized by seemingly ordinary experiences. The reader is taken on a guided tour of the subtle, yet powerful impulses that govern our responses to overwhelming life events. To do this, it employs a series of exercises that help us focus on bodily sensations. Through heightened awareness of these sensations trauma can be healed.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3143 in Books
• Published on: 1997-07-07
• Released on: 1997-07-07
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 250 pages

Review
"Every life contains difficulties we are not prepared for. Read, learn, and be prepared for life and healing."
- Bernard S. Siegal, M.D., Author of Love, Medicine & Miracles and Peace, Love, and Healing

"Fascinating! Amazing! A revolutionary exploration of the effects and causes of trauma."
-Mira Rothenberg, Director Emeritus of Blueberry Treatment Centers for Disturbed Children, Author of Children With Emerald Eyes

"It is a most important book. Quite possibly a work of genius."
-Ron Kurtz, Author of Body Reveals and Body-Centered Psychotherapy

"Levine effectively argues that the body is healer and that psychological scars of trauma are reversible -- but only if we listen to the voices of our body."
-Stephen W. Porges, Ph.D., Professor of Human Development and Psychology, University of Maryland

"A vital contribution to the exciting emerging science of mind/body interaction in the treatment of disease."
-Robert C. Scaer, M.D., Neurology, Medical Director, Rehabilitation Services, Boulder Community Hospital

About the Author
Peter Levine, Ph.D. is the originator and developer of Somatic Experiencing® and the Director of the Foundation for Human Enrichment. He holds doctorate degrees in both Medical Biophysics and Psychology. During his thirty year study of stress and trauma, Dr. Levine has contributed to a variety of scientific, medical, and popular publications. His book, Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma is in its fifth printing and receiving wide international attention. Peter was a consultant for NASA during the development of the Space Shuttle, and has taught at hospitals and pain clinics in both Europe and the U.S., as well as at the Hopi Guidance Center in Arizona. He lives near Lyons, Colorado, on the banks of the St. Vrain River.

Customer Reviews

waking the tiger
Great book, best not to read it in one sitting as I found it "woke my tigers" all at once, which the book says can happen.I did seek help as book suggests.Well worth it all.

A Disappointing Book
The fact that the body remembers the psychological injuries inflicted on the mind is not new. What I found very disappointing and almost incredible is the fact that the author draws up a list of possible abuses and puts at the same level the trauma of a painful surgery and the emotional or/and sexual abuse of a child mistreated by her parents for years. The book is simplistic and first of all sends the wrong message to people who carries deep emotional wounds. It is close to the superficial self-help books that claim that they can solve your problems once and for all. This must be untrue given the huge number of books of this kind, all of them promising what they do not deliver. And the reader who needs serious help keeps buying the latest "secret" book that holds all the answers to your problems.

Review
On the positive side, I think the author had a few good things to tell those of us who struggle w/ trauma, which I noted at the side of each page, i.e., facts about the numbers of people living w/ trauma & the struggle we have w/ folks who haven't been traumatized but urge you to get on w/ your life, etc. On the negative side, if you start at the wrong place you will arrive there every time. I choose not to believe I have a reptilian brain, that I am a human animal or that I am a product of chance or evolution. That was insulting, but predictable. I believe that trauma has meaning, even if I never discover what it is. If it doesn't serve some purpose then life is meaningless, truly. If we are all basically animals, why be moral? He believes that most of our problems in the world are due to unresolved trauma. That's the blind leading the blind. How do I, as an organism, trust what he's saying is true? This book raises more issues for me than it solves, not only because of its starting point, but also because of how blatantly absurd it is in that it does not conform to real reality even if there are similarities in the animal world. I wasn't helped by this gibberish.