AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF TRAUMA

The developer of somatic experiencing examines the series of events in his life that led to his understanding of trauma and healing.

Levine, a psychotherapist, declares the purpose of his memoir as twofold: to help others overcome their traumas and to finally be able to fully let go of his own. Throughout the narrative, the author explains how all of the significant moments of his life have led to his position as the “prophet” of somatic experiencing, a practice Levine describes as an “evolving healing method… named for the experience of the sensing, living body.” The practice is not, he states, an “exclusively formulaic or a codified protocol, but rather an unfolding organic process that involves basic principles and building blocks.” As such, it is difficult to teach and to study. Still, the author’s students have trained over 60,000 people to treat patients using the method. Levine connects the many traumatic aspects of his life, including physical and emotional abuse he experienced from his parents, to his discovery of precepts from Navajo and Buddhist traditions that he adapted to his work. (The book helpfully begins with a trigger warning, as Levine discusses personal trauma including sexual assault.) The writing is strongest in the connections the author makes between the physical and spiritual realms; Levine recalls a trip to Germany during which he experienced a vision of “red flowing down” on a certain street, only to find out later that it was the site of student revolutionaries’ executions during the Nazi regime. While the memoir’s narrative sections are strong, occasionally the transitions between ideas are less so, as when the author jumps from the story about Germany to an account of confronting his own racial biases. While the various segments are compelling and insightful, the connections between them could have been made clearer.

A personal and revealing (if slightly scattered) memoir from a trailblazing therapist.