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skizzik
USA
783 Posts |
 Posted - 07/19/2008 : 12:57:29
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I read "Waking the Tiger" by Peter A. Levine last week.
Flybynight reccomended it in the "do fish have TMS thread."
Anyways, now I see where all his "reptilian brain" talk came from. Very interesting.
How can a baby antelope be chased by a lion and succumb to a painless death w/ the freeze response after a failed escape, be dragged off to the cubs, only to "come to" in a moment of distraction from the lion and run away only to join it's own herd minutes later w/ no symptoms of repressed emotions like humans would have?
The answer is in a natural "shake off" of energy post trauma where the animal then is perfectly normal. Thanx to the development of the neo-cortex in humans, we have successfully repressed this "shake off" response w/ the concious emotion to appear like we got it together, or like we have a thick skin.
Wallah, repressed energy equals symptoms.
The symptoms he includes are CFS, insomnia, headaches, back and neck problems, asthma etc...pretty much everything we consider TMS or it's equivalents.
He's the developer of SRT or SE therapy that combined w/ Sarno theory cured "delightenment" of his RSI (see success stories).
His passion is healing those who have gone through trauma. Theres a lot of parallels w/ what he has found from treating thousands to what is being discussed here.
It's his contention that just as there is a "fight or flight" reaction in animals, so to is there an equal and just as powerful "freeze" reaction.
It's this "freeze" reaction an animal of prey will get when it sees theres no way out but imminent death and will provide total natural anesthesia for a painless death (thanx mother nature).
The freeze reaction occurs when our mind in milliseconds will scan for memories during the happening of a trauma in order to deal w/ the trauma at hand. If no memories are there to help, then we freeze as opposed to fight or flight.
The kicker is that w/ the freeze, the nervous system is in just a whirlwind of acivity as it would be if you were to fight or run. Once the trauma is over, the energy is stored in humans. Where as in animals it's shaken off.
Therefore, if you had a traumatic child hood, you've got lots of stored energy. Negative that is.
Heres the interesting part. The natural healing part of the brain will then lead you to re-create situations where your'e again the "victim" over and over in your life. Why? because it's constantly looking for an empowering conclusion as a survival memory to store because it is'nt satisfied w/ whats missing in it's files.
This would explain why some abused girls seek out abusive husbands subconciously.
Also was an example of raped women who would seek out their predators and kill them. They were then found guilty of malicious intent, but unbeknownst to them (judge and jury), it was'nt revenge as the motive, but rather the brains quest for survival to eliminate the danger from the trauma. It had to complete the "file" so they would know what response to jump to (flight or fight) in the event of a future trauma. The urge was overwhelming. He's implying that w/ the energy discharged or "renegotiated" that the urge would not have been there and normal justice could've taken place.
So, I found this to be interesting on page 218, where he's implying that when symptoms occur they can take on a life of their own and perpetuate themselves:
The process of healing begins from within. Even before the cast is set on our broken bones, our bones begin to knit themselves back together. Just as there are physical laws that effect healing of our bodies, there are laws that affect the healing of our minds. We have seen how our intellects can override some powerful instinctual forces of our organisms.
Sometimes, traumatized individuals have an invesment in being ill and may form a kind of attatchment to the sympotms. There are innumerable reasons (both physiological and psychological) to explain why this attachemnt occurs. I dont think it is necessary to go into detail on this subject. The important thinkg to keep in mind is that we can only heal to the degree that we can become unattached from these symptoms. It is almost as if they become entities unto themselves through the power we give them. We need to release them from our minds and hearts along with the energy that is locked in our nervous systems
He also goes on to say or implies that when this energy is not discharged properly (because the nervous system in humans does not know how to discharge it if we went into freeze response) the brain then makes physical symptoms to contain the energy.
And....get this....he says there is no perfect pattern that we can figure out what symptoms humans will get, other than, drumroll please..... it will choose the most convincing symptoms to our psyche to keep this energy trapped because humans are uncomfortable in "shake off mode"
"Distaction theory" anyone?????
Your back is bothering you a bit, you go get an mri, and now you gotta "back problem" and the psyche can now really do you a favor and send all that pain there for sure, and you don't have to worry about discharging trauma energy in front of anyone or by yourself. (my words)
This must be what happened to that woman who sarno says went crazy w/ emotions after realizing the trauma of her sexual abuse and her pain left immediately, and it only happened once. This Peter Levine sees it a lot apparently. And it heals.
Well, kinda. This is where I'm a bit confused. I understand now that there must be stored emotional energy being repressed w/ pain in my body. But Levine is against "cathartic" therapy, that which is simply re-visiting the trauma.
My experience has taught me that many of the currently popular approaches to healing the trauma provide only temporary relief at best. Some cathartic methods that encourage intense emotional reliving of trauma may be harmful. I believe that in the long run cathartic approaches create a dependency on continuing catharsis. Because of the nature of trauma, there is a good chance that the cathartic reliving of an experience can be traumatizing rather than healing.
So now what?
He talks about "renegotiation". This is where a formerly abused child as an adult will tell the story of his/her trauma w/ out the need for exact detail. Just let if flow. Relax, what do you see. The patient will then tell details of the attacker, but then throw in soothing details of the sight of a teddy bear, or the feeling of playing in the leaves.
This is the "healing vortex" that the brain is developing to discharge the negative energy. W/ out strict rules, the brain can re-create the trauma so as to create a new "file".
There's an example of a young anxiety ridden eskimo, who was attacked by some wolves as a child and had his new polar bear fur pants made by his mother shredded up. In his village it was an honor to have polar bear pants and be able to be like the hunters.
When his father saw the pants, he scoffed at him and walked away. The young boy was now traumatized for life. And developed anxiety symptoms when in the presence of alpha males in his community but did'nt know why.
In SRT or SE therapy, he felt the trauma over again, but not to strict detail. He told of the attack, but this time he ran, as he did his legs shook (in therapy you need a calm nervous system as the therapist to guide the person through the renegotiation because it can be dangerous to do it alone), he reached for a weapon and killed the wolves. He then killed a polar bear in front of the other hunters and his father was proud of him.
He thereby "completed the file" and discharged the energy. Follow up on the eskimo revealed he no longer suffered from anxiety symptoms.
So,,interesting stuff. Thought I'd share.
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Edited by - skizzik on 07/23/2008 05:57:34 |
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head2toe
United Kingdom
37 Posts |
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Wavy Soul
USA
779 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2008 : 23:42:24
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Thanks Skizzik for this excellent and informative summary.
I have always loved Peter Levine's work, but I was surprised how much I learned from what you excerpted.
In fact this quote is so powerful for me and perhaps for many of us TMS types that I'm going to re-paste it:
"The important thinkg to keep in mind is that we can only heal to the degree that we can become unattached from these symptoms. It is almost as if they become entities unto themselves through the power we give them. We need to release them from our minds and hearts along with the energy that is locked in our nervous systems "
Love is the answer, whatever the question |
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Capn Spanky
112 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2008 : 09:31:42
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| Wow, very interesting stuff skizzik! |
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skizzik
USA
783 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2008 : 09:26:47
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Thanx, glad u got somthin out of it.
I'm beginning to wonder something after reading this book.
mizlorinj says that when she journals (the pathway method I believe) she goes thru her feelings but no matter what always ends on a positive note.
Dr. Schubiner's course includes a positive statement at the end of the essays you wrote. And in week one you write out your stressors past and present (30 or so), and you write out the negative. But in a later week you write out a positive on the stressor no matter how hard it is to do. He says it's important to do this.
I could'nt figure out for the life of me how this could help. I thought it was just about unloading the rage. But perhaps this has a "complete the file" component to it.
That would explain why journaling your crap out over and over again leads to nowhere. The animal brain in you simply needs to be satisfied that it learned from a trauma or mistake, and then it can move on. |
Edited by - skizzik on 07/24/2008 04:28:51 |
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delightenment
USA
7 Posts |
Posted - 07/28/2009 : 14:29:21
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| Hi-- Just wanted to say that skizzik is right on - Peter Levine's work is a lot like what I went through in my success story. Definitely urge anyone on this site to consider finding a practitioner of SE or SRT. Going to post more in a new thread. |
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pan
United Kingdom
173 Posts |
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crk
124 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2009 : 16:04:52
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Hi Skizzik,
I think I got more from your synopsis than I did when I read the book through (about a year ago). Maybe seeing it through your insights and TMS perspective was what helped. Thanks so much for taking the time to post so thoroughly.
The positive vs. negative thinking and the rage/sooth ratio both seem to fit well into what you wrote. |
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skizzik
USA
783 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2009 : 18:44:29
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quote:
Originally posted by delightenment
Hi-- Just wanted to say that skizzik is right on - Peter Levine's work is a lot like what I went through in my success story. Definitely urge anyone on this site to consider finding a practitioner of SE or SRT. Going to post more in a new thread.
wow, strong bump of a thread from last year, looking forward to your success story.
At the time I was very interested in finding an SE or SRT therapist, and talked to a couple on the phone, but could find nothing close to me.
quote:
Originally posted by pan
I think Tolle's idea of the duck with the human mind is similar to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSEp15DVHBk
thats right on actually, good find. It reminds me of the "be the fish" saying that went on around here due to this thread:
http://www.tmshelp.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=175&SearchTerms=can,a,fish,get,tms?
only this time to beat TMS we should "be the duck"!
Tolle's funny observation that the duck shakes it off, and in no way continues the drama w/ the other ducks is hysterical.
quote:
Originally posted by crk
Hi Skizzik,
I think I got more from your synopsis than I did when I read the book through (about a year ago). Maybe seeing it through your insights and TMS perspective was what helped. Thanks so much for taking the time to post so thoroughly.
The positive vs. negative thinking and the rage/sooth ratio both seem to fit well into what you wrote.
hey, your'e welcome. 
I mean thank you for thanking me
I mean.....hmmm what the hell is a recovering people pleaser supposed to say here? lol
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Waking the Tiger
