Stats for nerds
2recommend
3mentions
3people
2018–2023years
67% recommend33% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I too found the book extremely helpful and informative. A therapist I know recommended a companion book by Peter Levine called Healing Trauma (ISBN: 9781591796589), also available on YT as an audio book. It uses mental imagery as a way of relieving the symptons of trauma without having to relive the actual event(s). Although some of the imagery exercises are sometimes brutal/exhausting it seems the basic under laying theory of the book is using a form of exposure therapy reduces the impacts of flashbacks to the point of ripples in a stream of consciousness rather than the usual roaring tidal wave. YMMV.
- This is a difficult topic to write and talk about.
But rather than a religious approach, I think it's best to talk about this from a psychology of trauma approach. In In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness by Peter A. Levine, the author describes the mindset that exacerbates suffering and also the mindset that leads to faster healing.
> trauma is neither a disease nor a disorder, but rather an injury caused by fright, helplessness and loss that can be healed by engaging our innate capacity to self-regulate high states of arousal and intense emotions.
There's some kind of magic alchemy that suffering allows us to access that not just causes us to physically heal faster, but also allows us to better transform normal, everyday living. And the quoted text, "innate capacity to self-regulate high states of arousal and intense emotions," is precisely where that alchemy happens.
High levels of arousal and intense emotion doesn't just happen when we're suffering, it also happens as a natural consequence of interpersonal relationships. But when we're suffering, the high levels of arousal and emotion don't go away, which allows us to experience them enough to learn how to regulate them.
Then when the suffering is over, when things get heightened during daily life, the regulatory capacity that suffering built serves to make the feelings flow easier. That's the transformation described.
