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Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma - The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences | 
 enlarge | Author: Peter Levine
Publisher: North Atlantic Books,U.S.
Category: Book
List Price: £14.99
Buy New: £5.28
You Save: £9.71 (65%)
New (31) Used (7) from £5.28
Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 8084
Media: Paperback
Pages: 250
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 0.8
ISBN: 155643233X
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.8521
EAN: 9781556432330
ASIN: 155643233X
Publication Date: September 30, 1997
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New. Shipped from UK Mainland. Delivery is usually 4 - 5 working days from order by Royal Mail, International Delivery is by Airmail.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Not just naive, this is potentially dangerous February 22, 2008
John Gass (UK)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I was recommended this book by a friend and I'm struggling to see why (but maybe she meant "Taming The Tiger"?). The book shows how one idea (and not even an original one) can make a potential author think they've hit a literary and economic goldmine.
In this case the author proposes a third instinctual response to threat... fight, flight and, now, freeze. This is a very valid extension of what is commonly taught but is hardly original. The value any author brings to this third dimension is surely to examine how we can react to the 'freeze' response and, unfortunately, Peter Levine's theories give us nothing of value. Worse than this, it leads us towards a belief that any one of us can counsel someone in pain towards a recognition that their emotional freezing can be resolved by re-enacting the traumatic event and imagining a more healthy outcome, even if this imagining is patently false, ridiculous and potentially harmful.
But what is unforgivable is that he proposes that any one of us can help people who are suffering from 'freeze' and that an encouraged false memory is better than a real one because, in the false memory, we can become a hero. This is madness, and an unsustainable one at that. If he had any evidence to back his beliefs I might be persuaded to listen to his highly controversial views but, given that he stands separate from the scientific establishment, I can't even imagine that he is doing anything other than giving his extravagant imagination total free rein.
Save your money - this one is a total lemon.
 Insightful Generalisations January 22, 2008
Miss T Fied (United Kingdom)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book focuses on `shock trauma'; - the result of an isolated event or series of events with no consistent history of previous trauma. It also is written from the perspective that there is a community of family and friends - or caregivers - to support the traumatised through the healing process. Whilst it may help individuals who suffered long term childhood assault at the hands of their primary caregivers - that is not its focus or intent although the self help exercise in this book may help many traumatised people get into bodily sensations, feelings and thoughts. And that's really great and a positive aspect of the book. But whilst undoubtedly contributing to an understanding of PTSD and trauma (not the same thing), this book's fundamental flaw seems to be that it is written by someone who has a limited personal understanding of the impacts of long term sustained trauma without a normal and caringly supportive context.
Levine switches from an apparently factual style of writing to use of "I" and "we" throughout - so the reader never really knows the extent to which his own personal experience(s) of trauma influences what he puts forward as fact and influences his own interpretation of his client's stories. For example he claims one patient must have been "in denial" because she claimed not to have been frightened during a kidnapping a few years ago. What if that patient had been persistently assaulted at a very young age and lived a life of emotional numbness as a consequence? She truly may not have felt fear at the time of kidnapping in adulthood - having lived her whole life dissociated and devoid of feelings. Yet to say she is `in denial' of her fear is intensely disrespectful - she maybe had no fear resource available to her to deny. Unsurprisingly that patient did not return to him.
Phrases such as "I am endlessly fascinated by the subject of trauma" ... "we will continually be on edge" etc raise alarm bells as attempts to get the reader to over-identify with him and accept what he says. And in truth the freeze reaction certainly does exist in humans - but not always as the `feign death' response Levine postulates. Many adult PTSD sufferers will have experienced the conflicting mental urge to run at the same time as to turn and fight. This may lie behind some peoples' `freeze' reaction - but again appears outside Levine's experience. Eg he draws analogies with the response of prey animals to threats and to trauma - and applies them to humans. And this may be appropriate for children and adults who find themselves in a `helpless' state at the time of trauma. But what of the fact that humans are potentially vulnerable whilst young and then grow up to be the ultimate predator of all ? What happens to tiger cubs and lions who are turned on by their own parents ? It does happen - and some end up dissociated and unable to relate to other big cats as a consequence. And this book may not be of much help to those who have been through such an experience.
 Amazing wisdom October 2, 2007
Irene MacDonald (Kilsyth, Scotland)
I first discovered this book in a Focusing Workshop earlier this year. In my work as a Therapist I recommend this book to traumatised clients and work with them to find their innate ability to heal. It is a useful guide to Therapists and invaluable as a self-help book for clients. The wisdom contained in its pages provides hope for so many people whose lives have been diminished by trauma; this helps them to use the body's natural ability to heal.
Amazed these are innate responses, not so crazy June 2, 2007
Cresida (England)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This has to be more helpful then any dr, neorosurgeon, psychiatrist, because so little is understood about trauma when it reaches its most severe level. For three yrs i have been dibilitated to the point i can't walk or leave my flat, my body is breaking down, seizures, no immune system, i was begining to think i was imagining it. I was stunned when i read this, people who were paralysed by fear of their anger, thats me, oh leap yee lame for joy. if only people in the system were more educated. My gp is reading it now, then my parents, it gives me hopw that someone out there must be able to help me get my life back. This book should not be missed it is easy to read and so informative and tells you shocking truths that really happen to people, thank you so much cresida9
A redeeming message for trauma survivors March 8, 2003
77 out of 78 found this review helpful
As a psychiatrist and author of "Lost in the Mirror: an Inside Look at Borderline Personality Disorder," I have dealt with many kinds of trauma and am always interested in new approaches to this difficult area. I found "Waking the Tiger" an engrossing approach to the problem of how trauma creates damaging and often enduring symptoms. Dr. Levine's concept of the "freeze response" in the face of overwhelming threat provides a missing link to symptoms such as dissociation that our old ideas of "fight or flight" fail to explain.Even more important to trauma survivors and their therapists is the redeeming message that immobilization in the face of threat is an automatic biological response that is not voluntarily chosen by the victim. The January 2003 issue of Clinical Psychiatry News reported that an overwhelming majority of victims of sexual assault describe a moderate or high level of paralysis occurring during the assault, consistent with Dr. Levine's observations. Dr. Levine also provides an astute portrayal of the nature of memory by acknowledging that memories are not literal recordings of events but a complex of images that are influenced by arousal, emotional context, and prior experience. Like a painting, memories may even transform over time as new experiences add layers of meaning to the images. While remembering the past can be an important aspect of therapy, appreciating the subjective quality of memories is crucial to integrating them appropriately into the healing process.
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