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A review by 11corvus11
In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness by Peter A. Levine
3.0
This is my second DNF book in a row in the Psychology subject realm. This is a new behavior for me as someone who generally slogs through everything I pick up. I think I'm just getting too tired of spending my time with books that cause stress without much reward. I made it about 70% through this before I decided to throw in the towel.
I really enjoyed Waking the Tiger, though I read that many years ago and am now wondering how I would feel about it today having read this book. This book is not without its merits. There are some good and interesting anecdotes about trauma and recovery in here. I posted several quotes from the chapters that interested me- specifically ones that talk about the long term effects of traumatic stress on the health and body. It also has some good suggestions for therapists and probably anyone looking to delve into helping clients or themselves get back into their skin so to speak. There are some good things in here, which is why I rated it in the middle.
What has made me crawl through this book slowly and eventually put it down are two tropes that are common in mainstream psychological and scientific literature:
1. The idea that the author's technique of [Insert methodology here] is practically magical. Levine comes very close to suggesting that he cures patients with long-term, severe traumatic stress in one somatic experiencing session. He may hint that everyone's different or that people may need more than one session. But, there's a bit of an air of "When these people finally came to me for help when nothing else worked, and I told them to shake and feel their body, they were magically better and so grateful to me." He also uses his own car accident as an indepth analytic case study to prove his theories which most people know is bad form. I think Levine is very knowledgeable, does care about his patients and does mean well, but this kind of stuff always sets off red flags for me. And, it can send a message that if somatic therapy doesn't work for you, it's because you are bad and wrong rather than the therapy being imperfect or not one-size-fits-all.
I did not completely hate the case studies. I actually rather enjoyed a lot of them. But, the delivery lacked critical analysis in my opinion. And he never should have analyzed himself.
2. Levine traumatized nonhuman animals and supports others traumatizing nonhuman animals- and even suggests retroactive nobel prizes for them. He devotes entire sections of the book to calling out the cognitive sciences for their refusal to see humans as animals, then he directly contradicts much of that by acting and speaking in completely anthropocentric terms. He even uses an example of an elephant resuscitating her baby as a show of how an elephant's mind is "useless" and instinct is the only reason she did this. It is well know that Elephants show a wide range of expression, (human valued) intelligence, and have rituals around death and funeral like processions. He argues that other animals either don't have consciousness or only have consciousness that basically involves responding to stimuli. He will then contradict again claiming animals have something to offer when he can use their qualities to explain part of human behavior. Then it becomes time for him to exert anthropocentric human superiority again in order to excuse exploitation of nonhuman animals, so the animals become "less than" in another contradictory way. I put the book down when I got to the part where he is praising and fauning over the Triune brain model which is reductive and inaccurate (birds, alone, throw a wrench in it,) and gave up.
I do not recall Levine mentioning torturing animals in Waking the Tiger- I thought all animal studies mentioned were wildlife observation. Perhaps I blocked it out. But, I find it appalling when people who claim to seek out a better world for the traumatized are willing to cause trauma, pain, suffering, and death in others to do so. They put curiosity ahead of actually preventing or healing post traumtic stress. I also find it frustratingly convenient when scientists highlight all of the ways that other animals underperform humans at certain tasks, but leave out the great number of ways other animals are better than humans at tasks- including things like cooperation, organization, preserving and caring for their habitats and environments, memory tasks, math tasks, and other such gems.
Basically, the whole thing is a mess and also needed better editing as I am pretty sure I read several parts two or three times. I am so exhausted with these tropes in psychological literature. I love psychology and don't mind pushing through some garbage here and there. But, dominating the entire book with this stuff is just disappointing, insulting, and even triggering for those of us who have been exposed to the torture of nonhuman animals for the curiosities scientists. Levine really let me down with this, he was someone I had up on a pedestal.
I really enjoyed Waking the Tiger, though I read that many years ago and am now wondering how I would feel about it today having read this book. This book is not without its merits. There are some good and interesting anecdotes about trauma and recovery in here. I posted several quotes from the chapters that interested me- specifically ones that talk about the long term effects of traumatic stress on the health and body. It also has some good suggestions for therapists and probably anyone looking to delve into helping clients or themselves get back into their skin so to speak. There are some good things in here, which is why I rated it in the middle.
What has made me crawl through this book slowly and eventually put it down are two tropes that are common in mainstream psychological and scientific literature:
1. The idea that the author's technique of [Insert methodology here] is practically magical. Levine comes very close to suggesting that he cures patients with long-term, severe traumatic stress in one somatic experiencing session. He may hint that everyone's different or that people may need more than one session. But, there's a bit of an air of "When these people finally came to me for help when nothing else worked, and I told them to shake and feel their body, they were magically better and so grateful to me." He also uses his own car accident as an indepth analytic case study to prove his theories which most people know is bad form. I think Levine is very knowledgeable, does care about his patients and does mean well, but this kind of stuff always sets off red flags for me. And, it can send a message that if somatic therapy doesn't work for you, it's because you are bad and wrong rather than the therapy being imperfect or not one-size-fits-all.
I did not completely hate the case studies. I actually rather enjoyed a lot of them. But, the delivery lacked critical analysis in my opinion. And he never should have analyzed himself.
2. Levine traumatized nonhuman animals and supports others traumatizing nonhuman animals- and even suggests retroactive nobel prizes for them. He devotes entire sections of the book to calling out the cognitive sciences for their refusal to see humans as animals, then he directly contradicts much of that by acting and speaking in completely anthropocentric terms. He even uses an example of an elephant resuscitating her baby as a show of how an elephant's mind is "useless" and instinct is the only reason she did this. It is well know that Elephants show a wide range of expression, (human valued) intelligence, and have rituals around death and funeral like processions. He argues that other animals either don't have consciousness or only have consciousness that basically involves responding to stimuli. He will then contradict again claiming animals have something to offer when he can use their qualities to explain part of human behavior. Then it becomes time for him to exert anthropocentric human superiority again in order to excuse exploitation of nonhuman animals, so the animals become "less than" in another contradictory way. I put the book down when I got to the part where he is praising and fauning over the Triune brain model which is reductive and inaccurate (birds, alone, throw a wrench in it,) and gave up.
I do not recall Levine mentioning torturing animals in Waking the Tiger- I thought all animal studies mentioned were wildlife observation. Perhaps I blocked it out. But, I find it appalling when people who claim to seek out a better world for the traumatized are willing to cause trauma, pain, suffering, and death in others to do so. They put curiosity ahead of actually preventing or healing post traumtic stress. I also find it frustratingly convenient when scientists highlight all of the ways that other animals underperform humans at certain tasks, but leave out the great number of ways other animals are better than humans at tasks- including things like cooperation, organization, preserving and caring for their habitats and environments, memory tasks, math tasks, and other such gems.
Basically, the whole thing is a mess and also needed better editing as I am pretty sure I read several parts two or three times. I am so exhausted with these tropes in psychological literature. I love psychology and don't mind pushing through some garbage here and there. But, dominating the entire book with this stuff is just disappointing, insulting, and even triggering for those of us who have been exposed to the torture of nonhuman animals for the curiosities scientists. Levine really let me down with this, he was someone I had up on a pedestal.