PT526 – Transforming Trauma: Community, Connection, and the Healing Power of Vulnerability, with Peter A. Levine, Ph.D.
Psychedelics Today
Psychedelics Today, LLC
4.6 • 598 Ratings
🗓️ 2 July 2024
⏱️ 76 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, Kyle interviews Peter A. Levine, Ph.D.: developer of Somatic Experiencing®, educator, and author of several best-selling books on trauma.
His most recent book, An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey, is exactly that: a change from more scholarly writing into an extremely vulnerable telling of his early childhood trauma and how he has healed over the years. He talks about how his unconscious convinced him to write the book, how trauma can move into the body, and how he needed a student to identify how his trauma was affecting him. He believes that we all have wounding, but it's how we carry these wounds and tell our truth that matters.
He discusses:
- The need to allow space for both Indigenous traditions and evidence-based Western frameworks
- The power of having even just one distinct moment of feeling cared for and loved
- How Colin Turnbull saw healing differently after living with an African tribe for three years
- Why he suggests 15-20 sober experiences with non-ordinary states for each drug experience
- Why not having a community or empathetic other makes us more vulnerable to trauma
and more!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Psych Galaxy today. My name is Kyle Bueller and I am the host for today's episode. |
| 0:18.3 | And on this episode, we have a very special guest, Dr. Peter |
| 0:22.5 | Levine. Dr. Levine is the renowned developer of somatic experiencing, and he holds a doctor |
| 0:28.8 | in medical and biological physics from the University of California at Berkeley and a doctor |
| 0:33.9 | in psychology from international university. And he's also the recipient of four Lifetime Achievement Awards, |
| 0:40.9 | the author of several books, including Waking the Tiger, |
| 0:44.0 | now which has been printed in 33 countries and sold over a million copies. |
| 0:48.8 | And it has just been such an honor to have Dr. Levine on the show. |
| 0:53.7 | It's been a dream of mine for the longest |
| 0:55.2 | time, as I mentioned in this episode. That his work was very influential and pivotal in my |
| 1:01.1 | somatic program and also in my thesis around breathwork. So it's been a huge honor and pleasure |
| 1:07.2 | to have Dr. Levine on the show. So in this episode, we chat about Dr. Levine's |
| 1:12.7 | newest book, an autobiography of trauma, a healing journey, and just how profound of a story |
| 1:19.9 | Dr. Levine has shared in this book. And we also chat about the importance of group healing |
| 1:25.8 | for trauma. We talk about the balance between |
| 1:28.3 | evidence-based practices and also indigenous approaches to healing. And we also get to dive into |
| 1:34.6 | the topic of none other than psychedelics. And Dr. Levine shares his own personal experiences with |
| 1:42.3 | LSD. We also chat about needing to be careful and also the |
| 1:48.0 | intentional use of psychedelics, so really focusing on the preparation, the integration, |
| 1:53.7 | intentions around it, and then also just being very cautious, not saying, and yeah, |
| 1:59.9 | the caution around psychedelics not being a panacea. |
| 2:03.5 | And then we also talk about the very important piece of therapists doing their own inner work |
... |
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