TRAUMA AND MEMORY

In "Trauma and Memory," bestselling author Dr. Peter Levine (creator of the Soma
tic Experiencing approach) tackles one of the most difficult and controversial q
uestions of PTSD/trauma therapy: Can we trust our memories? While some argue tha
t traumatic memories are unreliable and not useful, others insist that we absolu
tely must rely on memory to make sense of past experience. Building on his 45 ye
ars of successful treatment of trauma and utilizing case studies from his own pr
actice, Dr. Levine suggests that there are elements of truth in both camps. Whil
e acknowledging that memory can be trusted, he argues that the only truly useful
memories are those that might initially seem to be the least reliable: memories
stored in the body and not necessarily accessible by our conscious mind.