Peter Levine: On an Autobiography of Trauma
Renowned developer of Somatic Experiencing Dr. Peter A. Levine changed the way psychologists, doctors, and healers understand and treat the wounds of trauma and abuse.
In this conversation with CIIS professor of somatic psychology Rae Johnson, he shares his own experience of severe childhood trauma and how he helped thousands of others before resolving his own trauma. Sharing insights from his recent memoir, An Autobiography of Trauma, Dr. Levine explains how being guided through Somatic Experiencing allowed him to illuminate and untangle his traumatic wounds and shares the history of the Somatic Experiencing method being derived from his studies of wild animals in their natural environments, neurobiology, and more than 50 years of clinical observations.
This episode was recorded during a live online event on June 16, 2024. You can also watch it on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube channel. A transcript is available below.
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TRANSCRIPT
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[Cheerful theme music begins]
This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land.
Renowned developer of Somatic Experiencing Dr. Peter A. Levine changed the way psychologists, doctors, and healers understand and treat the wounds of trauma and abuse.
In this conversation with CIIS professor of somatic psychology Rae Johnson, he shares his own experience of severe childhood trauma and how he helped thousands of others before resolving his own trauma. Sharing insights from his recent memoir, An Autobiography of Trauma, Dr. Levine explains how being guided through Somatic Experiencing allowed him to illuminate and untangle his traumatic wounds and shares the history of the Somatic Experiencing method being derived from his studies of wild animals in their natural environments, neurobiology, and more than 50 years of clinical observations.
This episode was recorded during a live event on June 16th, 2024. You can also watch it on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube channel. A transcript is available at ciispod.com. To find out more about CIIS and public programs like this one, visit our website ciis.edu and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms.
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Dr. Rae Johnson: Peter, It's such a pleasure to be able to have a conversation with you. I'm really looking forward to it. I thought I would start us off with a question really, maybe perhaps more about the field of somatics, because I'm guessing that many folks on the call today might know you best as a trauma expert. But you've really been deeply immersed in the world of somatics since early in your career.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yes.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right. And, and we've been talking as, as you know, about the mainstreaming of somatics for a long time in the field, right. But these days it feels like it might, it might actually be happening. And, and it's not just psychology anymore right it's neuroscientists, sociologists, business leaders, they're all talking about the body. Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yeah. What do you know about that? Is that interesting huh? Who would have thought?
Dr. Rae Johnson: Who would have thought? And, and also about time.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yes.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right. Um, do you have a, do you have a sense? I mean looking sort of over the long arc of your own career and your own immersion in this field. Why do you think the body's having a moment right now?
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yeah, that's a great question actually. You know, I think when I began teaching in the 70s, early 70s.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: You know, I mean people were saying things about this, but this is to actually have people feel their bodies was a dangerous thing. And that people should stay away from me because of the danger of actually feeling things in their bodies.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: So, but now okay so that was in the 70s but now flash forward, you know, the, you mentioned that the last lifetime achievement award was from the psychotherapy network network. And, you know, that's, I would say it's, it's not, it's mainstream in some ways, but it's also more open minded than some of the other organizations like the APA.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: So, so anyhow, when they were giving the award, they have a magazine that comes out every three or four months, something like that. So this was to, I guess to usher in the award. And there was a picture on the cover. You know one of those puzzles where you have 1000 pieces and you have to put all the pieces together. It had that kind of a diagram there a person there. Yeah, and it's the, and it's, and there was one piece of the puzzle that was missing. And the caption was the missing piece. The missing piece is what else is the body.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: So, in a way, I wouldn't say it's universally recognized but it's certainly no longer in the fringe. And as you mentioned that people from many different disciplines from neuroscience, business and so forth are realizing how vitally important embodiment is and how, as a society that we're so very disembodied not just because of trauma, but because of the way our culture has come back and maybe even from the time of Descartes, when he said, I am.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: That was ridiculous. But then he, there was a person around the same time as he and that which was in the mid 1600s Blaise Pascal was also a philosopher. When they got said this he wrote him a letter and said Mr. God, I cannot forgive you, you have just, I don't want to say the word but you just messed up. And he said, and but then he said, “the body has its reasons in this letter. The body has its reasons, which the read which the body has its reasons which reason cannot reason, where the heart has its reasons that reason cannot reason.”
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: So really at that very, you know that turning point. And I think we're still kind of struggling as a society of really even what does it mean to be embodied to be disembodied. And I came across it in working with trauma, because trauma is the ultimate disembodying experience.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: No. And, but again, as we're talking it's so much bigger than that and it's so much really changing in the zeitgeist. And I think this is this is well, it's no turning back from there.
Dr. Rae Johnson: So that, but, but all of those moments over the last, at least in my professional career over the last 30 or 40 years where we thought, maybe this was the moment.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yeah.
Dr. Rae Johnson: What I'm right, right what I'm hearing from you is no actually this might really this might really be it and that that perhaps all of the support that we're getting from the other disciplines, the, the hard sciences you know I think in some ways. I think it would be a mistake to equate the neuroscientific understanding of embodiment with somatics.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Right.
Dr. Rae Johnson: But it's given us a huge amount of legitimization.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yeah, yup.
Dr. Rae Johnson: In other areas.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: I was some time ago I was reading this. It was an article. And it was this. It was a group talking about, how did they put it, that people, it was the title was intercept of awareness blah blah blah blah blah. And so they said, Well, if a person can feel their heartbeat, then they're going to be much more healthy, not only psychologically emotionally but physically.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Now that's one thing that in, you know, when we work in somatic experiencing people make contact with hundreds of different sensations.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Just heartbeat. And many, many, many, many. But you see where things are starting to try to go in that direction but they do have a ways to go.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right, they're, they're starting with little small pieces of, oh, let's look at the, let's look at the correlation between the capacity to feel your heartbeat and other positive health outcomes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Exactly. And so, of course I welcome that. But again, it's just the beginning it's just the edge of this.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right, right, but there isn't, I think in many ways, we still don't have a, an understanding in other disciplines and in the gym, among the general public about how the. There's a, there's a sensual richness of the world that opens up to us.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Right.
Dr. Rae Johnson: It changes everything.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yeah, richness. And when we are interceptively connected. Yeah, we are in contact with this richness.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: With this vast part of the universe.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right, that, that when we're, when we're talking about somatic awareness. We’re not just talking about what are you feeling inside your body that there are in that in those process this whole relational realm and spiritual realm.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yes.
Dr. Rae Johnson: That opens up and and that actually prompts me to another question that I had for you it's was a little farther along down the line but now that we're talking about it I'd like to, I'd like to ask it. So many religious and spiritual traditions, historically and cross culturally have have really emphasized what we might describe as transcendence over the body.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yeah, right.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right, but the road to enlightenment is to somehow transcend the body.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Rae Johnson: How do you reconcile that because it's really clear in your book that for you embodiment and spirituality are deeply embedded in one another.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: No, absolutely. You know, I've given. I've given talks or presentations or workshops for some of the different meditation centers. US and, and in Europe.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: You know, I was, I happened to be presenting at a conference in, I think in California, San Diego.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And Rick Hanson speakers. And he didn't know I was in the audience. And so I didn't know I wasn't very back.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And he talked about mindfulness. And he said, But if that's the only place we're going that we're really making a big mistake.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Then he nominated me for the Nobel Prize to bring in body.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: I think it's a recognition that that you can't transcend the body. I mean, I suppose when we die. That's a different thing.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: But, but really, how central the body is as an organizing force in our life.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And if we, we miss that we're really missing big part of life. You know, one of the places that I was invited by taking that hotness of some years ago to teach at the plum plum village.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Friends, and I really like what he was doing.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: So, most of the time they would start with walking meditation, or, and that is an embodied form of.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Absolutely. Sure.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And then afterwards, a group groups would meet in groups of like 12 or 15 people like underneath one of the plum trees.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes. Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And they would share with each other their experience. And one of the things with embodiment is that we really connect to that social instinct.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: To be with to be with others. So it's wonderful that he was maintaining that and gave people the opportunity to make social engagement, and to talk about the things that were changing in their experience in the nation. So, I mean, I, it's pretty clear to me that most of the people I know you know Jack, Jack Cornfield.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: This organization, really good friend.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: He wrote a lovely thing about the book.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And he, you know, they're really shifting in in, I forget the name of their organization. But really, really saying what you, you know, it, they talk about the bliss bypass that yes, we transcend the body and you're. Of course, who wouldn't want to go there, but then the shadow gets bigger and bigger and bigger and the lack of the body gets greater and greater and greater. So you can, you can try to avoid it, but you can't run away, it will, it will follow you and it will bite you when we don't have that connection.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: It was put out in the shadow realm away from us and we suffer from that.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right, right. But there was this impulse to to avoid the messiness and the complications and the, the subtleties and the, you know, the confusion that can arise by just embracing our physical sensations, but also what I'm hearing you talk about is that there's a way in which we might make a connection between what gets spoken of as spiritual bypassing.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right. And somatic bypassing.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: That's right, you can go in either you can you can fail in either direction. Absolutely. No, that's, that's, that's completely correct. You know, the after this book that I just published the autobiography of trauma.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: The next book that I'm starting to work on is titled trauma and spirituality resilience and fear.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: a lot of that really is about embodied spirituality I'm actually writing the book, along with one of my, one of my Danish colleagues in.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Okay. Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And actually, in a couple of weeks will be spending a week together kind of really working on things to get it going but yeah you're right if you simply focusing on sensations. It could probably be boring. But you also have the, you're also missing important things.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: In our feeling world and our emotional world. And sometimes people can use sensations as a way of getting away from emotions. Or at the same time when people have habitual emotions that they're stuck with. They need to be able to find the sensations underlying those emotions and tease them apart. It's, it's, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Rae Johnson: But, but that really what we're looking for here is fluency across those well realms and not not having to avoid certain territories, either sensation or emotion or social engagement, or, you know, the social world, or the spiritual world.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yes, exactly. All of that to develop kind of a global fluency it's a good word to use fluency.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: How we can really get to enlist language.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And and take it where it takes us.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah, yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: You don't know where it's going to take us.
Dr. Rae Johnson: No, and that I think that may be part of part of the resistance for some folks.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yeah, it can be scary.
Dr. Rae Johnson: It can be a little scary. Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: When I started writing the autobiography of trauma. I had no intentions of publishing it as a book. My own excavation. You know, now at the age. I'm in my 80s. And even if I have a very healthy vibrant life which I mostly do except for jet lag. The number of years I have ahead of me are considerably less than the years from my conception to where I am right now.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: I really wanted to make this excavation and find the path that my life has taken. And some of the things that have shaped my life.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Positively and and and and dramatically.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes. Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And, and so when I started to do this, it was more like a, what do you call it, like a journaling.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: For my own use it was scary to do it I mean really scary to do it. And it took a lot of it took a lot of courage really.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And, and, and I made a commitment to myself that I would follow the truth my truth, wherever it would lead.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yep.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And so anyhow when I was writing this again for myself. I had a very good friend and she said, Peter, aren't you going to publish this as a book. I said no way. Right to delegate
Dr. Rae Johnson: To personal.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: I said, well, it's too personal.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: No. And I'm not sure I want people to know who I am beyond developing somatic experiencing how it came about in my life.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And so I said, she said, Well, maybe, please think about it, because I think really help people in their own journeys to write their own stories.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And I said, I, you know, I might, when she said that I mean it's like constricted. And then I said, Well, let me at least think about it and she said good. Think about it. Life. When I've come to a decision point, forking the road. Often a synchronicity or a dream, which is a form of ethnicity comes to mind and informs my next steps.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: So when I was gestating the possibility of writing the book as a book. I had the following dream. And in the dream. I'm standing in front of a large field. And in my hands I have manuscripts of obviously have some kind of a book, something like that.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And I looked to the left and to the right, left, right. And it clearly I'm. I don't see I'm conflicted. I, I don't know what what I should be doing I don't know what my next step would be.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Time of indecision. Yeah, breeze came from behind me and took all of these pages and blew them out into the meadow.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Ah, okay.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: The land where they would land. When I woke. I wrote down the dream and in the middle of writing down the dream, I realized that the decision had already been made by me for me.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And as I said, it was quite a challenge to write this as a book things when we were talking about embodiment. I really wanted to honor some of the people that were important figures in my life.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes, absolutely.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And so one of the chapters is called the foremost important women in my life. And the foremost important men in my life.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: My, my friends. She said, Oh, am I included. I sort of.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Not just this is not just about, you know, about love relationships, but what mentors that I have somehow called to me or they've called to me. You know when I came out to Berkeley in doing my, my graduate work in 1964. I, I was completely disembodied. I mean, I really know what I didn't know I had a body really.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah. Right.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And this friend of mine Jack. He lives at the Green Gulch Meditation Center.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Wonderful place. And there was a workshop being given by Charlotte Sellers and her husband Charles Brooks.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And even though I wasn't the meditator there. He was able to get me to come. I thought this was the stupidest most boring thing I ever did to, to,
Dr. Rae Johnson: Of course,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: For example, we were all picked up a stone and holding it in our hand.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: New weight and feel the texture and feel the temperature and feel what it feels like to have your hand on the rock and all of this and this one.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And on and on and on. And having your feet touching the ground. I remember going and I was coming in one direction and the other direction was one of the monks said, How was this workshop for you. And he looked at me, and he said, big headache.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Ah huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: At the end of the day, Charlotte had us laying down. This wonderful church at the top of O'Farrell Street.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And to feel our breath coming in from our feet into our groins up into our chest up into our heads. The opposite coming out.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Remember, I'm a scientist.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: I'm going to do my doctoral work in hard science.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes, yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: I know the feet don't don't breathe.
Dr. Rae Johnson: No, no, that's not how we do that.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Maybe they smell but they don't breathe.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: So however, when I came out from the church at the end of the day, it was, it was a twilight. I was looking down at out towards the Bay Bridge and down to the lights in San Francisco. And it's like it was the most beautiful thing that I had ever seen.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: That it was there all the time but I didn't see it.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Because you have been asleep.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yeah, exactly because I had been asleep.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And that really turned the arc of my life. Another important person in my life again that I also wrote about Rolf, who developed.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Theology of (inaudible), and it's not so much about the deep tissue, but important part. But, but it's really about seeing the body as it is without filtering it through the mind. And the way this came about. She called me the, the young man with a mop of hair and a bag of bones, because I was, I was quite mesomorphic structures.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes. Uh huh. And here you were an ectomorph.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: That's right.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And so anyhow the way she would teach. She would have her model come in. And she would take the body that she saw it, and then she would work with that. And then the next day, that same model would come in and she would continue working with that model. So after the first session, and people don't mean people were terrified with about her.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Like the iron
Dr. Rae Johnson: Is a bit of a forbidding figure, and she was formidable.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: You know, it's kind of interesting for some reason, she really took me under her wing. And one time I was visiting her in Manhattan in New York where she lived. And so she took me to this restaurant. It was a Jewish deli restaurant.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And so we were eating, and she was going on about how lucky I was to that she was taking me on, you know, under her wing. And I agree that was completely true.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: But we were leaving the restaurant, there was this Jewish couple sitting at a table, and they said to her, Oh, you're so lucky you have such a lovely grandson. So we had that kind of a playful.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And when she was coming in to do the second hour. Everybody was scared because you know if they, if he asked about that, they would be terrified if they said the wrong thing. So at that time there were only two Rolfers, and they were Peter Melchior and Jan Saltan and they were living at Esalen. And they would grab them. And if they would tell us what the second hour was about, we think we would buy as much wine or beers as they wanted. So there we are.
Dr. Rae Johnson: They were bribeable.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Exactly. The bribeable is right. So anyhow, the next day, we come in and Dr. Rolf has the person come up, and she says, What do you see? And he says, Well, we see that the left malleolus is having the effect on the right shoulder. So she looked at him and said no, what do you see? And then somebody else offered. They say, Well, I see that there's a twisting in the pelvis and we have to work with this and she said, What do you see? And around this time, one of my lab mates in the neurobiology lab where I was doing my doctorate, he was doing his doctoral work at the Marine Biological Labs in Bodega Bay.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Okay, yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And he was renting this wonderful, it was like a little house, but it was a garage, but it was fixed up to be, you know, there was a gas heater and a bed.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh
Dr. Peter A. Levine: So when he was done with his work, he bequeathed that to me. So, on Friday, as soon as I was done with my classes, I would run into my car and drive out and come to that. And there was a book, it's not this book, but there was a book that said the tide pools of central California or northern central California.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yup.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And so I would go out and I would sit by the tide pools, and I couldn't see anything.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And I looked and I looked and I couldn't see anything.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Finally in frustration, I gave up and I just let my eyes glance out into the, into the, where the, the, the horizon.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Was. And in that moment when I gave up trying. And I was looking softly.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes, that soft gaze.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: that soft gaze. All of us, everything in the tide pool started coming into activity and into life.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Ahh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And I was so excited I looked quickly again. And again, it disappeared. So when I finally gave up and just let it happen. See what I couldn't see when I was trying. And that's what I remembered when I was with Dider Eiderolf. And instead of when I was trying to lock on with my eyes I look softly. And this is what I saw what I experienced. And I remember saying, how come he's the only one who's making any sense.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah, yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: This is what we learned from her in many ways is really to see from first principles. So the work done with Charlotte Selvers. And then continuing with Ida Rolf, and also a woman named Magda Proskauer.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Don't know about.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yeah, yeah. She was another very important person.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Absolutely. I was, I was so happy to hear you write about Ida Rolf and Charlotte Selver. I teach and have taught over many years, sort of the foundations of somatic psychology, where it comes from and sort of who helped us understand, both from Eastern and Western and indigenous perspectives, who helped us understand some of these foundational principles. And I miss people talking about Charlotte Selver, for example. So I was so I was so pleased to see that in your book and to hear you really not only just recognize who you'd learned from, but to share with your readers, what it was that you learned because those really fundamental essences I think are so important in building a, you know, a body, a body of work.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Absolutely.
Dr. Rae Johnson: So, so I have a question for you, because you've done this, this remarkable work of really reflecting back, noticing your own learning process over the decades, and, and identifying where those critical turning points were for you in your own learning development as a human being but also as a, as a professional and and what came into the development of somatic experiencing.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Right, right.
Dr. Rae Johnson: So, so now that you are in a position where, you know, you may be the age that you know, I mean in both either often and Charlotte Selver lived to be, you know, a nice and you know nice mature ages Charlotte Selver into her hundred.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: She was hundred and four.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Exactly. So, you're not there yet. But now that you're in a place where you have this opportunity to look back on your life.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: That's right. Yeah,
Dr. Rae Johnson: What would you, what would you like your students to say that they learned from you?
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yeah, you know there's an important person that we haven't mentioned.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And that's Chiron.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Okay, yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And Chiron comes from Greek mythology,
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Which is half animal half man which in itself is interesting important.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: But the way I understand it is the wounded healer.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And those of us who work in the healing arts and the healing professions. We really need to be able to, we need to do our own work. Because if we don't we really can't be there for the other.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right, it's about the relationship, not the technique.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: No,
Dr. Rae Johnson: Not as much right, we know this, we know this from the, from the research.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And so around the time when I was writing the book or starting to write the, the, you know, the journal. I was starting to have disturbing sensations and symptoms that were coming up for me.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: So I asked one of my students to be my guide. It was time that I needed to take the dose of my own medicine.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And not go and not go away from this and not deny this.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And one of the things that's important semantic experiencing is we don't go right to the jugular vein of the
Dr. Rae Johnson: Not in the deep end. Right.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Not at all we gently touch into the periphery to counter experiences. You know, the. This is very different than the therapy which was very becoming very well known at the time called prolong the prolonged exposure therapy.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: They have people relive their traumas over and over and over again to drain the swamps
Dr. Rae Johnson: To extinguish it.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Exactly somehow.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Okay. So, anyhow, because in somatic experiencing again we really find ways to bring up our capacity our resilience.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes. Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And then, when I was working with my, with my student my guide.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And around this time. My family was under extreme threat from the mafia.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: They threatened to kill us. And so they were a very difficult time in our lives. But anyhow when I started working with my sensations, it went actually to a very interesting memory that I had when I was about five or six.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: It was my birthday.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And my parents must have come into my room when I was asleep. And they lay tracks from a model train set underneath my bed out to the room back. And then under into underneath again to be.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And to say I was thrilled would be an understatement.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Literally. Just filled with life, I jumped out of bed. I went over to the transformer so I could control the speed and make the horn.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And, and, and feeling that really fully in my body.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes, just lit up.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Exactly. It's not the memory per se but it's to embody that memory
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And to embody that positive memory experience.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And then in doing that, we went to another memory. And, you know, and because of the threat from the mafia basically they told my father that if he testified against them which he was called upon by the district attorney to do the time.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And basically he told my father if you testify against me, or the mafia.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: You’ll find your family face down in the East River.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Great, great threat and it's like my feet, my legs got pulled out from under me. And this experience there was a park across from our apartment. And I would come back from junior high school.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: I would go home I would have cookies and milk, and then we can go across the road and climb this tall rock iron fence down the fence to a running track below the center.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Okay, Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: So again, in the session. I start feeling my feet on my legs as I'm walking, walking faster, I feel my legs starting to come back into life starting to recreate power. And as I start running. I feel the power that was ripped out away from me.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Because of the threat.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes. Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: So, okay, so again these are all important embodied.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Positive experiences that
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right right not not not narrative stories that you've, you're able to tell yourself, but, but really able to capture and hold on to the sensation of something that happened a long time ago.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: That's right,
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah
Dr. Peter A. Levine: To you know exactly to really,
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: To go to the, the felt experience of it.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And that was the. But then as we continued again, building on what we want to just describe. One time I, as before I would go across the road climb this fence and climb down, and then go down into the bushes but as I climbed down there a bunch of they were obviously from a gang, probably.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: They were from a gang.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And they were smoking cigarettes, and they will be nice hats, like Marlon Brando was wearing. And I felt the hair on the back of my neck and my back standing up.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Like, I knew something was wrong and I was in danger.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And I knew what to do I look back at the fence and I realized if I climb the fence. I would still be an easy target, they could come down.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes, Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: So I thought to run down into the bushes to get the running track below because I would be exposed to other people, and I would probably be safe.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: But as I went down, and I'm not going to tell the whole story.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: I was grabbed from behind thrown to the ground and violently assaulted and raped.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And this was, I'm sure to tell to come to tell my parents what happened. So they would be even more intimidated.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Of course,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: But I didn't tell them. I didn't tell them and I didn't tell me.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: I kept it off the first secret so it was put away in this compartment.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And there it stayed until I was guided with my students to make this to heal it.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And put it in the past where it belonged.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right, right. Because you needed that moment when it was safe enough to do that.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yes.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Exactly.
Dr. Rae Johnson: And part of what I'm hearing as you as you share those really vulnerable moments, and you know both the, the moments of violence and violation but also the vulnerable moments of joy and and being moved by the care and the love that your parents were showing you by setting up that train set.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Exactly.
Dr. Rae Johnson: They're both tender very.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Very tender and you didn't have the words for it at the time of course, in that moment, I felt that I was cared for.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: That I loved.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And one of the things that I think we know about is if the person has even one time in their life
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: When they were cared for when they were loved, and you know that they're going to be okay.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And they have that foundation to stand on.
Dr. Rae Johnson: There's that that proof in their own bodies that that's possible.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: That right. Exactly. Exactly. And it's a truth,
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And it's experienced as a truth. And
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Anything anybody can take away. Because you it's yours forever.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. And if I were going to, if I were going to sort of loop back to that question that I asked about what would you want your students to say that they learned from you. Is that part of what you might. If you could hear someone, a student of yours, and there are hundreds of thousands of them but by now, but if you could hear someone say something about what they learned from you, that would warm your heart, it would make you feel better. Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Okay. Well, let's try this one and see what comes next.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Sure
Dr. Peter A. Levine: That trauma is a fact of life.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And trauma doesn't have to be a life sentence.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: I think that's one thing I would like my students and everybody really to know.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: The other thing is that with the right guidance. We can deal with some of the most horrific events in our lives. And we'll come through it.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: We can heal.
Dr. Rae Johnson: I guess possible.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: It's, it's, well it's possible it's doable.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And, and to learn to trust, and again, to come back to Chiron. I would want them all to know that they have to do their own work in order to be there for others. And one of the things that I want them to know and again it's this was in writing the book.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Is that we all, all of us have stories to tell. And these are all invaluable. And there is no story that's better or worse than any other story.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And I really would hope that's one of the things I say in the book is please, if you are touched by what I'm writing.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Use that to motivate yourself to write your own story, your own story.
Dr. Rae Johnson: And that those those moments of recognizing where you got inspiration and where you got nurturance, and also what you overcame that those those stories are possible for them as well.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I think again, you know, we have this deeply rooted instinct.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And it's an instinct to heal an instinct to move towards wholeness.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: I think, I think Yung talked about that in different ways.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And, Uh, And our job as therapists is not to resolve the person's trauma is not to take the trauma away.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: It's really, really about coming to. What is the word I want to say. In coming to what seemed impossible to find out that is more than possible.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: To heal. When we can help somebody elicit that.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: That will take them to the healing,
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Not remembering a trauma not talking about the trauma per se, although sometimes talk, talk, I mean, narrative can be important.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Well here in narrative again, that was one of the reasons for writing the book is to try to find that narrative.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right, right that that coat your own coherent narrative.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yes,
Dr. Rae Johnson: Absolutely.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yeah. And again, it's something that you know is is there that's there for the asking, I guess I would like to know.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: That it's there, that it can be contacted and has its own wisdom.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And takes us. You know, this kind of reminds me a little bit of another chapter in the book.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And it's called. What is it called me and Albert at the Vegas banquet.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And in Berkeley, my favorite restaurant on San Pablo Avenue was called the bag.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yup.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: So after a long day of, you know, teaching and working on my doctoral dissertation and trying to teach somatic experiencing to a group of.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uhuh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Berkeley therapists. I was really happy to be there, and this waitresses really greeted me by name.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Very warm.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And they would put me at my, my favorite table.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah, yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: With two chairs. And I was almost always would start with a warm bowl of soup.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Soup came with these wonderful pieces of French bread
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Crispy on the outside, moist and soft on the inside.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And then the day kind of receded.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: I enjoyed partaking in that meal.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: But one day, I was sitting there. And a shadow came off to my left.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And I looked. And it was a man with crazy wild hair.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And wearing a a a sports jacket, crumpled sports jacket was two sizes three sizes too big for him.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And in this image. He points to the chair at the other, at the other side of the table.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: So he was I presumed asking if he could sit.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And I said yes. And this man sat and I realized, my God, this is Albert Einstein.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Now again, remember, I'm a scientist.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Albert Einstein's has already died anyhow.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: He's not really there.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Of course,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: My imagination.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Wait a minute. Imagination. Jung also talked about what he called the act of imagination.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Exactly. Right. One of the foundations of his work.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: It truly is and it's really the bridging between unconscious and unconscious processing.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh, Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And, and, and I did a little research about it. And it says that active imagination is something that children do routinely.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Adults don't do it all. And I thought, it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right, right about the same time we stopped playing that.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yes. So, I think.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Sometimes when I'm working with somebody I asked them the question, when did your childhood and.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Usually that opens something very, very vital and important. Anyhow, these conversations went on for a period of a year, at least.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And I would ask him questions.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And he would ask me questions about my questions. You know this with the method of Socrates the Socratic inquiry.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: You don't get an answer you get another question.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Of course.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And so this went on for a good part of a year.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And in the end, I was realizing that things that impacted people didn't necessarily only occur in their lifetime. But in the lifetime of their parents, their grandparents great great great grandparents,
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And all the way to all of the ancestors.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes, intergenerational.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yes. And so I asked Einstein about this I was explaining that I was now learning that in many of my clients that this was something that was happening routinely.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And usually, instead of me asking, I asked the question that he'd asked the question about my question. This was a different time. So, kind of like a dream within the act of imagination dream.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: He takes me to a pond.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And he has a yardstick a meter stick. And along the stick are small stones.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And he takes me to this pond, and he holds the, the, the stick over the pond,
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And then twisting and all of the stones come to the come down into the water,
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And he waves going out coherently in all directions,
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Not just ahead in time but to the side in time
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Backwards in time.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And of course, something that Einstein knew very well. That's what the times and space and time were a fabric
Dr. Rae Johnson: Umm.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: linear.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: All.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: So, so anyhow. I then asked him I said, Well, what, how would I work with this.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And he looked at me compassionately with a tear forming in his eye.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And he said, Peter, I don't have that answer. But you do, and you will find that answer. And so I leave you. And that was the last time I had these encounters these imaginary encounters.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Professor.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: 30, 35 years ago. I was visiting my parents in New York. And they. I was going to museums downtown and I was coming home at the end of the day, taking the D train, getting off at fifth street, going up the hill, coming into the apartment parents
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Both of my parents were sitting on a couch on a couch on a sofa
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: That above them was a bookshelf.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And one of the books on the bookshelf which caught my eye immediately was Einstein's theory of relativity.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Ah huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: So that prompted me to tell my parents, particularly my mother the imaginary encounters I had with Einstein.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Who could be incredibly intuitive and it's a gift I thank her for giving me.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Peter. That was not in your imagination that really happened. What is she saying.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right. What do you mean that my imaginary conversations are real, we're real, I just I just got them sorted out in my own understanding of what was happening.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Finally, Exactly. And she said you know when I was pregnant with you I you know you you were eight months in utero. And I was on this lake in a canoe
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And strong wind came and tip the canoe over and they weren't unable to right the canoe.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And they would have surely perished and I wouldn't be talking with you today Rae because I wouldn't be here.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And so, as they struggled. A small sailboat came along,
Dr. Rae Johnson: Uh huh.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And they bring my parents into the boat gave them towels to dry off and introduce themselves
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: As Albert Einstein and his stepdaughter.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes, wow.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Now, my mother reason. And this was her intuition that in that moment because Einstein literally saved my life that what I would be forever wedded to him
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: As an author.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: So, you know, my life did not go in a straight line it went in many different loops and thing like that and again I think that's one of the things I try to convey in the autobiography is how I really went, not just from a to b to c to d. My friend Ian once said the shortest distance between two points is not necessarily a straight line, and the arc of my life has been that that all of those curves within curves within curves within curves.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right, those intersecting ripples, and the moments of resonance that appear with within those ripples and where they intersect
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Exactly.
Dr. Rae Johnson: And, and what they touch.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: He showed me that when some of these ripples go by and two of them get stuck.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Somehow they're, then everything becomes distorted after that I hit forward in time backwards in time side inside.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And so again, that was sort of what again helped me developing and work with people who have had not only generational trauma and sexual trauma,
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: But accessible wisdom.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Of course.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And this was
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: In way even more important. Well, as in somatic experiencing. It's more
Dr. Rae Johnson: Absolutely.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Important.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Right, right, that the most important thing in many ways is to restore the faith that that that expansion and resolution and healing and growth that that's possible.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yeah, Yeah,
Dr. Rae Johnson: That unfreezes the ripples that happen in the intersection.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And that's all you have to do. You're stuck, you somehow open it.
And then it continues coherently moving in all directions in time and space.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes, yeah, yeah. We didn't get time for this Peter but that beautifully answers another question that I had about the, your experience of the intersection between shamanism and science because you are sort of in, in many ways uniquely position at one of those intersections and I found the points in common and I won't, I won't ask but I'll just say maybe to wrap this up. How, how beautifully quantum theory is now being applied to things like biology,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yes.
Dr. Rae Johnson: And how we're understanding how this works in a much more nuanced and sophisticated and mysterious way.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Yeah, and maybe even also a uniting of relativity and quantum mechanics.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes, exactly.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And now, the question that you just asked me. This is one of these people who have endorsed I was really so moved by the people who wrote endorsements. Really.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes, Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: That was one of the things that allowed me to talk about it, Feeling their support.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Anyhow this is from a man named Johan Bauer. He is a professor of medicine and neuroscience at the University of Freiburg,
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And the International Psychedelic University in Berlin.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Okay, yeah.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And he wrote this basically two sentences.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Inspiring journey of trial and of trauma and triumph for uniting of science and shamanism in transforming trauma and restoring wholeness.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yeah, there it is right there.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Thank you. Thank you Johan.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Thank you so much and for having this this wonderful conversation.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: To all my CIIS friends, you know, because I taught there for a number of years with Don.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes. And I still teach with Don.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Oh, do you.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Oh yes,
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Because I wrote an endorsement for the book that his wife just wrote.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes, yes.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: Very nice book. Wonderful book. Okay. All right.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Thank you so much, Peter. Thank you everyone for joining us on this with this conversation.
Dr. Peter A. Levine: And remember, you all have your stories to tell.
Dr. Rae Johnson: Yes, Thank you. Thank you so much, Peter. Thanks everyone else, and have a great day.
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Thank you for listening to the CIIS Public Programs Podcast. Our talks and conversations are presented live in San Francisco, California. We recognize that our university’s building in San Francisco occupies traditional, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands. If you are interested in learning more about native lands, languages, and territories, the website native-land.ca is a helpful resource for you to learn about and acknowledge the Indigenous land where you live.
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