Healing Combat Trauma

Cast Adrift by Trauma in the Center of Your Own Universe...

I've been reading Belleruth Naparstek's book, "Invisible Heroes: Survivors of Trauma and How They Heal," and she makes an excellent point both about the safety and normalcy we unconsciously come to expect from life, and then the terrible way in which we find ourselves suddenly cut adrift from those same moorings through tragedy and trauma.

After first describing how the human toddler first takes sheer delight in realizing they are the center of their world and can "make things happen" -- by knocking over piles of blocks in play, again and again, or shouting and laughing at the sound of his or her own voice -- she the contrasts this with the sheer helplessness people feel because of a trauma-causing incident. Sagely, she describes the point:

"And because it is built into our human hard-wiring to love ourselves for being able to make things happen, the converse is also true: we lose self-regard when bad things happen that are beyond our control.  The essential insult of trauma is the helplessness it generates, and the inadequacy and powerlessness we feel in its grip.

Rational or not, we can't help but feel it's a reflection on our worthiness that, when confronted with a terrifying and terrible event, we didn't prevent it, escape it, or fix it.  So we somehow lose value to ourselves and, at a level we may not even be aware of, we feel guilty and ashamed."

This is a powerful and accurate description of what so many people go through after trauma. Good for Naparstek for bringing it to light.

Triggered by Talking about Trauma

It seems a bit paradoxical that the very act of attempting to talk about trauma might actually trigger trauma, and turn out to be "too much" for the traumatized person to handle, but this can be the case, according to Belleruth Naparstek, in her well-regarded book, "Invisible Heroes: Survivors of Trauma and How They Heal." She writes:

"This is because with PTSD, language can be a trap. If a deeply traumatized person is prompted only to speak and think about the events that created his distress, without enlisting help from the imaginative, emotional, sensory and somatic capabilities of his right brain, his symptoms can actually get worse instead of better.  Encouragement to "talk about it" -- a therapist's and, for that matter, a good friend's stock-in-trade -- can catalyze a tailspin of flashbacks, nightmares and overwhelming anxiety."

Clearly, we're just scratching the surface here of a much larger topic.  But while the case can be made that listening to another deeply is often quite therapeutic, having to talk about (relive) something traumatizing might have adverse effects.

Who -- and What -- a Survivor Is

Quotable quotes:

"I define a survivor as one who has touched, witnessed, encountered or been immersed in death in a literal or symbolic way and has himself remained alive." -- Robert Jay Lifton.

LIfton, an American psychiatrist and pioneer in PTSD studies from the 1970s, is also the author of "Home from the War: Learning from Vietnam Veterans."

(Hat tip to Chris Lombardi, for pointing this one out.)

"Ding, Ding" -- Pavlov's Comment on PTSD

Famous Russian scientist (physician and psychiatrist) and Nobel Prize winner Ivan Pavlov -- famous for his experiments with ringing bells, feeding time and dogs that evoked the characteristic "Pavlovian response" -- also had some things to say about PTSD.  Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., a Harvard-trained psychiatrist, writing in his scientific paper, "The Body Keeps the Score: Memory and the Evolving Psychobiology of Post Traumatic Stress," mentions that Pavlov thought that "individual differences in temperament account for the diversity of long-term adaptations to trauma."  Interesting!

Editor's Note: The item van der Kolk appears to be citing is Pavlov IP.  Edited and translated by GV Anrep.  "Conditioned reflexes: An investigation of the physiological activity of the cerebral cortex."  New York: Dover Publications (1926).

Upcoming Seminar: The Warrior's Journey: Healing PTSD (with Edward Tick)

The Warrior's Journey: Healing PTSD (6 CE hours)
Tuesday, April 28, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Tuition: $150 general public; $130 Antioch alumni, faculty, staff

War's violence is so severe that it can cause the true self to become distorted or lost for life. Untold numbers of veterans from old and new wars suffer Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Newest estimates are that 20-40% of Iraq returnees come home with PTSD and its multitude of disabling symptoms. Countless more return with severe, disabling wounds to body and mind. Contemporary society and the institutions meant to serve veterans are in crisis and at a loss as to how to respond to this massive wounding.

In this workshop, gain insight into the psycho-spiritual approach to healing from war. Learn how PTSD is not just a stress and anxiety disorder. It is also an identity disorder, soul wound, interrupted initiation and social wound. Examine various forms of psycho-spiritual interventions and community activism that rebuild veterans' identities, shrink trauma and restore wounded dimensions of soul. Develop a deeper understanding of PTSD treatment philosophies and strategies that can bring hope and healing to veterans and their families. Explore the spirituality inherent in war and learn how to use it to heal veterans and society.

Instructor: Edward Tick, Ph.D., is a holistic psychotherapist, writer, educator, journey guide, activist and veterans' advocate. He has been working with veterans and survivors of war, violence and trauma since the late 1970s. He specializes in using psycho-spiritual, cross-cultural and international reconciliation practices to help veterans, communities and nations heal. He is founder and executive and clinical director of Sanctuary: A Center for Mentoring the Soul, and of Soldier's Heart: Veterans' Safe Return Programs. Tick is adjunct professor in both Communication and Global Studies at the Sage Colleges. Tick is the author of War and the Soul: Healing Our Nation's Veterans from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.

Editor's note: for further information about the program, click here and scroll down until you see this particular seminar.

News from Hell before Breakfast: Journalists, War Trauma and PTSD

"I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast." -- attributed, perhaps erroneously, to Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman.

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A different quote:

"On Thursday, June 26th, I witnessed the immediate aftermath of an Al-Qaeda suicide bomb attack.  Several dozen people lost their lives... children, old men, civilians, police, and military men.  The scene was horrific beyond words, even for someone like me who has a fairly high threshold for such things.

I found it nearly impossible to look through the viewfinder.  What I saw was abhorrently graphic, yet far too important for the world to ignore.  I present images that provide an uncensored view of a terrible event, and some small measure of dignity to those who lost their lives."

-- Zoriah, international humanitarian photographer, whose gripping images from that event were later censored by the U.S. military, and he was evicted from his embed assignment with the Marines. (The link to the post where he talks about those images, and shows them, is here.)

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PTSD from being a combat journalist of photographer, embedded or otherwise:  Not everyone who's exposed to combat trauma develops PTSD, as we know.  Recently, Kimberly Dozier, CBS correspondent and author of Breathing the Fire, says she didn't develop it from her horrific near-death incident in Iraq in May of 2006, though ironically -- according to Dozier -- almost everyone she interacts with believes thatshe must have.  (See article to that effect by Dozier, linked here.)  However...many do; and for others, the signs and symptoms take time to manifest themselves. 

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Journalists bear witness, both to some of the most savage atrocities of wartime, though without the training and the mindset of combatants, and also to the suffering of the survivors, military and civilian.  Says one photographer who served in Vietnam:

It has been very difficult for me [to recount some of his memories from the past] as it has brought back many of the horrible nightmares that I had thought that I had finally put away. It did get them out in the open and off my chest so to speak and now my family now knows why I sometimes have to take those walks out into the woods alone to just get away. Hard to explain. I do have severe survival guilt as I have lost far to many friends in combat in up close and personal confrontations. I have many photos of me smiling and yes there were many good times. However; there were enough bad times to more than compensate for the good ones. I have learned to cope with this new world that I came home to only because I still feel a great need to help my fellow veterans. We 'Nam veterans are all but forgotten in my eyes.

Two significant resources: Dr. Anthony Feinstein's work, and the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma.

Two excellent books:

Dangerous Lives: War, and the Men and Women Who Report It, by Anthony Feinstein (2002); and Journalists under Fire: The Psychological Hazards of Covering War, by Anthony Feinstein. (2006).  (Recommended by Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D., noted PTSD expert.)  Shay wrote: "the first and only book about the occupational [psychological] hazards of being a war correspondent.  Published in Canada, will come out in the US next year from Johns Hopkins UP with a new chapter on embeds."

Dr. Anthony Feinstein is a professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto and a neuropsychiatrist at Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. He is an expert on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in war journalists. Feinstein received a 2001 Guggenheim Fellowship to pursue his research. Dr. Anthony Feinstein's bio is linked here.  Much better bio, linked here.

For reporters: War, Journalism and Stress: The Self-Assessment Test, linked here. (General description of the test, linked here.)

What Feinstein has to say:

More than anything, says Feinstein, he’s learned that, “War is not good for journalists. They suffer from it.”

Specifically, they suffer post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and anxiety disorders. One in five journalists, over the course of a long (15-plus-year) career, endures significant PTSD, says Feinstein. That means, among other things, bad dreams, flashbacks, numbness, an overly sensitive startle response and an inability to get close to others emotionally. One in four experiences depression. “And a number drink very heavily as well,” says Feinstein, “but I don’t know how many, because I never know for sure what they’re telling me.”

The most surprising revelation of the research for Feinstein? “I didn’t realize that the journalists were in such great danger. You see them when they report the news: cool, collected, with everything seemingly going on behind them. But these people are really right in the middle of it all.”

He is particularly sympathetic to still photographers. More than anyone, he says, these professionals have no choice but to get into the thick of things to do their jobs well.

The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, located on the campus of the University of Washington in Seattle, is a particularly good, targeted resource for journalists about reporting and trauma: both externally reporting, and internally experiencing trauma from reporting in war zones.  Click here to look through their extensive offerings, which are really superb.

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Who's the handsome young man in the photo? 

That's Robert W. "Grif" Griffin.  Griffin says, "I was a combat photographer with the 1st Cavalry Division Airmobile from 1966 to 1968 and 1970. I was in country [in Vietnam] as a photographer from 1966 to 1968, and back again in 1970."  (He was shot down near Quan Loi in 1970.)  He adds that he "spent 20 years in the Army mostly as a photojournalist/motion picture and still photographer."

According to Griffin, "the photographer who took the photo is Jere L. Smith, a fellow combat photographer and a Specialist E5 at the time. We were both assigned to the 13th Signal Battalion, which was part of the 1st Cavalry Division Airmobile."  At the time the photo was taken, Griffin was duplicating some slides for his Command for a Division briefing that was to take place in several locations at the same time: hence, the dupes.

Belleruth Naparstek, LISW - Psychotherapist

Psychotherapist, author and guided imagery innovator Belleruth Naparstek, LISW, BCD, has practiced psychotherapy for over 30 years. She is best known as the creator of the popular, 52-title Time Warner Health Journeys guided imagery audio series. Naparstek's first book, Staying Well with Guided Imagery, (Warner Books) continues to be a widely used primer for medical professionals and health consumers. Her second book, Your Sixth Sense, (Harper San Francisco) has been translated into 8 languages and has been called one of the more thoughtful and sophisticated looks at intuition. She is also the author of Invisible Heroes : Survivors of Trauma and How They Heal, and Health Journeys: A Guided Meditation for Healing Trauma (PTSD).

Naparstek has helped to make guided imagery part of mainstream healthcare by persuading traditional healthcare organizations such as Aetna U.S. Healthcare, the U.S. Veteran’s Administration, GlaxoSmithKline,The American Red Cross, Blue Shield of California, Ortho Biotech, Roche, Medical Mutual of Ohio, Amgen, Kaiser Permanente, and nearly 2000 hospitals, clinics, spas and hospices to distribute her guided imagery recordings, in many instances free of charge.

A warm, dynamic and compelling speaker, Naparstek has lectured across the country and around the world, training thousands of health professionals, corporate leaders, counselors, performing artists and health consumers in the use of her powerful, ground-breaking guided imagery techniques.

Her imagery has been involved in 24 clinical trials, with over a half dozen studies completed to date. Efficacy has been established for several psychological and medical conditions.

Naparstek received both undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Chicago. For years she taught graduate students at Case Western Reserve University's Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences. She lives in Cleveland with her family.

Twice Betrayed: Women Veterans and Military Sexual Trauma

It's my deep-seated belief that women veterans who suffer military sexual trauma risk being twice betrayed: once by their perpetrator in uniform, once by the system itself, which should be doing a much better job of protecting them from a problem that's too apparent, widespread, and part of the actual culture to pretend that it doesn't exist.

 

See Jeff Benedict on this:

"But an occupation that thrives on a unique capacity for aggression among participants runs the risk of being a home for troubled men who cannot contain their rage against the opposite sex." -- Jeff Benedict, author of "Public Heroes, Private Felons"

Preventing Psychological Injury, Betrayal and Trauma: The Real “Costs” and “Treatment” of Military Sexual Trauma

 

Sometimes I think I miss the point on some of these blog posts: I’m too busy trying to set the stage and establish the “milieu” so that a thoughtful person can absorb it all and come away with a new outlook or two on a “same old” problem.  But maybe I’m failing to come right out and say what I’m really thinking, and God knows enough people are floundering around on this topic who shouldn’t be, so maybe I just will.  Here goes the suddenly editorial portion of our program:

 

We heard Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D., pretty much the foremost expert nationally on veterans and PTSD, talk the other day about the “psychological injury” that troops are exposed to from lack of sleep, before and after combat, and how that sets them up for significant problems.  True; agreed; understood.  What we’re talking about here with women in the military and military sexual trauma is a similar thing: preventing and treating what is a grievous psychological injury. It's a situation like the one Shay talks about, something where the proverbial “ounce of prevention” is worth the “pound of cure.”  Shay is remarkable: he’s one of a kind.  There’s probably no better advocate for veterans in the country, although anyone who works with veterans from the heart is worthy of great honor.  It’s a pretty much unsung, undervalued calling.

 

However, we can’t really expect Dr. Shay, as amazing as he is, to come out and have much to say about military sexual trauma.  He’s got his hands full already with what his topics are; and, his main “demographic” has always been Vietnam veterans, most of whom…the vast majority of whom…are men.  That’s who served for the most part in Vietnam. That is not the composition of the military today; or even the contracting world that “supports” (using that term somewhat loosely) the military and the Department of Defense.

 

So we need to find some new experts, and some new paradigms; put in place some new safeguards, establish and deliver some new training; and, in general, get a radically new “outlook” on this problem.

 

That’s why I bothered to link in the passage from Jeff Benedict’s book about pro athletes who commit crimes against women, and how they are protected, in part, by the very environment in which their crimes take place.  So too with the military: it’s as good an analogy as you’re going to get right now, and frankly, we’re in need of one.

 

It’s a crying shame that women victims of military sexual assault are being murdered (they are) by their perpetrators to prevent their coming forward; and killing themselves (they are) because they’ve anticipating a double betrayal: the military that failed to protect them in the first place – and allowed the assault to happen – and the betrayal they expect to take place, when they muster up enough strength, courage or hope to try to “fight the system” and report the crime.  In the clutch – feeling desperate, forsaken and very much alone -- some of these women just give up, and take their own lives, because they’ve so lost hope that the system will get them the justice they deserve.

 

If you read the literature on suicide – something that plagues veterans with PTSD, and military sexual assault causes and is associated with PTSD in women – it’s not that hard to see the link.  People kill themselves when they give up hope; and when they anticipate from looking around that their situation isn’t going to be handled any better (any more sensitively, well or effectively) than the last person they heard about who had the same issues.

 

Listen to a world-renowned expert on suicide, Edwin Schneidman, for a moment on this.  A person goes from being troubled (perturbation) to doing something final about it (lethality) when they give up hope.  "Lethality, when coupled with elevated perturbation," writes Schneidman in his book, The Suicidal Mind, "is a principal ingredient in self-inflicted death.  Perturbation supplies the motivation for suicide; lethality is the fatal trigger."  He continues:

 

"Lethality -- the idea that "I can stop this pain; I can kill myself" is the unique essence of suicide.  Anybody who has ever switched off an electric light deliberately to plunge a hideous room into darkness or, with equal deliberation, stopped the action of an annoying engine by turning the key to OFF, has, for that moment, been granted the swift satisfaction the suicidal person hungers for.  After all, the suicidal person intends to stop the ongoing activities [including their highly personal traumas] of life."

 

What's the relationship to this topic?  Do I need to make it explicit?  Well, then, I will: if you set people up in a situation where they will fail (be assaulted) and then furthermore not address their condition compassionately, seriously, effectively or well -- the torment they feel (perturbation) is enough to create a sense that there is truly "no way out" (lethality) and no one who cares.  I think we have all the ingredients here.

 

Said another way, let's turn to Kathie Costos.  Chaplain Kathie Costos, who’s been caring about PTSD issues and the military for years now, signs her personal emails with a great quote, allegedly from George Washington.  It says:

 

"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation."  -- George Washington

Well, let’s just snap our fingers and bring that comment current, collapsing it with the material we’re talking about right here.  It still applies:

 

“The willingness with which women who have suffered sexual assaults in the military are to come forward is directly proportional to how they perceive other women veterans who have been victims of military sexual assault have been treated.”

And it seems they would have good reason to be concerned. You see women who came to horrible ends because their predation wasn’t understood for what it was (Maria Lauterbach and Cesar Laurean, but there are plenty more cases like that in the news, not just them); those whose situation was wrongly classified as “suicide” when it was way more clearly murder (see the case of Army Private LaVena Johnson, profiled in Salon and elsewhere, linked here); outrageous sexual assault situations against women contractors (see Jamie Leigh Jones' allegations against KBR, linked here); and well, the list goes on and on. Justice delayed = justice denied. 

 

It's just human nature/common sense: Fewer women come forward to report problems when they can see that the last situations they knew about weren’t handled well by the overarching authority, the military, and represented just more hell for the women involved.  That seriously needs not to happen.

 

(The Sacramento Bee, following up on my lifetime theme about good journalists pushing the culture forward, recently completed an exhaustive, and interesting, investigation about troops with criminal backgrounds, and what the effect on their subsequent service is.  Unfortunately for our purposes it didn't go far enough, because it didn't highlight or single out crimes against women.  If that were studied, and the results were significant -- that's two "if's," we realize -- those findings could go towards screening those potential recruits out of the military.  In a highly-charged aggressive environment with lots of boredom and little oversight, the last thing someone needs is more sexual predators in the midst, in uniform.)

 

In general, though, the focus shouldn’t just be on “reporting” or “treating” women who have suffered military sexual trauma.  It should be on prevention primarily, with a secondary emphasis on the others – or a sense that together, all three of those cords braid into a very strong rope, the kind that women will need to pull themselves up out of a very bad situation.

 

Women who suffer military sexual trauma are twice betrayed: once by the rapist, once by the system.  It’s time to put an end to that problem.

 

Some recommendations?

Create an atmosphere in which military sexual assault is not tolerated.  Where prosecution is expected and justice is swift.  Take women’s concerns seriously.  Raise the standard of investigation and prosecution to be on a par with the civilian world.  Expect, demand, and reward parity with the civilian police departments (good ones) and criminal justice system on this topic.  No more lost rape kits or botched, semi-competent investigations.  If you don’t know how to do this, go learn from the people who do, in the civilian world.  Call them in to be your speakers at your conferences, not the dipsticks who can simply restate the problem to you and offer nothing more than singing “Kumbaya” together as a solution. If you don't have the experts in-house, and my guess is that you heavily don't, go find them, because they are out there: many are specialists in a parallel situation in the civilian world. 

 

Call in some cutting edge thinkers, who can help you re-evaluate the situation as it already stands, and think some new thoughts on it.  People who have some competence in the civilian world, and are sensitive to the issues and concerns that surround women who have been traumatized by aggressive men in a culture that rewards it, but can’t seem to manage mitigating those qualities when they’re not called for – off the field.  The closest analog is actually pro sports: and both Jeff Benedict and Victoria Vreeland (incidentally, both attorneys) who we wrote about the other day on this, if they’re willing, might have copious insights to provide, based on their work with women who have been traumatized by sexual predators.  (Heck, I even know of one combat veteran and ex-cop, ex-police chief, ex-criminal justice teacher, who's getting his Ph.D. in psychology, and intimately understands PTSD, because he has it from combat. He might be willing to help you think through the problem, and create some solutions: or help train the trainers.  That's Rob Honzell.)

 

Want to know the scope of the problem?  Listen to Paul Reickhoff on it, who is once again pushing for change in a key area of importance to veterans.

 

Want to learn how to screen for potential offenders, or protect and keep women secure from it? Get in touch with Gavin de Becker, author of The Gift of Fear, and Protecting the Gift, and have him talk to you about what better security looks like for people who need the assist (women) in a dangerous environment.  A senior consultant to the Rand Corporation, and an international expert on security and threat assessment, he’s very familiar with concepts like unwanted pursuit, and predicting violent behavior – two topics that ought to be of concern to the military infrastructure on this problem.  Thankfully, he’s also very sensitized to the whole topic of women and assault, which is a rarity. 

 

Want to learn how the law and the medical system can work in conjunction to intervene effectively, and bring hope back to survivors?  Study things like the innovative “Passageways” program, a medical-legal partnership between Harvard Law School’s Legal Services Center and Boston’s equally eminent Brigham & Women’s Hospital that offers domestic violence intervention for women. Sarah Boonin is the person who knows most about this program: her bio is linked here. (The Passageways program even has a cool little book that might be helpful for survivors as they work through some of their issues.)  And spend some time thinking about how to keep women warriors safe in an environment where their sexual safety is a) not a priority, and only poorly understood as a need; and b) where prosecution and treatment of offenses can be poorly handled, botched, or doubly victimizing.  Enlarge your minds, call in the real experts, not the supposed experts, ask the good questions, shake up the paradigm; rethink the problem, and come up with better solutions.

 

As good ol’ Albert Einstein is alleged to have said, in some vague quote I’m botching as I paraphrase, “no real problem can be solved at the same level of thinking that was in place when it was created; you always have to go one level up from it.”

 

That is…if you really want it to be solved.

 

It’s always possible – we like to look at every side of a topic, to better understand the 360 of it – that really nobody wants to solve this problem, or they’d be doing a better job of it.  Is it a way to shuffle women out of the military, which some feel they never should have been a part of in the first place?  Would it take too much wise screening of potentially felonious recruits, to start cutting down on the types of potential predators who are donning uniforms?  Is the longtime military focus on just one aspect of “flipping the switch” – the switch that trains men to be killers, but doesn’t help them re-integrate after combat, and resume their ordinary lives – part of the problem?  Men in combat are a finely-tuned killing machine, with women warriors in their midst – and the whole psychology is attuned to the enemy as the opponent.  Sometimes, women inadvertently become the opponent as well.

 

Seriously – who knows?  Certainly not I.  But one thing I do know for sure: this situation cries out for better handling.  And every week that goes by that it isn’t, women are being assaulted, dying and being killed – at their own hand, and at the hands of others.  And worst of all, by the system’s neglect.

 

It’s great that they’re out there – VA programs like the National Women's Trauma Recovery Program for Women Veterans, which we've blogged about here, and the Women's Mental Health Center for Women Veterans, which we've blogged about here -- programs devoted to helping women heal from military sexual assault.  But those programs are in their infancy, there aren’t enough of them, and the women who suffer these invasive tragedies and horrors by those with whom they serve – have a hellaciously tough time putting their lives back together again.  It’s in their honor that I’m even talking about this, which is a little off the topic of the main theme here on this blog, combat trauma and PTSD.  Really, though, military sexual assault of women warriors is just “another form of combat trauma.”

 

In wartime, “betrayal,” which means to have trust broken by one of the parties, in a horrific way that affects the one who relied upon it, and causes them by implication great harm – is a called “treason” – a crime punishable by death.  That is, when it’s the servicemember betraying the military.  When it’s the military betraying the servicemember?  What do we call that?

 

Let’s hope what we don’t call it is...business as usual.

Anand Kartha, M.D.

Anand Kartha MD, MSc, Hospitalist and Director of Medical Consultation Service at the VA was awarded this year’s David Littman Award. The award is given to a physician at the VA who demonstrates outstanding dedication to the VA's patients and its mission.

Dr. Kartha was a recipient of a Primary Care (GIM/FM) Academic Fellowship at the Boston University Medical Campus.  His years in the Fellowship were 2003-2005, and he spent them at the Veterans Admininstration Hospital, Boston VA Healthcare System.  The focus of his Fellowship studies were: Predictors of re-hospitalization/Utilization of health care resources in post-traumatic stress disorder.

Anand Kartha, MD, MSc, VA Boston Healthcare System, 1400 VFW Parkway, Mail Stop 111, West Roxbury, MA 02132.

Peter A. Levine, Ph.D.

BORN
February 19,1942

DEGREES
B.S. University of Michigan, 1964: Physics Engineering; and Minors in Mathematics and Psychology.

Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, 1976: Department of Medical and Biological Physics: Group in Biophysics (interdisciplinary Program in Physical Biology; Life Science, Neurophysiology and Psychology.)

Ph.D. International College, Los Angeles, 1977; Independent Directed Tutorial, Psychology.

POSITIONS
1999-Member of Task Force, Institute of World Affairs, Psychologists for Social Responsibility and Presidential Initiative on Ethnopolitical Warfare, Twin Lakes, Connecticut. Setting curriculum and training for large scale disaster and Ethnopolitical Conflict development at post graduate level.

1998-Present - Founder and Training Director, Foundation for Human Enrichment, Lyons, Colorado.

1998-1999 - Lecture and training, C. J. Jung Society, Denver, Colorado.

1995- Consultant: Colorado Center for Bio-behavioral Health.

1994-Present - Consultant, Pain and Rehabilitation Clinic, Mapleton Center, Boulder Community Hospital, Boulder, Colorado.

1990-1995 - Director and Training Director, Ergos Institute for Somatic Education.

1988-1990 - President, Foundation for Human Enrichment-A non-profit resource in the health sciences.

1988-1989 - Guest Teacher OASIS: International treatment program for refugees and torture victims. Copenhagen, Denmark.

1987-1990 - Guest teacher for the Danish Psychiatric hospitals at Nykooping and Viborg, Denmark.

1987-1989 - Guest Teacher, Bodynamic Institute. Copenhagen, Denmark.

1986-1990 - Consultant, Hopi Guidance Center; clinical training for native therapists.

1985-1989 - Co-teacher with Richard Oiney M.A., Hypnosis and Body Experience, a series of professional residential training programs held in Arizona.

1980-1990 - Program director and primary teacher in the Somatic Experiencing training program for Body Oriented Therapy, Berkeley, California.

1985-1987 - Community Affairs co-director for Ergos Institute, Flagstaff,-Arizona.

1985-1986 - Stress Consultant for Sheriffs Department of Coconino County, Arizona.

1984- Antioch College, San Francisco, California, Faculty in Somatic Psychology.

1983- Teacher in Residence and Director of the Extended Study Program, Esalen Institute. Big Sur, California.

1981-1982 - Visiting Faculty, University of New England, College of Osteopathic Medicine - Department of Clinical Principles and Practice. And Continuing Medical Education.

1981-1982 - Consultant, Blueberry Treatment Centers for Autistic Children, Brooklyn, New York, with Dr. Mira Rothenberg.

1980-1981 - Consultant, Stress and Pain Center, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

1978-1979 - Consultant to NASA Ames: Stress Factors in Space Shuttle Flight (Project Director; U.C. Consortium with NASA.)

1978-1979 - Instructor, Antioch College, San Francisco.

1977-1979 - Lecturer, Department of Health and Medical Sciences, University of California, Berkeley.

1976-1977 - Field Facility Advisor for Humanistic Psychology Institute Saybrook University, San Francisco, California.

1970-1971 - Lecturer in Contemporary Natural Sciences Program, Department of Physics and Zoology, University of California, Berkeley.

1969-1970 - Instructor (acting): Zoology, University of California, Berkeley.

1969-1970-Instructor: Life Sciences, Mills College, Oakland, California.

1962-1964 - Research Assistant, Electronic Defense Group and Department of Psychology, University of Michigan with Professor Wilson P. Tanner on electronic prosthetic devices for the blind.

1961- Technical Assistant, Bell Telephone Laboratories, Murryhill, New Jersey with Leon D. Harmon in Neurocybernetics, ''Artificial Neuron'' Project.

1961- Research Assistant Department of Psychology with Professor P.M. Fiffs, Stimulus Response compatibility studies in Human Engineering.

PUBLISHED WORKS
1999- Healing Trauma-Restoring the Wisdom of the Body, Peter Levine; Sounds True

1998- Trauma Therapy for Survivors of Torture, Jorgensen and Mathiasen eds.

1997-Waking the Tiger-Healing Trauma, Peter Levine with Ann Frederick; North Atlantic Books

1997- Memory, Trauma, and Healing- article appeared in Spring, 1997 of AHP Journal Perspective. Also in the Journal of Bio-Synthesis.

1996- ''Understanding Childhood Trauma''

1991- ''The Body As Healer, Transforming Trauma''

1990- Revisioning Anxiety and Trauma, in Giving the Body Its Due (ed. Maxine Sheets Johnstone) S.U.N.Y. Press, 1991.

1989- The Substitute Tiger, An Integrative Bio-developmental Approach to Anxiety and Post Traumatic Stress.

1986- Chapter on Stress for Psychophysiology. Systems, Processes, and Application, A Handbook, eds. Coles, M., Donchin, E., and Porges, S., Guilford Press, 1986.

1983- Chronic Perinatal Stress as a Predisposing Factor in Autism and Childhood Psychosis, a Neurodevelopmental model suggesting strategies in treatment and prophylaxis. In: Symposium on Autism co-sponsored by University du Quebec a Montreal and San Francisco State University.

1982- Circle of Damage, Circle of Grace-Stress and Your Children. (Unpublished Manuscript).

1982- Stress, Neurobiology and Behavior Benchmark series on Human Physiology and

Behavior, Dowden, Hutchinson and Ross, Inc. (Submitted for Publication).

1978- Stress and Vegetatherapy, Journal of Energy and Character-England (Fall and Winter)

1978- Infra-Uterinee Environment, Stress and Neurological Development, Journal of Behavioral Neuropsychiatry.

1977- Accumulate Stress Reserve Capacity and Disease, University Microfilm 77-15760, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

1977- A Rhythm to Growing. - A Comment on the Body Approaches of Reich and Rolf and the Process of Adaptive Growth, Life and Works of Wilhelm Reich, Viking Penguin.

1964- A Model for Flicker Fusion. Bell Telephone Company, Technical Memoranda.

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
1999- Keynote Speaker, National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine, Palm Springs, California.

1996-1999 - Keynote Speaker, American Polarity Therapy Association

1999- The Biology of Emotion- With Candice Perts.

1997- Keynote Speaker, Trauma Conference, Naropa Institute

1997- Keynote Speaker, Oasis Tenth Anniversary, International Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark.

1997- Keynote Speaker, International Polarity Conference

1996- Keynote Speaker AHP (Assoc. of Humanistic Psychology) International Conference

1995-1998 - Keynote Speaker The International Somatics Congress-Congress International de Somatotherapy

1995- ''Unifying the Elusive Symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress and Closed Head Injury; New Models for Treatment''-Rehabilitation in-service, Mapleton Center/Boulder Community Hospital

1991- ''Somatic Contributions to the Healing of Sexual Abuse.'' University of California Extension School of Public Health.

1991- ''What Is The Child's Reality?, The Child In the Hospital,'' Washoe Medical Center, Reno, Nevada.

1990- Keynote National Hakomi Institute of Body Oriented Psychotherapy.

1989-1990 - Keynote National Guild for Structural Integration.

1989- ''The Ordinary Miracle of Healing'' at Washoe Medical Center, Reno, Nevada.

1989- ''An Integrative Approach to Anxiety and Post-Traumatic Stress.'' The Second Nordic Psychophysiology Conference, Lynkooping, Sweden.

1988- Keynote National AMTA - ''Body Feeling and Self''

1987-1988 - Grand Rounds, Nevada-Mental Health Institute and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Nevada, Reno.

1. ''What Constitutes Therapeutic Milieu in a Hospitalized Setting?'' (A panel discussion).
2. ''Body/Mind Relationships; A Synthesis of Developmental and Psychophysiological Approaches in the Non-drug, Somatic (body-oriented) Treatment of Psychopathologies''
3. ''The Substitute Tiger; Shock as a Critical and Neglected Factor in Treating Phobic States and Other Psychopathologies.'' Reno, Nevada.

1987- ''The Body in Health Care.'' YWCA, Reno, Nevada.

1984- ''Beyond the Relaxation Response: Self-regulation and Healing for Clinicians.'' U.C.L.A. School of Medicine.

1983- ''Towards a Biology of Body Work.'' Keynote Speaker. New Visions in Bodywork Invision Associates and JFK University.

1982- Grand Rounds, Pacific Medical Center (Department of Psychiatry): ''Another Look at Carbon Dioxide Inhalation in the Treatment of Stress Underlying Various Pathologies.''

1982- ''The Body and the Person: Towards a Somatic Model of Health'' (U.C. Extension School of Public Health), Consultant, Coordinator, and Participant.

1981- ''The Perinatal Period: Interface of Biology and Behavior'' (with S. Porges). Esalen Institute, Coordinator and Participant.

1980- ''Conceptualizing Energy Medicine.'' (U.C. Extension School of Public Health).

1979- ''Biology of the Affectional Bond.'' University of California, Berkeley, Health and Medical Sciences; Stanford Research Institute International: Ergos, Foundation, and Esalen Institute; Coordinator and Participant.

PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES
American Psychological Association
A.M.T.A.-American Massage Therapy Association
Guild for Structural Integration-inactive
Society For Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis

CERTIFICATIONS
American Board of Medical Psychotherapists, Fellow and Diplomat
American Board of Stress Practitioners
American Council of Hypnosis Examiners
The American Institute of Stress, Fellow and Diplomat
ISSSEEM-International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies & Energy Medicine