In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness

by Peter A. Levine

Of equal importance in resolving trauma is therapeutic restraint in not allowing the unwinding to occur precipitously. As with the nontitrated chemical reaction, abrupt decoupling can be explosive, frightening and potentially retraumatizing to the client. Through titration, the client is gradually led into and out of the immobility sensations many times, each time returning to a calming equilibrium (the “Alka-Seltzer fizzle”). In exiting from immobility, there is an “initiation by fire”; the intense energy-packed sensations that are biologically coupled with undirected flight and rage-counterattack are released. Understandably, people commonly fear both entering and exiting immobility, especially when they are not aware of the benefit of doing so. Let us look more deeply into these fears.