In an Unspoken Voice by Peter A Levine

Author:Peter A Levine [Levine, Peter A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781583946527
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
Published: 2012-10-30T04:00:00+00:00

Discussion Points

I reflected on our session and on what might have brought Adam out of his immobilizing depression and into the stream of life. He was able to identify with the slum child’s exuberance—an exuberance that transcended the child’s deprived fate. Adam was able to feel, in his own body, the innocence, excitement and joy of a child flying a kite improvised from scraps of scavenged trash. In a similar way, Adam collected scraps from the trash heap of his devastating and dehumanizing past. This time, instead of collapsing under its weight, he marshaled a creative solution. By standing up (kinesthetically contradicting his habitual collapse) and physically grounding his pain, he mobilized his life force and joined with the transcendent flight of the kite. He could feel himself being drawn upward by the soaring image, and toward the possibility of authentic freedom and spontaneous play. Metaphorically, he reacquainted himself with the allegory of his namesake. Adam connected with the innocence of the biblical Adam—before the bitter fruit of terrible knowledge had singed his tongue with the bitter taste of man’s cruel and evil inhumanity. This formerly broken man now had touched into the grounded embodiment and resilient self-compassion enough to begin grieving and thus initiate a movement back into life. I did not want to expose (and most certainly flood) him with the shock of seeing his son hanging in the bathroom. My main consideration, at this point, was to coax his nervous system out of the shutdown caused by the shock and to begin establishing a base of resilience and self-regulation.

I’d like to invite you, the reader, to ponder the following considerations. Were Paulo’s inconsolable screaming episodes beginning at age four and his choice of hanging himself mere coincidences? (Remember, Adam’s wife reported that her husband would also scream and cry during the night, just as his son had done). Or were these incidents some deep transgenerational reenactment of his father’s unfelt experiences and unprocessed emotions? Such possibilities are among the mysteries of trauma and of the human spirit.

Certain authors discussing the Holocaust, such as Yael Danieli103 and Robert Lifton,104 have written groundbreaking analyses of the victims who lived through this horrific massacre. In working with Adam and a few other survivors of this kind of experience, I am personally confronted not only with the terrible knowledge of the cruelty that human beings are capable of, but also of the remarkable process by which the body is somehow able to compartmentalize the effects of this cruelty and go on with life. It maintains its tenuous hold, that is, until something is added to the unsustainable containment of their burden. Yet still, the smoldering flame of the deep self can miraculously reignite, given the right opportunity and carefully calibrated support.

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