Waking the Tiger

I discovered this book before almost anyone else in a New Age store that sold jewelry and cards and had a small selection of books. When I picked it up and saw two tigers on the cover, I had to buy it.

As soon as I read it, I thought, “This is the most useful way of thinking about and working with trauma that I have ever seen. When I called to try to join a training program, I was told there was no training program yet. I kept checking, then finally gave up.

It took several years before Peter… show more.

This is the book that introduced me to trauma recovery and to a world of therapy where talking is just a small part. The idea that trauma sits in the body, is stored in us physically, was completely new to me. Reading Taming the Tiger opened my eyes to the trauma of my childhood I personally was carrying. 

I read Taming the Tiger at the beginning of my journey to becoming a therapist. It isn’t an academic book, but one that is very accessible and opened my eyes to actions I was unable to take at the point of trauma,… show more.

Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine explains how trauma becomes lodged in the body and how it gets released. Studying animals and how they don’t suffer trauma because they tremble through their emotions instead of thwarting them helped me gain more confidence to let emotions flow through my body. The explanation of trauma and how it is healed built my confidence that there is hope for healing our deepest wounds.