Designed for psychotherapists and their clients, Peter Levine's latest best-seller continues his groundbreaking exploration of the central role of the body in processing—and healing—trauma. With foreword by Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score In Trauma and Memory, bestselling author Dr. Peter Levine (creator of the Somatic Experiencing approach) tackles one of the most difficult and controversial questions of PTSD/trauma therapy: Can we trust our memories? While some argue that traumatic memories are unreliable and not useful, others insist that we absolutely must rely on memory to make sense of past experience. Building on his 45 years of successful treatment of trauma and utilizing case studies from his own practice, Dr. Levine suggests that there are elements of truth in both camps. While acknowledging that memory can be trusted, he argues that the only truly useful memories are those that might initially seem to be the least reliable: memories stored in the body and not necessarily accessible by our conscious mind. While much work has been done in the field of trauma studies to address "explicit" traumatic memories in the brain (such as intrusive thoughts or flashbacks), much less attention has been paid to how the body itself stores "implicit" memory, and how much of what we think of as "memory" actually comes to us through our (often unconsciously accessed) felt sense. By learning how to better understand this complex interplay of past and present, brain and body, we can adjust our relationship to past trauma and move into a more balanced, relaxed state of being. Written for trauma sufferers as well as mental health care practitioners, Trauma and Memory is a groundbreaking look at how memory is constructed and how influential memories are on our present state of being.

This book is a guide to the controversies swirling around recovered memories of trauma, especially childhood sexual abuse. The contributors provide a road map to the research on memory, including ways in which it is affected by trauma. Therapeutic approaches to patients suffering the after effects of trauma are considered in detail.

"Memory, trauma, and history is comprosed of essays that fall into five overlapping subject areas: history and memory; psychoanalysis and trauma; postmodernism, scholarship, and cultural politics; photography and representation; and liberal education." -- Introduction.

Trauma and Memory will assist mental health experts and professionals, as well as the interested public, in understanding the scientific issues around trauma memory, and how this differs from other areas of memory. This book provides accounts of the damage caused to psychology and survivors internationally by false memory groups and ideas. It is unequivocally passionate about the truth of trauma memory and exposing the damaging disinformation that can seep into the field. Contributors to this book include leading professionals from the field of criminology, law, psychology and psychotherapy in the UK and USA, along with survivor-professionals who understand only too well the damage such disinformation can cause. This book is a valuable resource for mental health professionals of all disciplines including those involved with relevant law and public health policy. It will also help survivors and survivor-professionals in gaining insight into the forces resisting disclosure.

Balanced, systematic, and timely, this clear and pragmatic guide distills current scientific research on childhood trauma and memory for its relevance to clinical work and the quest for narrative meaning in psychotherapy. The book also reviews and integrates psychoanalytic, cognitive, narrative, and neurophysiological theory in order to provide a fair and nuanced account of the literature. Controversial issues such as the "truth" of traumatic memory are addressed, as are ethical issues in working with traumatic memory.

The authors critically review memory research, trauma treatment, and legal cases pertaining to the false memory controversy. They discuss current memory science and research with both children and adults, pointing out where findings are and are not generalizable to trauma memories recovered in psychotherapy. The main issues in the recovered memory debate are covered, as well as research on emotion and memory, autobiographical memory, flashbulb memory, memory for trauma, and types of suggestions, such as misinformation suggestions, social persuasion, interrogatory suggestions, and brainwashing. Research on the reliability of memories recovered in hypnosis is reviewed and guidelines for using hypnosis with patients reporting no, partial, or full memory of having been sexually abused are outlined. The authors review the development and current practice of phase-oriented trauma treatment and present a standard of care that is effective and ethical. Their exploration of memory in the legal context includes a review of malpractice liability and current malpractice cases for allegedly implanting false memories in therapy, as well as the evolving law around legal actions by people who have recovered memories and around hypnosis and memory recovery. This is an essential reference on memory for all clinicians, researchers, attorneys, and judges.

A distinguished group of analysts and critics offers a compelling look at what literature and the new approaches of theoretical disciplines bring to the understanding of traumatic experiences such as child abuse, AIDS, and the effects of historical atrocities such as the Holocaust. "These essays offer fresh approaches on the subject of trauma from both a psychoanalytic and contemporary theoretical point of view".--Alan Bass, Ph.D., psychoanalyst.