Have you ever experienced something upsetting or frightening in the past and thought: “I know I'm safe now. I know it happened years ago. So why does my body still react as though it's happening again?” Perhaps your heart starts racing when something reminds you of what happened. You feel sick, shaky or suddenly overwhelmed...But trauma isn't simply about remembering what happened. Sometimes the body has learned to respond to danger even when the danger is no longer there.

Peter Levine has spent much of his life working with trauma and traumatised people, and has developed an approach called Somatic...