One moment after the event, Peter Levine was hit by a car, rescued, and taken to the hospital by ambulance. He suffered no serious injuries, but he realized that he had instinctively activated self‑protective mechanisms in response to the trauma, which allowed him to avoid developing post‑traumatic stress disorder.

All of this happened by listening to the silent voice of the body, that is, by allowing, rather than suppressing, the body’s spontaneous reactions to trauma, and by benefiting from the caring presence of a woman who had stopped to help him.

These principles form the foundation of the method he later developed, known as Somatic Experiencing: on the one hand, the therapist must create a safe environment in which the patient feels protected; on the other, the therapist must encourage the physical and emotional expression of the instinctive reactions to trauma. The core idea is that trauma is not a disease to be cured, but a spontaneous human response to painful events, a reaction rooted in the survival instinct, one that must be moved through in order to reach resolution.