Often we find that the problems we encounter in life have their roots in the imprinting we experience before and during birth and through early childhood. These issues that arise before we are verbal need to be met and repatterned at the same level in which they begin. Working somatically and experientially can offer deep, profound, and often comparatively quick resolution to problems that carry significant influence on development, bonding and attachment and interpersonal relationships.

The field of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Therapy has grown from research that shows prenates and neonates feel, have consciousness, have memories and react specifically to their experiences.  The pioneering work of Dr. Frank Lake, followed by Drs. Eva Reich, William Emerson, Ray Castellino (and even earlier research and psychotherapy by Dr. Wilhelm Reich in the 1940’s and John Bowlby in the 1950’s) demonstrate the importance of this.

Research spanning many disciplines now proves the importance in a person’s life of the quality of conception, the nine months of gestation, and the process of the birth itself. All have great affect on how the child is welcomed and related to at the beginning, which, in turn, affects greatly not only early childhood and development, but continues all the way through our lives into adulthood. Evidence confirms that many health issues physical, mental, emotional and spiritual — are linked to prenatal and birth experiences and parent-infant bonding.

The amount of connection — bonding and attachment in the early days after birth — makes a great difference in how the infant will thrive or not, in the love and intimacy engendered between infant and parent, and even how parents and siblings will relate to each other.

Patterns for ones ability to deal with stress and trauma are also laid down in these early times, they inform us and follow us throughout our lives. These early patterns that go so deep develop while we are pre-verbal. If these patterns are traumatic much of the work to resolve such trauma needs to engage on the pre-verbal level. Working somatically can have deep, profound and often comparatively quick resolution to problems and issues that have seemed to resist other therapeutic attempts.

Prenatal and perinatal psychology and therapy applies to infants and children as well as adults.

I was asked to join a panel that would be presenting “Exploring the Critical Elements of Trauma Treatment” at the 6th National Conference of the United States Association of Body Psychotherapy in California, in October 2010.  The other panelists were to be Robert Scaer, M.D., Peter Levine, Ph.D., Thomas Pope, M.A., Judith Blackstone, Ph.D., Scott Baum, Ph.D., and myself.  Mary Giuffra, Ph.D. was to be the moderator.  It was introduced in the catalogue to be a “lively discussion among leading trauma theorists and clinicians exploring unique perspectives on the incidence of trauma and its treatment.”

Prior to the conference Mary sent we panelists an email with some questions.  As soon as I saw “What are the essential elements of trauma treatment?“ two words immediately came to my mind:  Safety and Support.  As I thought about being on this panel I realized what I wanted to talk about was preventing trauma, rather than treating it after it had happened.  I would like to tell you what I offered for my participation on the panel.

As I thought so immediately, I feel that strongly that Safety and Support are two essential elements that are needed in any relationship for working with trauma (or with any growth issues for that matter).  The trust of the practitioner is necessary.  There must be an attunement between the parties.  The method is not so important as is the resonance between them.  The practitioner needs to pay infinite attention and pace the work to the client’s needs and abilities. Whatever happens must honor the client’s tempo and range.  And I feel the only way to work with a person for depth and true change of any sort must be somatic.  Our experiences really are in our cells.  Somatic awareness is the crucial element to lead our work.

I divided my talk into several sections:  during gestation, the birth process, after birth, and even before.

Conception is also an important stage during which traumas can occur, even though I didn’t concentrate on it.  How conception occurs can be a basis for traumatic beginnings or for secure consciousness.  The consciousness of the parents and their awareness affects the process of conception and the consciousness of the prenate which continues into birth and later life.

During Gestation:

The attitude of the family is very important and is passed on to the prenate.  Of course the attitude of the mother especially influences the baby, but the father’s attitude is also deeply felt, and that of grandparents, siblings, etc.

Many years ago when I first began working with infants two other colleagues and I would see clients together, for support and for learning.  One day a lovely young family came in.  There was nothing wrong with the infant, no traumas, they had had a lovely birth; they just wanted to check in with us to see what we could say.  The mother sat in a rocking chair with the baby sleeping in her lap as the parents talked softly about their experiences.  It was a lovely scene.  The mother mentioned how her parents thought it wasn’t wise for them to have a child at that time and they wanted her to have an abortion.  From his sleep the child startled!  His arms rose above his head and his entire body tensed.  After she told us that she had not wanted to do that we coached her to immediately tell that to the baby. The parents told him they wanted him very much and they were so glad he was here.  (She told us she only had considered abortion for a minute.)  As they told their child how much they loved him, he settled and went back to sleeping peacefully without actually having wakened at all.  But he heard, somewhere he knew.  And it was important for that unspoken confusion to be clarified.

The attitude about pregnancy is very important.  Unwanted pregnancies, even an inconvenient pregnancy makes a big difference and the child feels it deeply.

Various events in the parents’ lives during the pregnancy can make an impact on the prenate.  Physical traumas and emotional traumas are passed down through the lineage.

Research shows that when mothers have difficult births their daughters also have difficult births at higher than normal rates.  This is definitely information that supports how valuable it is for mothers to work with and resolve their traumas as much as possible before giving birth.  Fathers’ traumas can also affect the child – less so, but they are still important influences.

There is also what we call “generational trauma.” This is the history the parents bring to pregnancy and birth as well as the quality of their relationship.  It is personal events and also huge, historical ones, such as holocausts, wars, deprivation, etc.

And there are also not-so-minor issues such as alcohol (now-a-days, thankfully, most people do pay some attention to the fetal alcohol syndrome), smoking -– both first-hand and second-hand smoke affects the prenate.  Sounds also affect the prenate as do other actions.  Abuse to the mother goes all the way in to the prenate.  Tension, depression, fear, stress — all these activities, everything, whatever it is, has a part in creating the environment in which the prenate lives.

During the Birthing Process:

There are many possibilities for interventions during the birthing process.  Some are necessary; others may not be so.  Planned or unplanned drugs of course affect the baby who is working to be born. Unconsidered and unaddressed fear is especially an important element in the whole equation of the birth.  If the mother becomes tense it affects the labor process even to the point of stopping it.

For ease and to feel safe the mother must know what is happening and feel she has some control and support…at least some connection to what is happening.  How the medical staff treats the mother is very crucial.  If she is not considered or heard by the medical staff, if she is talked about, as an object, rather than spoken TO as the birthing mother she can feel disfranchised and this greatly affects her power and ability to do what she instinctively knows she must do and what is best for her and her baby.  Support, an advocate for the birthing mother is very important.

There are also physical aspects of trauma and damage:  tears in the mother’s tissue, the baby stuck in the birth canal, such difficult situations as shoulder dystocia, broken collar bones, pelvis, brachial plexus injuries, etc.  These all create difficulties and injuries for the mother and probably terror as well as great pain for the infant.

I saw an adult client who had been born with multiple fractures. His pelvis, ribs and clavicle had been broken during his birth. He had no memories of his injuries but he always felt he was broken.  He lived his life as if he could throw it away.  He was very reckless.  It took a lot of sensing, of somatic awareness practice to get to the point where he felt he was worth something and his life worth living.

Sometimes the birth is too fast.  This is usually due to drugs.  I’ve worked with many clients who had their heels dug in and resisted finishing anything within a time line.  Their feeling was that they had been pushed once and they didn’t want to be pushed again.  They wanted to have control over the timing in their lives.

And there are the very different situations of the emergency cesarean sections and the planned cesarean sections.  The former is an essential, probably life saving situation; the latter is often for no good reason.  In both cases the neonate is usually pulled out without any warning.  The emergency c-section gives the baby the message “I am not good enough to finish the job I started.”  With the planned c-section the traumatic message is more “No one cares about my timing, my needs.”

Either case is traumatic for at least the neonate.

The c-section rate in the United States is tragically high.  Some say it is now 38-40%.   In countries with more non-medical resources like midwives the rate has been a steady 5% for a long time.

Vacuum extraction is a terribly traumatic manner to try to assist the birthing of a baby.  I have felt the power and pain of a vacuum extractor on my palm, which is not very sensitive, compared to the soft, delicate skull of a newborn baby.  It was very intensely painful.

Forceps are also another device that have been used, perhaps more in the past, to help facilitate the baby birthing.  And again it is the skill and the manner in which it is used which makes all the difference.

These may be necessary procedures.  HOW they are performed and how it is presented to the birthing mother and baby is crucially important and makes a huge difference in whether the situation is going to be difficult or horribly traumatic.

After the Birthing Process:

Separation of mother and baby is a common practice in the west.  This is truly abuse and traumatic to both parties.  After such an intense process as birthing, mother and infant need and deserve the time to rest and be with each other.

Adoption is a severe trauma, of course, but “just” the simple separation of mother and baby is traumatic as well.

Transition from a warm, soft womb to a cold, bright (for the convenience of the medical staff) room and then put in a plastic container is quite a shock.

Picking up the neonate quickly, roughly toweling off the natural vernix from the baby’s skin, measuring and weighing the baby, suctioning (unless it is necessary), heel sticks, putting chemical drops in the infant’s eyes… all these activities are traumatic and terrifying to the baby.  I think most doctors have given up the very common practice of hanging the neonate from its feet and slapping it on the buttocks to get it to cry, but perhaps I am too hopeful.  Almost none of these procedures are immediately necessary.  If all is well and there are no medical emergencies these procedures definitely can be done in good time in a much kinder and less traumatic manner.

Another traumatic occurrence is circumcision.

If the infant needs, for various unfortunate reasons, to be in the NICU this can be terribly traumatic.  An infection in the mother that might cause separation and not allow nursing to occur is also an unhappy situation.  Any terrifying situations such as these can be mitigated if the baby is also talked to as a person who is here and is important rather than being talked about as an object.

Trauma during the perinatal period can affect the parents’ perception of the baby, their own self-concept, and their relationships.  These traumas can impair bonding and attachment and affect relationships in the entire family.  They can continue to create multiple problems for mother and baby that can grow and entangle into myriad traumas for life long situations.

Early trauma can have both immediate and long-range affects on the parents and the infant, and later in the adult it may create and connect with other psychological and somatic conditions and form a negative self-concept on levels difficult to work with because it all happened so early and so one-sidedly, and of course most of it was PRE-VERBAL.  Basically no one remembers that it happened as a traumatic wound, but we carry it in our muscles, in our cells, and consequently only somatic work will allow the person to access these situations.

Awarenesses to Help Prevent These Traumas:

Treat the baby, pre-birth or post, as the person that s/he is.

TALK TO THE BABY…both during pregnancy and around the birthing process, and of course after birth.

While pregnant if the mother is upset or angry or something difficult or traumatic is happening she can tell the baby what is happening if it is appropriate, but most especially she can let the baby know that it is not her/his fault, that s/he doesn’t have to be involved.  She can say, “I’m upset and it has nothing to do with you.”  “I’m angry and it is not about you.”  Etc.

During the birth process let the prenate know what is going on:  I’m scared/ we’re going to make a change/ we’re going to do it differently.  The doctor is going to help you come out.  I’m going to sleep…I’m still here with you even if I don’t talk to you for a while…I’m here with you even if you can’t feel me.

I love you so much and I want you to come out so I can see you.  I’m so glad you are coming now.  We are stuck and we’re going to get some help.  It is long and hard work and I know it is worth it.  We love you very much.  Etc.

After Birth:

WELCOME THE BABY!!!

Speak it!  Let him/her know s/he is wanted and that the journey was worth it.

Make eye contact when the baby is available for it.

Touch the baby, stroke, cuddle.

SKIN-TO-SKIN CONTACT.  Not just mommy; daddy too.

Breast feeding (even bottle feeding) also needs to include eye contact and touch and speaking, etc.

Sounds and words and coos.

Meet the baby’s tempo… which probably most of the time means slow down.

Communicate with sounds, movements, touch… all APPROPRIATE to the baby’s world and timing and needs of the moment.

CONTACT OF ALL SORTS: mental, physical, emotional, spiritual.

And continue this throughout a young one’s life, Ideally throughout all our lives.

I ended my offering on the panel by speaking to the audience who were mostly somatic psychologists, body-oriented psychotherapists, and students in the field:

You sensitive somatic therapists would probably not touch a client without asking permission or at the least letting them know that you are going to touch.  How many people ask a baby or tell them that they are going to touch them or pick them up?

Most adults pick up an infant without warning and much too quickly for the baby’s system.  The babies startle. They become rigid.  Their regulatory systems are assaulted.  A trauma pattern is begun.

Tell the baby.  Let him/her know what is happening.  Let him/her know that you think s/he is important enough to be included and spoken to.

Pulling a shirt over the head of a young one:  how often does it get stuck?  The baby may feel s/he cannot breathe.  This promotes panic.  It could be a beginning of breathing disorders.  Just giving notice of what you are going to do before or as you begin can mitigate the potential traumatic elements in a situation such as this.

Trauma is overwhelming…it is something we can’t handle.

Meeting infants as they are, at their levels of needs and potentials, helps them learn how they can handle what is happening.  Interacting appropriately, meeting them where they are, can prevent adding new stresses and traumas onto a little life.  This will consequently give us fewer traumas to unravel and will add more safety and security for our later lives.

Please let us do what we can to PREVENT traumas in little ones and therefore lessen traumatic situations in our world.

Thank you.

In my work I have encountered many people seeking various types of counseling saying something like “I have done so much therapy/analysis/etc.  Some of it was very good, but there is still something I have not been able to access—it seems there is something missing.” I had also felt this myself.  Beginning in my teenage years I had been reaching to therapy in an effort to understand my questions and heal my neuroses…with relatively little success.  I knew my story, I understood the rationale, but I was not feeling any better nor was I able to alter the major issues that were plaguing me.

There were two major episodes that changed my unsuccessful ventures in the world of psychotherapy.  The first was when I, as a single mother of two, applied to a clinic for therapy for myself, and the person who was assigned to me said, “I’ve been studying a form of ‘body therapy’ and I’d like to try it on you.”  I remember thinking, “Body therapy?  If it has something to do with the body I guess it can’t be all that wrong.”  (Having been a dancer earlier in my life and a faithful t’ai chi ch’uan practitioner and student of sensory awareness I was always connected in some way with physicality and my body, so it sounded like a fairly reasonable proposition to me.) I was relieved to have therapy sessions that included talking as well as energetic movement and expressions.  It felt “more whole.” I had been so accustomed to regular therapy sessions with little or no noticeable change, I was in therapy with this person for six months before I realized one day that “something in me was different.”  I was encouraged and intrigued. I was so interested I wanted to understand more about the process and I began a course of study in Reichian Therapy.  There I learned that the great and greatly demeaned psychoanalyst, Wilhelm Reich, was the first to incorporate aspects of the physical body into traditional, commonly practiced psychoanalysis.  I understood more fully, theoretically and experientially, how the body and the mind cannot be separated.

My other major study was sensory awareness, which helped me develop more connection with my own sensations or lack of them; but there was no element connecting my sensations to my psyche or to my behaviors.

My studies in Reichian Psycholgy and Therapy helped me understand why “talk therapy” didn’t do much. It became very clear to me that much of the trauma happens before we are verbal or occurs subliminally so we may not be overtly conscious about it.

I was able to integrate my studies in Reichian psychology and sensory awareness into what I eventually called “Reichian-based Awareness Therapy.” I evolved this work in order to help people more fully experience and understand themselves deeply and wholely…from the inside out.  This brought me to use the term “Somatic Psychology,” utilizing the term “somatic” for its true meaning: “the experienced body” or “experiencing the body from within” and ultimately naming my work “Somatic Reclaiming.”

Reclaiming the goodness that may have been buried early made even more sense to me as I worked with my clients somatically; it definitely helped them realize some of what they were yearning for.  Yet there were sessions when either the client or myself or both of us knew they had gone even deeper…that they had gone into the pre-natal realm.  Sometimes clients would describe experiences that were clearly pre-natal–often relating to being inside their mother’s womb–or even to conception experiences.

There was more for me to study and learn.  There were still questions I had about my own life experiences, and I also wanted to be able to support my clients in their deep quests.

My intention as I ventured into these therapeutic fields was self healing; not initially to use the work with others.  I needed to be able to go there myself before I could be a guide to others.  My studies in pre- and perinatal psychology and therapy were quite illuminating for me.  So many of the questions I had for ages (and many that I did not even know I had) were realized.  I felt as if I was filling holes in my psyche.  It was a revelation!  I became fully aware that not only do most of the early imprints create such deep and repeatable tracks throughout our lives, but that many of these pre-verbal experiences happen pre-natally and even pre- and during conception!

My own life developed another dimension.  My work with  clients and students expanded. I began to understand Reich’s work more fully.  I realized the significance of the direction he was taking with clients at his Orgonomic Infant Research Center which he founded in New York in 1949.  At this center he worked with both mothers and infants.  Reich’s Research Center was closed by the U.S. government.

I want to acknowledge another student of Freud’s, Otto Rank, (1884-1939) who in 1924 wrote The Trauma of Birth, thereby opening a door to perinatal psychology. He wrote about working with pre-conscious birth-related trauma as the cornerstone of each individual’s issues with life.  He asserted that the separation from the mother at birth is the cause of anxiety and therefore neurosis.  I have read that he had clients re-experience their birth trauma, but I don’t know how.  Details state that he was expelled from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society.  Of course so was Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957)  expelled from this society – and other professional associations as well.  It seems they both were close associates and “wunderkinds” of Freud but then ran into trouble for disagreeing with Freud about the primacy of the Oedipus complex.  (Rank emigrated to the US in 1935; Reich came in 1939.)

It is clear that whether or not a person comes to me with any mention of pre- and/or perinatal consciousness (and more of them are asking to include this in the work we do) the openness to information from this time is always a possibility.

It has always been clear to me that I work with the whole person. (Interestingly, this term was also used by Elsa Gindler (1885-1961) german teacher of Charlotte Selver (1901-2003).)   When Charlotte came to the US she began to use the term “Sensory Awareness” for the work that Gindler called “working with the whole person.”  I studied with Selver from 1968 until she died in 2003.

The most essential aspect of the work that we must do at this level is to be fully with the person…to meet them as completely as we can.  Martin Buber (1878-1965) has said, “All real living is meeting.” (1958).  I can take off from there and state that the main component of all good therapy is meeting.

Everyone wants to be met.  The child is born wanting to be met by the people s/he has heard and felt during the gestation period.  We learn and grow by being met on many different levels.  Not being met is a betrayal of what life is.  We feel abandonment which causes frustration, despair, confusion and we must create our own “meetings.”  Thereby we develop resistances, neuroses, and our own worlds to answer our questions and create “acceptable” lives.

Some therapies take us on long journeys, some very interesting and valuable, but if we are not met, if we aren’t supported to really come to face, feel, rejoice or grieve – to really acknowledge and experience what happened on whatever level we can, there will not be satisfaction. It will not be whole. Not experiencing our emotions means that we cannot work with them to accept, to understand–to come to peace in our lives.

The most major developments in our entire lives happen in the first several months of gestation, before we are born into this world.  What happened to us at the cellular level is still with us-in each of our cells.  How can we not include in our healing arena the most significant physiological and psychological experiences that influence us throughout our lives?

Various scientific methods of healing are currently learning about and with much success including the somatic element into their ways of working with trauma, dyslexia, autism, ptsd, etc. Most practices however do not yet acknowledge that the child’s emotional life does not begin just when s/he arrives outside mother’s body. They do not yet accept the importance of realizing that the prenate has been feeling, hearing, reacting to events that have been happening in the mother’s world–both physically and emotionally.   What the mother eats, what she feels, what she does, etc.–all also affect the child she is carrying.  Ignoring that part of the child’s experience and not working with it cuts off an important part of his/her wholeness.

So, why work with the pre- and perinatal psychology of the person?   Because the therapy can go deeper, cheaper, faster and the person can learn more about him/herself on a multitude of levels that can, even below his/her consciousness, help and organically deeply change us in so many myriad ways.  Meeting and working with the wisdom and intelligence of the whole person, their whole organism–senses, emotions, movements, breath–is the only way to support a person being more whole.

© Judyth O. Weaver 2008