HYPNOSIS & PRENATAL - POSTNATAL MEMORIES & CURRENT HEALTH PROBLEMS

By Cristine Bronson

In so far as it is crucial, emotionally-charged memories seem to lay the foundation for one's current health. In a practice which now spans 6 years with a foundation of 16 years research, I believe it's important to address memories. In particular, I believe that prenatal events as well as immediate post natal events have tremendous impact, not fading into oblivion as some may believe.

Many hypnotherapists and doctors (particularly those who belong to the American Academy of Medical Hypnoanalysts) believe that traumatic or critical events create emotional seeds which endure at a subconscious level throughout one's life. As life continues, these seeds grow when "watered" by similar events or events which trigger the same emotional response. When a seed of this kind is watered once too often, the result is frequently a weakeness in the area of the body where the individual stores stress.

Prenatal and post-natal traumas are very powerful because the individual frequently does not have conscious memory of them and cannot consciously resolve them in "talk therapy". In many cases, parents or family members may not know about the events or remember them, thereby not conversing with the individual about those events. And it is also possible that subsequent events aren't seen as being emphatic enough to create any kind of stress-induced basis for disease -- even though the event is triggering a prenatal or post-natal memory. 

When I begin to treat some patients, I do what is called "memory regression" -- guide the patient to review the contents of his/her life to determine whether the threads of current problems (illness or injury) begin at earlier points. In deep hypnosis, the threads can usually be traced to a point which the individual can identify as the source. This must be done very carefully, because in hypnosis, some individuals feel they must find a source to satisfy the hypnotherapist and will fabricate a source. If an individual cannot identify a source or simply says "no, there's nothing there", it's essential to let the search drop and move to the next stage. 

Not all conditions start in the past, but many do.* And those people derive relief, often immediate relief, when the threads are traced and addressed. And frequently this relief is seen as a "miracle".

EXAMPLE I

One such patient had surgery at birth. The surgery was highly invasive, performed without anesthestic (newborns are hard to anesthesize given size, sensitivity and will "forget"). It had created a highly charged seed which grew during a life which didn't seem to include much emotional security. As an adult, this patient suffered from extreme chronic anxiety, took psychotrophic drugs for relief with little improvement, experienced frequent illness and injuries, and had very low self-esteem.

During hypnosis, the patient who knew nothing of this surgery previously, discovered it -- we later verified it with the patient's parents -- and we resolved it using the adult patient to comfort the small baby within. We also allowed the adult to "anesthesize" the baby in imagination. (This is not creating false memory. This keeps the original memory, but uses "role playing -- the same kind of role playing which can be done in "talk therapy".) The anxiety disappeared over weekly treatments which lasted 6 weeks. 

At that point, the patient was -- with psychiatric approval -- able to stop using drugs. The anxiety's roots had been healed; the need for drugs to calm emotional pain was no longer necessary. The patient was able to use the image of holding/rocking the internal baby to create calm.

The patient had been in talk therapy with a highly qualified psychiatrist for a few years; the roots of the problem had never been uncovered until hypnosis was used as a tool to unlock memories. If the memory had been conscious, or a part of the patient's conscious self history, it might have been resolved in talk therapy -- I don't know.

EXAMPLE II

In another instance, a patient experienced severe allergies which were life threatening. In hypnosis, this patient discovered during gestation that objects were being inserted into the uterus to remove the patient who was a very small fetus at the time. The patient began screaming in therapy and attempted to push these objects away. Later, the woman who raised the individual stated the mother had indeed used knitting needles to attempt self abortion. In "real life", individuals who are faced with weapons which are life threatening frequently hold their breath -- stressing the lungs. The patient's anxieties and allergies (including the lung-related allergies) began to improve immediately. 

EXAMPLE III

Another patient told from early years that the patient was "dirty" and "didn't deserve to live, remained short and had some spinal deformity. Using daily hypnosis tapes designed to heal the emotions, this patient grew a full 2 inches in height, experienced spinal straightening, and limb growth -- verified by the orthopaedist who treated the patient. Is this miraculous? It seems so, but it isn't.

EXAMPLE IV

In other cases, one patient, who was repeatedly raped at the age of two by an adult male, developed cervical cancer. The cancer was caught in early stages -- she went thru hypnosis to resolve the emotional pain. She consciously remembered the experiences vividly. Allowing the patient to revisit, reframe the events -- a chance to defend herself, to stop the assault and punish the perpetrator -- gave her the opportunity to heal the emotional pain and to provide that tiny child still within tremendous comfort and security. Is it a surprise that the cervical cancer disappeared?

No. Each of us carries emotional trauma in varying degrees and we "lodge" those emotions in unique parts of the body. People whose stress resides in their stomach, for example, are more prone to stomach-related conditions. Just so, sexually assaulted individuals are more likely to develop illness or disease which relates to reproductive organs. Healing the emotional trauma which created the seeds, allows us to change the body.

In Bill Moyer's "Healing and the Mind", a number of researchers who have proven that blood chemistry changes as emotions change speak. These emotions cause biochemical changes within milliseconds. In my work, I have shown that bioelectrical changes occur within milliseconds. There is no mystery, no magic in the physical healing which then follows.

If intense emotions can change body chemistry, then it makes sense that we can use intense emotions to heal the same body.

My work and the work of a number of other professionals who use hypnosis as a tool clearly proves that prenatal memories are stored at some level. These memories are not typically accessible through "talk therapy". Hypnosis or other tools which allow subconscious access are essential -- and it is important that these tools be used only by individuals who have compassion, ethics and respect for the patient. 

Where disease exists, but only the symptoms or "physical source" of the disease is treated, the disease can easily reappear or other conditions occur. The emotional source of physical weakness must also be addressed just as surely as nutritional factors, medicine, therapy, exercise must be met. Modern medicine must and is expanding to address the total person: Body, Mind and Soul. 

The FUTURE...

This change in approach heralds the beginning of new strides and miraculous "cures" as well as opening the imagination to engage even more strides forward in physical medicine. Except for acupuncture, we have yet to engage the human body's electrical system directly and deliberately in the process of healing. When illness occurs, electrical resistance drops (Danish Oncologist study reported in Scientific American winter issue in '85 or '86). Doesn't it make sense to provide the necessary electrical adjustments to raise resistance? This is what acupuncture does. 

In physics, it is taught that all electrical flow creates a magnetic field; all magnetic fields placed in motion create electrical flow. Each human being has two electricalflows (Robert O. Becker MD, Gary Selden, Physicist, "The Body Electric"), ergo, all living human beings have a magnetic field (aura). As such, is it really miraculous that one human being's touch or motion around the body of another, causes healing? No. It is simply the use of the same laws of physics which we routinely use in our daily lives.

If we can carve paths using light or mechanical tools on CDs or records that reproduce clear, wonderful sound, is it truly outrageous that trauma or joy would create similar "carvings" or "memories" in the human body which later resonate under similar events? No. Again, it is nothing more than simple laws of physics in action. Thus, revisiting those memories, we can change the "carvings" and thereby remove the emotional sting from trauma -- and emphasize the joy.

*NOTE: This guiding is done gently, not forcibly, and I do not insist that the patient "find" something -- forcing the patient to create an incident, or placing false memories. I try to insure each patient feels a freedom to find truth within, whatever that truth is. If the patient finds nothing in the past at first glance, then it is wiser to assume another cause is present. False memory creation does no favors. Additionally, even where a patient does "find a source", it may or may not actually have existed in fact. The reality is irrelevant -- it is far more important how useful the memory is in healing. 

Copyright © 1998 to the author. Reprinted with kind permission