Many people have never heard of prenatal or perinatal psychology (PPNP) even though this school of thought has been around almost 100 years. So let me begin with some basic definitions because this branch of psychology is all about BEGINNINGS.
Prenatal means before birth. Perinatal means around the time of birth. Psychology, the word itself, combines the Greek psyche, which means soul, with logia, which means reason (a left brain function that we will talk more about later). It is then defined as knowledge of the soul. It is ironic that psychology these days usually has little to do with the soul although transpersonal psychology now delves into more spiritual aspects of our lives. Psychology has come to mean the study of what we think, feel, and do. Psychology is considered a science, but it is not based on hard facts. It is more subjective than objective because it deals with our mental, emotional, and physical beings. It seeks to understand our beliefs, our motivations, and our interactions with others.
For many years people have believed that because we don’t remember experiences before the age of three, that they are forgotten and have no impact on us. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are being awakened to the knowledge that we all carry memories of experiences before age three. Psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Verny wrote The Secret Life of the Unborn Child in 1981 and psychologist David Chamberlain titled his 1988 book Babies Remember Birth. Otto Rank, a protégé of Sigmund Freud, wrote The Trauma of Birth in 1929. Today there is more and more evidence that we are imprinted, as Arthur Janov said in his book Imprints, while we are in the womb, at birth, and, indeed, every moment of our lives. Our internal recorders turn on much earlier than most of us thought possible.
There are many organizations today like the Association of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health (APPPAH), of which I am a long-standing member, that support the idea that babies are conscious from the moment of conception and that cellular memory exists. Babies do remember.
Our consciousness holds memories in two ways—as explicit or implicit. I can explicitly recall what I had for breakfast, and even what my mother used to fix for breakfast when I was growing up. But other memories can stay hidden, held in the subconscious mind. These are called implicit memories and they drive our responses, feelings, and actions throughout our lives—unless we endeavor to find the causes underlying how we think, feel, and act. For example, as Dr. Chamberlain describes, one of his clients was afraid of flying and during therapy discovered an implicit memory of being dropped by the doctor at birth. This fear of flying turned out to be a fear of falling. Once this memory was revealed, the individual was able to board planes and fly without any anxiety.
We are learning more and more about memories and how they influence our actions and reactions. Here are some books that might interest you: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk; The Body Bears the Burden by Robert Scaer; and The Body Remembers by Babette Rothschild. These authors are all experts who go beyond typical mind and emotion-focused psychology to include the body in their therapeutic approaches. We’ll address the reasons why we act out based on hidden memories in other sections of this website.