Still More on Depression

David Laplante and Michael Meaney of McGill University, Canada write the following: "We suspect that high levels of prenatal stress exposure, particularly in early in pregnancy, may negatively affect the brain development of the fetus." ("Stress During Pregnancy Affects General Intellectual and Language Functioning in Human Toddlers." David Laplante, Michael Meaney, et al, Pediatric Research, Vol. 56, No. 3, 2004.) They studied pregnant women during a severe ice storm in Canada in 1998. In this study they note: "Imprinting at birth may predispose individuals to certain patterns of behavior that remain masked throughout most of adult life." K.J.S. Anand and associates state that in a number of suicides by violent means "the significant risk factors were those perinatal events that were likely to cause pain in the newborn." (Page 70.) They also point out the pregnant women who smoked heavily had babies more prone to criminality later on. And mothers, who took drugs while pregnant, had children far more prone to drug use, both serious opiates (morphine) and speed (amphetamine). There are literally hundreds of studies now to bolster the hypothesis about early imprints, how they last, and alter our systems.

This is new material. Some 20 years ago, most of this research had not been thought of. Most clinical studies confirm what we have been saying for almost 40 years. Proof of that is now not in question among scientists. What is in question is the necessity of reliving it all. There is scarcely a psychotherapist among us who believes in the absolute necessity of reliving old events and altering their imprints, yet it is that very process that is curative. Might I say that the only process that is curative is one that deals with history and memory?

When I state that the patient "remembers" his time in the womb, we must keep in mind that memory can be something beyond verbal recall. The body remembers in its lack of oxygen, its lack of freedom to move, both in a physical and anatomical sense, its being strangled on the cord or its sense of being overwhelmed and shut down by anesthesia. Clearly, at the outset there is no intellectual recall but there is a lower brain system that has recorded the experience.

Imprints are usually not in the therapist’s lexicon; if nine months of fetal life is ignored, then there is no choice: rules and more rules, 10 or 12 steps to nirvana, etc. Feelings are the opposite of rules. Rules are one causative factor in depression. The depressive too often grew up with rules and regulations instead of warmth, kindness and caresses. They too often go to a therapy that has rules — known as behavior or cognitive therapy, an attempt to change behavior — that involves rules of conduct. The approach is basically, "Do me." It is unfortunate that in most conventional therapies the patient is "done to." It is what parents did now writ large. The person is the recipient of a variety of manipulations. When we ignore feelings, we need to be "done to." This is what happened to many of us growing up — being ordered around without regard to how we feel. It can be as subtle as never asking a child what she wants for dinner. She learns, however subtly, that her needs and feelings don’t count. We certainly do not want to compound the error.