Epigenetics and Primal Therapy: The Cure for Neurosis (Part 9/20)

Reversing Methylation through Reliving

Can we reverse or undo methylation? Can the imprint of trauma be removed at a cellular level? The good news seems to be that, unlike pure genetics, methylation can be reversed, at least through chemical means (Cheishvili, Boureau & Szyf, 2015). Thus, epigenetic-caused disease may be normalized at last. What we are planning to do soon is study the imprint and how to reverse it through Primal Therapy; that is the ultimate reduction of stress. We want to see if we can reverse history through reliving traumas. For if we can do that, we may well help patients to avoid serious disease later on. We will measure the methylation process by which traumas are stamped into the brain. We will reverse history. Think of that: stopping an imprint from going on to cause damage. Yes, it can be undone biochemically. Investigations into using methionine to reverse the effects of methylation are bearing fruit, and other drugs, including some tranquilizers, are helping to accomplish it. But I believe, the harmful effects of epigenetics can be reversed, more surely, effectively and thoroughly through therapy. Reliving early experience in a Primal may partially undo methylation and help to normalize the whole system.

The question is,“How do we do that?” How do we get to those early driving needs that preceded our first steps in a new world? They may seem so “far-out” as to be unbelievable, but many thousands of patients have gone through my therapy, reporting what they went through even when I was unprepared to believe them. At last, new research is confirming what they told me.

The research informs us that damaged rats that had been raised by unloving mothers did not show any signs of damage after being infused with trichostatin, as though the trauma never occurred. This drug removes methyl from the system. It did, in brief, undo history. This is what I think may be happening with our patients. In the reliving there must be a change in methylation so as to reverse history, which is the hypothesis we plan to test. I think we can reverse methylation; at least we can remove some of its embedded trauma. That, in my opinion, is what reliving key traumas does, and that is why we can prevent future diseases or at least modify their harm. We can unlock the trauma from its hiding place and liberate its energy so it does no more harm. Remember, in the imprint there is the memory and also the pain. We are able to remove the pain while leaving the memory intact. Our job is not to produce robots without memory. But we don’t want the memory to be awash in suffering.

As we saw earlier, Michael Meaney and his research team found that deprived animals, when later raised by a more loving mother, experience a partial recovery as higher-level brain processes override some of the effects of early imprints (Meaney et al., 1985). The neo-cortex can provide compensations for the pain, masking the imprint, but cannot eradicate it. Meaney’s rats, deprived and damaged early on by a disappearing mother, were later put into an enriched environment where they seemed happier and played well together. But their stress hormone level was still high; they still suffered, as do humans under similar conditions. Masking the pain is not the same as resolving it, and we may die prematurely from that masking. You might call it a devil’s bargain: if we mask the pain we may die early, but if we don’t we suffer. However there is a third possibility: relive and integrate the pain, and thus be done with it. There seems to be a window of opportunity before methylation sets in when the imprint can be partially reversed (16). But it is a narrow, short-lived window. After that the imprint remains for a very long time.

Our human imprint, I propose, is found in every fiber and cell of our being and retains a precise memory of its past. It cannot be pinpointed to any particular location in the system since it is everywhere, from our hormonal balance to our neurology. The imprint says, “this is what happened to me and this is who I am;” and because the imprint is everywhere, when we relive it there may be changes throughout the system. That is why we need to relive experiences: to reset the set points and, in so doing, exercise a profoundly new approach to medicine and psychiatry. We need to “remember” with our entire physiology and being, not just the neo-cortex. Above all, we need doctors to stop asking, “Have you been in any unusual stress recently?” They need to ask the right questions if they want the right answers. Since we cannot ask the fetus about his stress we need to do the next best thing and sniff out biologic damage, descend down the chain of pain, following resonance to reach the fetal level and see what we find. Most often we find anoxia in almost lethal states. Resonance ineluctably leads to the beginning of life. Each new key memory finds its partner on lower levels; all we need to do is access the first top level in slow, methodical steps until we arrive at the first station.

Let us take off our blinders and look at the whole brain. And above all, the whole person. Yes, one chemical therapy can affect memory and the imprint, but it is doubtful that all of the accouterments of that memory will be reversed, as well.

(16) In our forthcoming research on demethylation, with Dr. Justin Feinstein of the Laureate Institute for Brain Research, we hope to find more answers. Our hypothesis is that if we take a certain sample (lymphoblasts) from the bone marrow and see how it grows into white blood cells, we can measure demethylation. It is a preliminary theory, but there may be a way, in the near future, to see what effects our therapy or other chemicals may have on methylation.