Why Most of our Lives is a Rationale For The Imprint

(Originally published August 21, 2008)

 

We think we are rational beings driven by rational thoughts toward rational ends, but we are basically irrational beings driven toward a rationale, and that rationale is to justify the fact that we are being driven beyond our control.

Let’s start with the imprint. There are events very early in life, even while being carried in the womb that are engraved into the total system—blood, muscle, joints, brain and nerves. They happen when certain needs must be fulfilled and are not. How we react to that event becomes a prototype and determines our reactions, in part, thereafter. The prototype is an adaptive mechanism in the service of survival. It endures because it is the first major adaptation in life and helped us live. To do that there had to be compensatory behavior, dislocations of function that also endures. The dislocations endure as a necessity for the fact that the imprint is indelibly impressed into the whole system. So, for example, the serotonin inhibitory system may be compromised, and becomes deficient. Or the thyroid secretion may be diminished. There is always a compensation and dislocation, and that occurs in the most vulnerable areas, places where genetics may play a part. The imprint prevents the physiologic system from functioning normally, all because basic need is not fulfilled. When there is insufficient oxygen in the womb or at birth it is impressed. And when all that occurs before birth the dislocation of function will endure for a lifetime; the pre-birth system is not equipped to make up for lacks. The post-birth system is.

Now the imprint, by definition is early and remains in the deep unconscious. Yet it has the force of survival. A pretty hefty force. What it does is create behavior, external (act-out) and internal, (act-in) that still attempts fulfillment of those basic needs. That is why we are driven by it. And we need to make those behaviors rational; hence we develop rationales for what we do. Remember that I wrote about an experiment where in a split brain experiment the scientist input stimuli on the right side. The left brain had no idea what had happened yet to justify his behavior he needed to develop a rationale: “I am laughing because of your funny white coat.” That is the basic paradigm I am discussing. We have input from the right brain input (the emotional brain stores many of our imprints). Then due to repression and the inability to access our feelings we need to “explain” our beliefs and behavior. Once we get access to that brain we are no longer driven by the unconscious and are finally in control of ourselves.

Example: during the birth process there is no help. The baby is drugged by the anesthesia given to the mother and cannot help out to get born. It is “all too much”---the imprint. Even when there are no words to describe it is still imprinted. Much later when we have words and concepts we will put an explanation to it; but it will always be inadequate because until we arrive there we have no real idea what the feeling is that is driving us. Later, with parents who won’t help the child, who drive her to accomplish and do, the feeling is reinforce—there is no help. The feeling is also, “I have to do it all on my own.” It seems “right” to the person not to ask for help (and therefore not to get it). Not asking for help means “doing it all on my own.” And this is due to a feeling and need that is unconscious, deeply buried out of sight of conscious/awareness. Another example: a pregnant mother is depressed and drinks coffee constantly during pregnancy. She is low on many of her hormone levels. The baby is being over-stimulated. He cannot combat this input: “nothing I can do will make a difference.” At birth being drugged by painkillers given to the mother and again, “nothing I do will make a difference,” In college he drops out because it is too much and it seems like no matter what he does it is not enough. This has been compounded by parents who never praise, always criticized, and the child cannot please no matter what he does. He gives up easily because at birth the drug stopped all efforts; later he gave up because no one cared that he tried and did good, and now he is married to a hyper-critical wife who never lets up. She calls him a “loser.” He has no idea where the base of all this is; he just keeps giving up in the face of adversity, doesn’t even try for approval because inside he is sure it will never come. In a self- fulfilling prophecy he does become a loser. He is sexually impotent because the minute there is excitement he loses his drive and his will. Nothing he will do will turn out right. Total defeatism.

Another example: a child is born after a mad struggle to get out. He has learned aggression as a key mode of behavior. His passive parents give into him because he is so assertive. He takes on chores that are very heavy and he does not recognize real obstacles in his way. He does too much and does not know when to back off. To give up is to die, in his physiologic equation. He pursues a woman who really does not want him. He cannot see that because he has learned aggression as a survival technique. He thinks the woman just needs coaxing, but he does not know when to stop.

In these cases the left prefrontal area is just a large rationale-concocting apparatus to keep behavior ego-syntonic— comfortable to the self. It also keeps the feeling unconscious and unexamined.

A child with the same birth configuration as above is left feeling all alone—no one to help. His parents are emotionally distant and he learns to be alone. Right after birth there was a sick mother so that he was not cuddled right after birth. He grows feeling alienated, keeps himself removed from others and doesn’t notice his isolation. He is acting-out “all alone.” The force comes from birth and before, the emotional focus comes from how life experiences channels him. He is slightly reserved and not cuddly, so he gets less love. He can rationalize this how he wishes but he is still victim of his imprint.

The imprint endures for a lifetime. It is stuck in the need— unfulfilled mode. It can only be undone when it is no longer useful. What does that mean? It means that so long as the load of pain is inordinate and needs repression the imprint goes on. But when we feel the original need in context with all of its emotional force it no longer serves any purpose and is done with. To get there we need to take a slow, orderly descent down to origins; but not before we have felt the top level portion of it. We need, in short, to feel and integrate the least noxious part of the feeling first. Third-line (current) pains are rarely if ever life-threatening. As we descend down the brain we come to pains, such as a lack of oxygen at birth, that are life endangering. If we go below that top level part and plunge into the lower level pains it will all be too much to integrate. Suppose we have a level ten childhood/infancy pain lying below a level ten adult-level pain. The level twenty is too much to integrate. But if we have felt the top level pain first and then go lower the overall level will not be too overwhelming. Whenever we try to relive very early pains without seeing what lies on top we are bound to fail. Our gating system is masterful; it allows us to feel just enough and not so much as to be shattering.

Our act-out is just as unconscious as the feeling living inside of us. We are driven by the imprint until we are free from it. Then we are in the driver’s seat. It is the difference between being driven and driving. We will no longer be passengers on our worldly peregrinations.