Pre- and perinatal psychology
Encyclopedia
Prenatal
and perinatal
psychology is an interdisciplinary study of the foundations of health in body, mind, emotions and in enduring response patterns to life. It explores the psychological and psychophysiological effects and implications of the earliest experiences of the individual, before birth ("prenatal"), as well as during and immediately after childbirth ("perinatal") on the health and learning
ability of the individual and on their relationships
. As a broad field it has developed a variety of curative and preventive interventions for the unborn
, at childbirth
, for the new born, infants and adults who are adversely affected by early prenatal and perinatal dysfunction and trauma. Some of these methods have not been without significant controversy, for example homebirth in the West and in earlier days, LSD
psychotherapy for resolving birth trauma.
where there is evidence of an "umbilical affect exchange" which influences the immediate and long- term psychology of behavior; in bioengineering where the importance to development as well as growth of the fetomaternal system is increasingly understood; and in clinical maternal-fetal medicine
where the unique symbiotic relationship between a mother and her fetus is explored, and where issues such as maternal stress
and the development of later psychopathology in the child are considered through hormonal mechanisms particularly the HPA axis
.
Although theoretical
and psychotherapeutic
approaches vary in their treatment of the topic, a common thread is the fundamental importance of pre- and perinatal experiences in the shaping of the personality
and in future psychological development. Yet somewhat contrary to the evidence, this assertion is not widely supported in psychology. There are widespread doubts regarding the extent to which newborn infants are capable of forming memories
, the effects of any such memories on their personality, and the possibility of recovering them from an unconscious mind
, which itself is the subject of argument in the field. Only a minority of psychologists have had direct experience of the therapeutic modalities
that explore these phenomena and many question the validity and even the existence of repressed memories. However, experience and memory are not synonymous, and while a fetal infant may not be able to recall his or her experiences, he or she still lived in those moments and possibly had neurological, psychological or physiological responses to them, which may influence the ongoing development of the mind and/or brain structures.
touched on the idea briefly before rejecting it in favor of the Oedipus complex
, one of his disciples Otto Rank
became convinced of the importance of birth trauma
in causing anxiety neuroses
. Rank developed a process of psychoanalysis
based on birth experiences, and authored his seminal work, 'The Trauma of Birth'. Freud's initial agreement and then later volte-face, caused a rift between them, which relegated the study of birth trauma to the fringes of psychology. The subject was taken up again in 1949 by Nandor Fodor a patient of Rank's and teacher of Francis Mott. In addition to birth trauma, Fodor emphasized the significance of prenatal trauma.
Developments in the 1950s included a shift in emphasis towards non-traumatic by Donald Winnicott
and to the transpersonal
by Maarten Lietaert Peerbolte aspects of pre- and perinatal experience, and brought attention to the relevance of very early gestation
, and even the event of conception by Peerbolte. These topics saw later elaboration by Frank Lake
as well as Michael Irving, R D Laing, Graham Farrant, Stanislav Grof
and others. The expression at a broad social level of basic perinatal feelings, such as "suffering fetus" or "toxic placenta
," is part of the narrative
in psychohistory
, developed by Lloyd deMause
. Pre- and perinatal psychology is at the core of Primal therapy
and Primal integration
. Professor Stephen Maret has explored these influences in his book, The Prenatal Person.
Material emerging from sessions of psychedelic psychotherapy
using LSD
and other hallucinogenic drugs
was the foundation for research into the enduring effects of pre- and perinatal experiences in adult life conducted by Frank Lake
, Athanasios Kafkalides
and Stanislav Grof
. Grof went on to formulate an extensive theoretical framework for the analysis of pre- and perinatal experiences, based on the four constructs he called Basic Perinatal Matrices. Lake and Grof independently developed breathing techniques, following Wilhelm Reich
as an alternative to the use of psychedelic drugs, which was subject to considerable legal difficulty from the mid-1960s onwards. A related technique called Rebirthing Breathwork was developed by Leonard Orr
; and Core process psychotherapy
trainees relive presumed birth trauma as part of their training.
Public attention was drawn to the importance of prenatal experiences by the 1981 book, The Secret Life of the Unborn Child, by Thomas R. Verny, who founded the Association for Pre- & Perinatal Psychology and Health (APPPAH). David Chamberlain, who was president of the APPPAH from 1991 to 1999, published a popular book entitled, Babies Remember Birth (1988), outlining new experimental research that supports the existence of pre-natal memories. Further evidence was presented by Ludwig Janus in The Enduring Effects of Prenatal Experience (1997).
Perhaps the first book to effectively convey the importance of trauma-free childbirth to the wider public was Birth Without Violence (1975), by French obstetrician Dr. Frederick Leboyer
, which helped popularize the practice of placing newly-born infants in a tub of warm water, known as a "Leboyer bath" to simulate the familiar pre-natal environment of warm amniotic fluid
. Following on from Leboyer, another French obstetrician, Michel Odent
, pioneered the practice of low intervention labour and took the "Leboyer bath" one step further, developing the use of warm-water pools for a water birth
.
In 2004, Dr. Wendy Anne McCarty, co-founder of the Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology MA and PhD Programs at Santa Barbara Graduate Institute, reviewed the 30 years of clinical research in prenatal and perinatal psychology and current mainstream early development models. In her book Welcoming Consciousness, she introduced the Integrated Model of early development that was reflective of the prenatal and perinatal psychology clinical findings. The transcendental and human aspects of awareness documented from the beginning of life became the core thread in this holonomic holographic model.
Fetus
A fetus is a developing mammal or other viviparous vertebrate after the embryonic stage and before birth.In humans, the fetal stage of prenatal development starts at the beginning of the 11th week in gestational age, which is the 9th week after fertilization.-Etymology and spelling variations:The...
and perinatal
Pregnancy
Pregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...
psychology is an interdisciplinary study of the foundations of health in body, mind, emotions and in enduring response patterns to life. It explores the psychological and psychophysiological effects and implications of the earliest experiences of the individual, before birth ("prenatal"), as well as during and immediately after childbirth ("perinatal") on the health and learning
Learning
Learning is acquiring new or modifying existing knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences and may involve synthesizing different types of information. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals and some machines. Progress over time tends to follow learning curves.Human learning...
ability of the individual and on their relationships
Attachment theory
Attachment theory describes the dynamics of long-term relationships between humans. Its most important tenet is that an infant needs to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for social and emotional development to occur normally. Attachment theory is an interdisciplinary study...
. As a broad field it has developed a variety of curative and preventive interventions for the unborn
Fetus
A fetus is a developing mammal or other viviparous vertebrate after the embryonic stage and before birth.In humans, the fetal stage of prenatal development starts at the beginning of the 11th week in gestational age, which is the 9th week after fertilization.-Etymology and spelling variations:The...
, at childbirth
Childbirth
Childbirth is the culmination of a human pregnancy or gestation period with the birth of one or more newborn infants from a woman's uterus...
, for the new born, infants and adults who are adversely affected by early prenatal and perinatal dysfunction and trauma. Some of these methods have not been without significant controversy, for example homebirth in the West and in earlier days, LSD
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...
psychotherapy for resolving birth trauma.
Overview
Examples of the diversity of interests in the subject are: in neurobiology where it is understood that "experience can change the mature brain - but experience during the critical periods of early childhood organizes brain systems"; in psychoneuroendocrinologyPsychoneuroendocrinology
Psychoneuroendocrinology is the clinical study of hormone fluctuations and their relationship to human behavior. It may be viewed from the perspective of psychiatry, where in certain mood disorders, there are associated neuroendocrine or hormonal changes affecting the brain...
where there is evidence of an "umbilical affect exchange" which influences the immediate and long- term psychology of behavior; in bioengineering where the importance to development as well as growth of the fetomaternal system is increasingly understood; and in clinical maternal-fetal medicine
Maternal-fetal medicine
Maternal-Fetal medicine is the branch of obstetrics that focuses on the medical and surgical management of high-risk pregnancies. Management includes monitoring and treatment including comprehensive ultrasound, chorionic villus sampling, genetic amniocentesis, and fetal surgery or treatment....
where the unique symbiotic relationship between a mother and her fetus is explored, and where issues such as maternal stress
Stress (biology)
Stress is a term in psychology and biology, borrowed from physics and engineering and first used in the biological context in the 1930s, which has in more recent decades become commonly used in popular parlance...
and the development of later psychopathology in the child are considered through hormonal mechanisms particularly the HPA axis
Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis
The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis , also known as thelimbic-hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and, occasionally, as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-gonadotropic axis, is a complex set of direct influences and feedback interactions among the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland ,...
.
Although theoretical
Developmental psychology
Developmental psychology, also known as human development, is the scientific study of systematic psychological changes, emotional changes, and perception changes that occur in human beings over the course of their life span. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to...
and psychotherapeutic
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...
approaches vary in their treatment of the topic, a common thread is the fundamental importance of pre- and perinatal experiences in the shaping of the personality
Personality Development
An individual's personality is an aggregate conglomeration of decisions we've made throughout our lives . There are inherent natural, genetic, and environmental factors that contribute to the development of our personality. According to process of socialization, "personality also colors our values,...
and in future psychological development. Yet somewhat contrary to the evidence, this assertion is not widely supported in psychology. There are widespread doubts regarding the extent to which newborn infants are capable of forming memories
Memory
In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory....
, the effects of any such memories on their personality, and the possibility of recovering them from an unconscious mind
Unconscious mind
The unconscious mind is a term coined by the 18th century German romantic philosopher Friedrich Schelling and later introduced into English by the poet and essayist Samuel Taylor Coleridge...
, which itself is the subject of argument in the field. Only a minority of psychologists have had direct experience of the therapeutic modalities
Modality
-Humanities:* In law: the basis of legal argumentation in United States constitutional law* In theology: Modality : the organization and structure of the church, as distinct from sodality or parachurch organizations...
that explore these phenomena and many question the validity and even the existence of repressed memories. However, experience and memory are not synonymous, and while a fetal infant may not be able to recall his or her experiences, he or she still lived in those moments and possibly had neurological, psychological or physiological responses to them, which may influence the ongoing development of the mind and/or brain structures.
Historical development
The relevance of birth experiences has been recognized since the early days of modern psychology. Although Sigmund FreudSigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
touched on the idea briefly before rejecting it in favor of the Oedipus complex
Oedipus complex
In psychoanalytic theory, the term Oedipus complex denotes the emotions and ideas that the mind keeps in the unconscious, via dynamic repression, that concentrate upon a boy’s desire to sexually possess his mother, and kill his father...
, one of his disciples Otto Rank
Otto Rank
Otto Rank was an Austrian psychoanalyst, writer, teacher and therapist. Born in Vienna as Otto Rosenfeld, he was one of Sigmund Freud's closest colleagues for 20 years, a prolific writer on psychoanalytic themes, an editor of the two most important analytic journals, managing director of Freud's...
became convinced of the importance of birth trauma
Birth trauma
Birth trauma may refer to:* Pre- and perinatal psychology, the psychological trauma that is sometimes experienced during childbirth*Birth trauma , physical trauma of childbirth, as described at ICD-10 codes P10-P15....
in causing anxiety neuroses
Neurosis
Neurosis is a class of functional mental disorders involving distress but neither delusions nor hallucinations, whereby behavior is not outside socially acceptable norms. It is also known as psychoneurosis or neurotic disorder, and thus those suffering from it are said to be neurotic...
. Rank developed a process of psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
based on birth experiences, and authored his seminal work, 'The Trauma of Birth'. Freud's initial agreement and then later volte-face, caused a rift between them, which relegated the study of birth trauma to the fringes of psychology. The subject was taken up again in 1949 by Nandor Fodor a patient of Rank's and teacher of Francis Mott. In addition to birth trauma, Fodor emphasized the significance of prenatal trauma.
Developments in the 1950s included a shift in emphasis towards non-traumatic by Donald Winnicott
Donald Winnicott
Donald Woods Winnicott was an English paediatrician and psychoanalyst who was especially influential in the field of object relations theory. He was a leading member of the British Independent Group of the British Psychoanalytic Society, and a close associate of Marion Milner...
and to the transpersonal
Transpersonal
The term transpersonal is often used to refer to psychological categories that transcend the normal features of ordinary ego-functioning. That is, stages of psychological growth, or stages of consciousness, that move beyond the rational andprecede the mystical...
by Maarten Lietaert Peerbolte aspects of pre- and perinatal experience, and brought attention to the relevance of very early gestation
Gestation
Gestation is the carrying of an embryo or fetus inside a female viviparous animal. Mammals during pregnancy can have one or more gestations at the same time ....
, and even the event of conception by Peerbolte. These topics saw later elaboration by Frank Lake
Frank Lake
Frank Lake was one of the pioneers of pastoral counselling in the United Kingdom. In 1962 he founded the Clinical Theology Association with the primary aim to make clergy more effective in understanding and accepting the psychological origins of their parishioners’ personal difficulties...
as well as Michael Irving, R D Laing, Graham Farrant, Stanislav Grof
Stanislav Grof
Stanislav Grof is a psychiatrist, one of the founders of the field of transpersonal psychology and a pioneering researcher into the use of non-ordinary states of consciousness for purposes of analyzing, healing, and obtaining growth and insight into the human psyche...
and others. The expression at a broad social level of basic perinatal feelings, such as "suffering fetus" or "toxic placenta
Placenta
The placenta is an organ that connects the developing fetus to the uterine wall to allow nutrient uptake, waste elimination, and gas exchange via the mother's blood supply. "True" placentas are a defining characteristic of eutherian or "placental" mammals, but are also found in some snakes and...
," is part of the narrative
Narrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
in psychohistory
Psychohistory
Psychohistory is the study of the psychological motivations of historical events. It attempts to combine the insights of psychotherapy with the research methodology of the social sciences to understand the emotional origin of the social and political behavior of groups and nations, past and present...
, developed by Lloyd deMause
Lloyd deMause
Lloyd deMause, pronounced de-Moss , is an American social thinker known for his work in the field of psychohistory. He did graduate work in political science at Columbia University and later trained as a lay psychoanalyst...
. Pre- and perinatal psychology is at the core of Primal therapy
Primal therapy
Primal therapy is a trauma-based psychotherapy created by Arthur Janov, who argues that neurosis is caused by the repressed pain of childhood trauma. Janov argues that repressed pain can be sequentially brought to conscious awareness and resolved through re-experiencing the incident and fully...
and Primal integration
Primal integration
Primal Integration is a form of personal growth work first formulated by the Canadian Bill Swartley in the mid 1970s. Unlike many other approaches known as psychotherapy, it puts the emphasis on an individual's self directed exploration of their own psyche assisted by facilitators who serve the...
. Professor Stephen Maret has explored these influences in his book, The Prenatal Person.
Material emerging from sessions of psychedelic psychotherapy
Psychedelic psychotherapy
Psychedelic therapy refers to therapeutic practices involving the use of psychedelic drugs, particularly serotonergic psychedelics such as ergine, LSD, psilocin and DMT...
using LSD
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...
and other hallucinogenic drugs
Psychedelics, dissociatives and deliriants
This general group of pharmacological agents can be divided into three broad categories: psychedelics, dissociatives, and deliriants. These classes of psychoactive drugs have in common that they can cause subjective changes in perception, thought, emotion and consciousness...
was the foundation for research into the enduring effects of pre- and perinatal experiences in adult life conducted by Frank Lake
Frank Lake
Frank Lake was one of the pioneers of pastoral counselling in the United Kingdom. In 1962 he founded the Clinical Theology Association with the primary aim to make clergy more effective in understanding and accepting the psychological origins of their parishioners’ personal difficulties...
, Athanasios Kafkalides
Athanasios Kafkalides
Dr. Athanassios Kafkalides was a Greek neuropsychiatrist. He was born in 1919 and he died in 1989 while in Athens. He graduated in medicine from the University of Athens and took post-graduate courses in neurology, experimental neurophysiology, neurosurgery and psychiatry at the Prince of Wales...
and Stanislav Grof
Stanislav Grof
Stanislav Grof is a psychiatrist, one of the founders of the field of transpersonal psychology and a pioneering researcher into the use of non-ordinary states of consciousness for purposes of analyzing, healing, and obtaining growth and insight into the human psyche...
. Grof went on to formulate an extensive theoretical framework for the analysis of pre- and perinatal experiences, based on the four constructs he called Basic Perinatal Matrices. Lake and Grof independently developed breathing techniques, following Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry...
as an alternative to the use of psychedelic drugs, which was subject to considerable legal difficulty from the mid-1960s onwards. A related technique called Rebirthing Breathwork was developed by Leonard Orr
Leonard Orr
Leonard Orr is an American best known for developing Rebirthing-Breathwork, a 'system' or technique of breathing that can help one to overcome the "trauma" of being born...
; and Core process psychotherapy
Core process psychotherapy
Core process psychotherapy practises a Buddhist awareness as the centre of a healing relationship between client and psychotherapist. It is taught at the Karuna Institute which was founded in 1984 by Maura Sills and Franklyn Sills...
trainees relive presumed birth trauma as part of their training.
Public attention was drawn to the importance of prenatal experiences by the 1981 book, The Secret Life of the Unborn Child, by Thomas R. Verny, who founded the Association for Pre- & Perinatal Psychology and Health (APPPAH). David Chamberlain, who was president of the APPPAH from 1991 to 1999, published a popular book entitled, Babies Remember Birth (1988), outlining new experimental research that supports the existence of pre-natal memories. Further evidence was presented by Ludwig Janus in The Enduring Effects of Prenatal Experience (1997).
Perhaps the first book to effectively convey the importance of trauma-free childbirth to the wider public was Birth Without Violence (1975), by French obstetrician Dr. Frederick Leboyer
Frederick Leboyer
Frederick Leboyer is a French obstetrician, best known for his 1975 book, Birth Without Violence, which popularized gentle birthing techniques, in particular, the practice of immersing newly-born infants in a small tub of warm water — known as a "Leboyer bath" — to help ease the transition from...
, which helped popularize the practice of placing newly-born infants in a tub of warm water, known as a "Leboyer bath" to simulate the familiar pre-natal environment of warm amniotic fluid
Amniotic fluid
Amniotic fluid or liquor amnii is the nourishing and protecting liquid contained by the amniotic sac of a pregnant woman.- Development of amniotic fluid :...
. Following on from Leboyer, another French obstetrician, Michel Odent
Michel Odent
Michel Odent is a retired medical doctor. He was born in France in 1930 and studied medicine at Paris University. He is known for his role in the natural childbirth movement and for promoting water birth...
, pioneered the practice of low intervention labour and took the "Leboyer bath" one step further, developing the use of warm-water pools for a water birth
Water birth
Water birth is a method of giving birth, which involves immersion in warm water. The immersion can mean giving birth to the infant in the water or using it as a tool during the labor process. Proponents believe that this method is safe and provides many benefits for both mother and infant,...
.
In 2004, Dr. Wendy Anne McCarty, co-founder of the Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology MA and PhD Programs at Santa Barbara Graduate Institute, reviewed the 30 years of clinical research in prenatal and perinatal psychology and current mainstream early development models. In her book Welcoming Consciousness, she introduced the Integrated Model of early development that was reflective of the prenatal and perinatal psychology clinical findings. The transcendental and human aspects of awareness documented from the beginning of life became the core thread in this holonomic holographic model.
See also
- ChildbirthChildbirthChildbirth is the culmination of a human pregnancy or gestation period with the birth of one or more newborn infants from a woman's uterus...
- Developmental psychologyDevelopmental psychologyDevelopmental psychology, also known as human development, is the scientific study of systematic psychological changes, emotional changes, and perception changes that occur in human beings over the course of their life span. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to...
- PerinatePerinateA perinate is a member of a species of viviparous from approximately one month before, to one month after, birth....
- PregnancyPregnancyPregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...
- Psychedelic therapy
- PsychologyPsychologyPsychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
External links
- Association for Pre- & Perinatal Psychology and Health
- International Society of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Medicine
- Birth Without Violence (F. Leboyer) online book
- Restaging Fetal Traumas in War and Social Violence (L. deMause) online text
- The Fetal Origins of History (L. deMause) online text
- The Knowledge of the Womb: Autopsychognosia with Psychedelic Drugs (A. Kafkalides) online book
- Basic Perinatal Matrices (S. Grof) excerpts from The Adventure of Self-Discovery
- Falls From Grace (M. D. Adzema) online book
- Perinatal Psychology listserv: http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/perinatalpsychology/
- Santa Barbara Graduate Institute Gradutate Degrees in Pre- and Perinatal Psychology
- Dr. Wendy Anne McCarty's website
- Dr. Jill D. Chasse's website
- Emerson Training Seminars
- The Association for Birth Psychology
- The spanish reference in Perinatal Psychology