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| PROFESSIONAL ORIENTATION
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We have spoken in the page Transferential Structuring about the adventure which helps restructuring the psyche. We now turn to some strategic points about restructuring.
Usually, however desirable, the assessment of the psychic structure is in principle only be the product of the therapeutic process itself and is known with precision at the end of the process. The assemblage of imprints, their initial quality and later compensation of imprinting errors, will be slowly uncovered as the therapy unrolls and with the re-living of the archaic major events of the early life.
However obvious that traumatic events have taken place at birth time (or later if severe trauma), only reliving wil give certainty about what has really happened.
The traumatic event will be re-lived only if the transferential context is unambiguously welcoming it and if the transferential safety is sufficient for it to emerge.
The lack of welcoming of the perinatal traumatic events is the hinge on which most "therapies" abort (while repeating the early lack of welcoming of the child's necessities by the parents). If the therapist is not ready to akcnowledge and validate the full horror and destructive force of these early events, no progress will be made towards repair.
This is the reason why in many therapeutic settings those early events will never show: many clinicians, although trained, deny the actuality of those catastrophic perinatal events and the horror of not responding properly to the root imprints.
Preventing a neonate to vitalise is psychic murder.
Preventing a neonate to bond to the mother is psychic murder.
Preventing a mother to bond to her child is psychic murder.
Preventing an infant to separate from the mother when the age comes is psychic murder.
Surrounding a child with denial of its needs, power over its needs, or sexual desire is psychic murder.
Many theoreticians and clinicians do not "believe" in the actuality of the archaic because they have not "seen" these events in their clinical place. This is due to the transferential context. Early events show only when they are transferentially acknowledged and fully accepted in the full actuality of the horror lived then and still active. Thay have to meet resonance in the conscious experience of the therapist. A clinician who has not fully relieved his own perinatal life has no chance whatever to "see" these events in his setting. Denying his own early life, they will deny that of others who seek help. Obstetrician who have not relived their own birth have no chance of understanding and have empathy for what the child lives when badly handled during delivery and after.
There are two movements in the therapeutic process: one is the progressive unfolding all of the dramatic events of the early life; the other is the progressive re-building of the essential imprints needed for sound and efficient psychic skeleton.
The first movement is backwards, following a somewhat mysterious path in the maze of the recorded events of the past. Generally, the vitality input is such that all events are fuelled and seek emergence and freeing. But deeper events can emerge only if other events have already proceeded to completion and dissolution. There may be more than one favourable track in the maze of unresolved events, but they can not be numerous in the view of the necessary antecedence work necessary for each event to appear.
The second movement is forward. When a major event is re-lived, and the point of stagnation of its natural process is overcome, the person begins living what wad not possible in the past and has produced the "problem" (in the past, a survival program has started in its stead and has produced the "problem"). The vitality input and the natural mending process usually press for repair, except if there is a vitality problem.
In essence, the natural mending process is very simple: all stopped events are on hold, fuelled with energy, and pressed to go on. The pressure increases at times, when the vitality input goes up (when the body charges up for instance, by motion and breathing), when the actual context evokes the past event, or when an opportunity for release appears (such a favourable transference stage, for instance). And even more, the evoking situations are actively sought unconsciously, so that the dormant events can be stimulated, tentatively emerge and try to free themselves. And if the evoking situations are not met, they will even be actively created. This is the major motive of all patterns of individual and collective behaviour.
Most of the time, we live these attempts at release in circles, repeating again and again the same unsatisfactory scenes, since when the event seeking freeing is a major event, a trauma, or an essential imprint, it takes more than a suitable situation to achieve its complete loosening. In the immense majority of cases, only in the very special context of a carefully planned therapy can the blocked major events proceed with some success.
Helping stuck past events to unfold is one of the goals of any correct therapy setting. This will produce with time a measurable reduction of anxiety, an increase of the available vitality, an increase of spontaneity and reactivity, confidence and self-assertion.
However, as we have already mentioned, as long as the psychic structure is not worked on and mended, little improvement of the overall sense of self and of the way of living life will happen. This is due to the fact that in order to acquire new tools for living, we have to 'jump' from one stage to a more advanced one. This 'jump' from one stage to the next is possible only when the full structure anterior to that needed for tackling the present stage has been acquired, completed and integrated. Then, automatically, the next stage opens up and becomes the subject of new learning, and also perhaps the occasion for a new imprint. When our structure is not complete, we remain in that stage until we have succeeded to reopen the elementary reflexes and integrate the impact of the missing imprints.
Following the already given table of elementary imprints, we may know what is needed in the therapy setting, and whatever imprints to act when the window of one of them re-opens.
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Originary | Self-Expulsion | Uterus | -0.5 hr | Vitality is triggered by pressure and urge to expel, and manifested by frenzy in the body and especially in the legs |
| Self-Breathing
Separation from womb |
Mother-Father | +0 hr | Autonomous Breathing Natural panic-free breathing is ensured by cutting the umbilical chord only after the natural breathing has taken place |
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| Bonding | Mother | 0-3 hr | Total Symbiosis is favoured by skin contact between neonate and breast, feeling the heartbeat, holding and constant contact | ||
| Safety | Mother-Father | from birth to 2-3 years | Safety is felt when the mother is tranquil owing to the context provided by the (invisible) father, and knows what is the case in all circumstances | ||
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Originary/Primary | Holding-Carrying | Mother | up to 9-15 months | Body feelings, emotion function building, construction of the other and safe relationships is had by the constant holding, carrying, and talking |
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Originary/Primary | Dedifferentiation | Mother-Father (sex) | 6-24 months | Stranger is met as safe. Limits to wanting is safe because it produces distance with the mother and space for living and experiencing |
| Primary | Independance | Father | 2-3 years | Mother's sexual desire for orgasm returns: the infant is taken out the constant mother's influence and given to the larger group of children | |
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Primary/Secondary | Learning relationships | Mother/Father | 2-7 years | Learning emotions, frustration, and the management of relationships |
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Primary/Secondary | Freedom | Society | 7 years | Given absolute freedom to explore and get answers from elders. Unconditionability is given and guaranteed by large community group |
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Secondary/Tertiary | Passage | Society | 13-18 years | Transformation: loss of the child's system of motivations to gain adult's motivations. Sex: lust, orgasm, reproduction. Rights and duties: choice and responsibility in life |
Stages are refered to definite imprints in structural psychology. A rough time or step scale correspondence with other developmental stages can be used. Below is a correspondence table.
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| prenatal (-30 mn -0) | Vitality onset | ||||||||
| natal (+0 +3 hrs) | Autonomous breathing onset | ||||||||
| postnatal (+3 hrs +2 days) | Bonding with mother: instant creation of symbiosis | ||||||||
| 0-1 m | Oral erotic | Melancholy Mania |
Oral-Sensory | Trust vs. Mistrust | Primitive ego | Normal autism phase | Weaning complex: birth trauma, vital intension to mental intention, loss of the breast to imaginary breast, body = other to body = me, language structures perception |
Total symbiosis breast-feeding, holding and carrying | |
| 2-3 m | Schizo-paranoid position (persecution anxiety) | Normal symbiosis phase | Bonding with father | ||||||
| 4-8 m | Depressive position (loss of object anxiety - beginning of OEdipus complex) |
Separation - individuation | Differentiation subphase | Partial symbiosis - episodic nursing and carrying | |||||
| 9-12 m | Oral sadistic | Practising subphase | Onset of possible weaning | ||||||
| 12-18 m | OEdipus complex (masculine and feminine) |
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| 18-24 m | Anal sadistic (expulsive) | Paranoia | Muscular - Anal | Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt | Rapprochement subphase | Intrusion complex: (mirror - narcissism - early ego - imaginary - jealousy) | Natural weaning time Dissolution of symbiosis and emotional autonomy |
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| 25-36 m | Anal erotic (retentive) | Obsessive neurosis | Individuality and emotional object constancy subphase | ||||||
| 4-6 yr | Phallic (OEdipus complex) |
Hysteria | Locomotor - Genital | Initiative vs. Guilt | OEdipus complex (repression - sublimation) | ||||
| 7-10 yr | Latency period | Latency | Industry vs. Inferiority | Around the 7th year: Freedom imprint | |||||
| 11-12 yr | Genital stage | Health | Passage imprint | ||||||
| 12-17 yr | Adolescence | Puberty and Adolescence | Identity vs. Role Confusion | ||||||
| 18-21 yr | Tardive adolescence | Young Adulthood | Intimacy vs. Isolation | ||||||
| 22-27 yr | Post adolescence | Adulthood | Generativity vs. Stagnation | ||||||
Of course, one is not able to pick up a person at a certain moment and tell whether "he or she is at that stage", and that "such imprint is needed", and even less to produce an imprint at will.
If imprinting is basically an instinctive, straightforward and simple process in principle when it occurs in nature (with the exception of Freedom and Passage which need a social setting), it becomes a difficult task in therapy settings.
Call for imprinting may happen only when a sufficient amount of release of the infantile and archaic events has taken place. Emotional formations and persistent archaic survival mechanisms should have been worked through thoroughly before the originary and instinctual life can be approached. This ensures that the emotional complexes and the "defensive" patterns are not too active at certain times and will not cover the deeper instinctive patterns. The therapeutic setting is built up so that it favours the emergence of the instinctual and especially originary life. Specific body techniques are implemented to regularly feed the originary level and help its emergence.
At certain times, the call for a specific imprint will show and the therapist uses this opportunity to act the full father or mother part. He does not "play" a role, he has to be the real father or mother of the imprint, the one who has not been in the first place. Here we do not speak of 'analysis' or 'imaginary' or 'symbolic' substitutes of the original pattern, we speak of really acting and living the part of the parent, being fully the parent, being taken emotionally in the drama as the real parent would be. It is not possible to fake the scene, total investment is a necessity. That emotional quality is the condition for the success of an imprint.
Some repair is needed in all imprinting methods. 'Repair' is doing in the present what has not been the case, what the neonate or infant had not got in the past, giving the natural attentions needed in the originary and primary registers: constant presence, attention, positive regard, care for the infant's needs, confinement, protection from excessive stimuli, carrying, correct mirroring, validation of feelings, guilt free and prohibition free care, etc. all this being fortunately possible on the transferential stage.
the full features of the next functions to implement starts appearing on the transferential stage. Efficient imprinting unlocks the development schemes and a host of new capacities will start emerging. The client eventually starts looking for the emergence of a deeper layer of events, and maybe of an imprint which has not been got at that time. Not especially in the reverse chronological order, but rather in the order from the less painful to the more painful, which takes a stronger ego to confront the suffering associated with the worse events. Discovering the call for an imprint is challenging, and the work is more like going from one traumatic event to the next, several being possibly of actuality at the same time, and help their emergence and lightening of their pain they withhold, until sufficient safety, strength and confidence is gained have the call for imprinting emerge. Since if it is not perceived and responded to, it is likely to reinforce the original trauma and not show up again.
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| PROFESSIONAL ORIENTATION
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