On Different Kinds of Memory

Too often we think of memory as something we can remember….verbally, that is.  But there are several  kinds of memory and each level of consciousness remembers in its own way.  The emotional system remembers when something moves us to tears; something we may not be “aware” of.  Thus we remember on non-verbal  levels  in non-verbal  ways.  And there is another form of memory that is most primitive, and is purely instinctual and below even the emotional level.  Seizures can be that form of memory; so that in group therapy, as one of my epileptics was about to have a seizure, I told him that it was from birth and let himself go there.  He did, and transformed an inchoate seizure into a  reliving of a traumatic/oxygen deprived birth.  I  knew where it was coming from, otherwise I would never dare suggest what I did.    And those kinds of suggestions are rare, indeed.

  There are forms of what I call first line memory; avoiding enclosed places as a  "doppelganger" of an oxygen deprived gestational life.  Enclosed spaces, for those who have that imprint, are avoided in order not to trigger off a panic attack.  It is not the enclosed space that is the danger; it is the memory of what it provokes.  A Primal can make it conscious but even when unconscious, it is still a memory.  And in Primal Therapy we make all  of those levels, over time, into consciously/aware experiences; not verbal experiences—conscious ones.  We would never try to transmute a non-verbal memory into something verbal  and/or intellectual.  We don’t encourage a patient to remember something verbally that was never verbal, in the first place.  That is  when we get abreaction and no help  in therapy.  That involves deceiving the patient and trying to change his memory system;  intellectual therapists too often try to do that…..make every experience verbal and forcing the memory into the verbal  mode.

  Our first job in therapy is to recognize what form of memory we are dealing with.  Birth traumas are never relived verbally or even with tears; there are never any words involved.  Trying to get a patient to scream when there was never any scream or need to scream involved in the memory is yet another road to abreaction—the discharge of the energy of a feeling onto the wrong  level of consciousness—onto a different memory system and a different level of consciousness.

  That is often what a seizure is; yes of course there may be brain lesions, but the tipping point could be latent anxiety.  And we bring down the level to below overt symptoms, so that there may be latent anxiety but not overt seizures.  All this so we can be clear what kind of memory system we are dealing with.  What we get too often in insight/cognitive therapy is verbal expression to the exclusion of the other levels and so we get only partial wellness because we have dealt partially with memory.  To be clear, there may be several factors  involved in a seizure; anxiety may be one.  When we reduce that factor we may help the patient to be below symptomatic levels.  It is not an ultimate cure  but it helps.  Ultimate cure is when we deal  with  the  neurology, physiology and key primal memory.  We cannot neglect  any aspect of ourselves and expect  cure.  We can use pills to block anxiety but that is not going to be cure.  Let us be sure about what kind of memory system we are dealing with; knowing that there are different kinds and “never the twain shall meet.”  If we confound memory systems the patient will not get well.  This is not just a theoretical point, but a profoundly neurophysiologic one.