Taking birth trauma seriously.

Birth trauma theories, particularly Stanislav Grof's, have been dismissed by mainstream psychology due to lack of evidence and assumptions about neonatal brain development. However, evidence from over 3,500 psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy sessions suggests a link between unconscious birth trauma memories and mental conditions. Research on psychedelic effects, subcortical learning, and emotional response offers explanations that address Freud's objections without refuting them. This review concludes that birth trauma theories deserve more serious consideration from mainstream psychologists and medical researchers.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Virtually all mainstream schools of psychology, including biological psychology, reject the idea that people sustain psychological trauma at birth. Their objections are basically those raised by Freud more than 50 years ago: (1) lack of solid evidence that difficult births are related to mental disturbances and (2) a general conviction that the neonatal brain is not sufficiently developed to experience birth psychologically. But recent empirical evidence gathered by Stanislav Grof in over 3500 psychotherapy sessions using psychedelic drugs as a facilitator seems to show that a link does exist between birth trauma memory "matrices" in the unconscious and various mental conditions. And separate research on psychedelic drug effects, subcortical learning mechanisms and the nature of emotional response suggest that birth trauma memories might be explained in a way that circumvents without refuting Freud's basic objections. The following briefly reviews these developments, concluding that birth trauma theories--especially Grof's--deserve more serious consideration by mainstream psychologists and medical researchers.