Trauma and Memory by Larry Kessler

We humans have two different forms of memory. One is conscious and what we would consider as normal memoriesstories and recollections that seem to be arranged sequentially in time. This is called explicit memory. The other form is called implicit memory and is unconscious. This type of memory cant be recalled at will and contains no sequence of remembered events.

One form of unconscious, implicit memory, called procedural memory, is how trauma imprints itself on the body/mind. This type of memory is used mostly in learning physical activities like walking, riding a bike, skating, etc. These body memories are procedural in that they are learned sequences of coordinated physical movements. You may not remember exactly how and when you learned them (explicit memory), but they are instantly recalled and mobilized when needed (implicit memory) such as when you jump on a bicycle and start pedaling. You remember how to ride the bike without consciously remembering how to ride it.

When a person is exposed to overwhelming stress, threat, or injury, they develop a procedural memory of a pattern of reactions that were activated in response to the threat. Trauma occurs when these unconscious procedures are not neutralized and remain in the body. These body-memories prevent us from restoring the body to a peaceful state and are how the debilitating symptoms of trauma come into being.

In other words, the response to threat and injury causes biological and nonconscious actions to be executed that prepare the body to meet the threat. These patterns of action, including activation, dissociation, and freezing are survival behaviors and the basis of trauma. When threatened or injured, all animals, including humans, respond in similar ways. We orient to the threat, stiffen, duck, retract, fight, run, freeze, and so on. All of these responses are body-based. They are things the body does to protect and defend itself. When these responses just dont work, and we are overwhelmed or unsuccessful, we experience trauma.

The bodies of traumatized people display their unsuccessful attempts at defending themselves. For example, when we prepare to fight or to flee, muscles throughout our entire body become highly energized and tensed in specific patterns of readiness and reaction. When we fail to complete these actions, that is we cant fight or run away, we are unable to discharge the tremendous energy generated by our survival responses. This energy then becomes fixed in the muscles and nerves in specific patterns of readiness. The persons central nervous system then stays in a state of arousal. Traumatized people are not suffering from a disease; they have become stuck in an aroused state. It is difficult if not impossible to function normally in this condition.

In an attempt to make sense of their stuck, highly activated survival states, traumatized people will often create stories that match their internal states. These memories may not be accurate but only metaphors for their implicit memories. Many survivors of trauma need an explanation for their disturbing internal states. For example, many people who suffered invasive medical procedures as children when they were too young to remember may create false memories of molestation and abuse that seem to explain their symptoms. A child 2

may experience a frightening surgical procedure that feels very much like a rape. They will later constellate images around the experience, however false, that support this interpretation.

Whether or not you can remember a traumatic event explicitly is not necessary for healing to take place. What is necessary for the resolution of trauma to take place is to complete the incomplete physical responses to threat and to discharge the energy that was mobilized for survival. In this way, survivors can begin to heal by releasing the frozen energy that is at the core of their trauma. By doing so, they begin integrating the experience into a conscious narrative. These stories will contain some elements that are historically accurate and some that contain symbolic meanings that promote the healing process.

I once had a client who experienced anxiety and ongoing pain and cramping in her pelvis and lower abdomen. By the time I saw her, she had been to many doctors over the years who couldnt find anything wrong. Eventually, she went to a psychic who told her that she had been molested by her father as a baby. Evidently, this all had happened before the age of one, during the time her father had returned home from military service and then abandoned the family. Since the hippocampus, which is the part of the brain in charge of storing explicit memories, does not come online until eighteen months old, she could not have biologically remembered the event. But after hearing the psychics explanation, her physical pains constellated images of molestation around the sensations and created a virtual memory of the incidents. After several sessions, she recalled that her mother had said that she had several medical procedures as a baby that had involved the areas where she still had sensations.

By focusing on arising body sensations throughout our sessions, she was slowly able to tap into the implicit memories and release the patterns of tensing and retraction she had experienced as a baby when being poked and probed by male doctors. She was also able to follow her bodys urge to clamp her legs shut and pull away, movements her body wanted to make as a baby but couldnt. As she now allowed herself to make these belated movements, her pains slowly disappeared. And once the symptoms vanished, the images of being molested also vanished, leaving her with better feelings about men in general.

While explicit memory is accessed primarily through thoughts and images, implicit memory must be reached through the body. The client, through her feeling senses, was able to follow her bodys intentional movement, a movement that is unconscious and experienced as if the body is moving of its own volition. Through completing the actions that her body had prepared for at the time of her medical procedures, she released that bound energy and realized that she had, in fact, not been molested at all.

Healing or resolving trauma involves the gradual discharge of the original compressed survival energies, which is accomplished by completing the biological defense and orienting responses that couldnt be completed at the time of the trauma. It is not about reliving the traumatic event that can lead to retraumatization.

Animals in the wild, though they are routinely threatened and attacked, are rarely traumatized. Their ability to fully discharge the highly activated energies mobilized for survival and resume normal functioning points to an innate capacity to resolve trauma. Humans share this capacity too. One of the 4

remarkable aspects of implicit traumatic memory is that once it is accessed through the felt sense, it changes into something more resilient and strong. People can also learn how animals do this. Then, empowered with these innate resources, we can transform trauma too.