Are the Formation and Resolution of Traumatic Memories Detoxification Events?

Our physical survival and health depends upon the ongoing accomplishment of two things: a) our environment must be continuously integrated into every cell of our body and, b) any aspect of our environment that threatens this cellular integration must be removed. The process of integration is called nutrition and the process of defending against dis-integration is called detoxification. Sidney MacDonald Baker, M.D. defines detoxification as "the biochemistry of handling potentially harmful chemicals that appear within the system and which must be neutralized before they pass from the body." He has estimated that approximately 80% of an individual's daily energy expenditure is dedicated to detoxification. We see by this that the process of detoxification plays a huge part in health maintenance.

On the cellular level, the process of detoxification involves synthesis, rather than the breaking down of dis-integrative molecules. In other words, other molecules are added to the dis-integrative molecule, thereby making it bigger and less toxic. The unwanted molecule is then capable of being safely transported through, and discharged from, the body via the various organs of elimination. The first step in the detoxification process involves identification of a molecule as being disruptive and its encapsulation or separation from normal cellular processes.

The ongoing processes of successful cellular integration and detoxification take place below our normal awareness and it is experienced as health. When these processes are disturbed beyond a certain threshold we experience this cellular dis-integration as illness.

It is clear that the active maintenance of physical health involves consciousness. The physical body must be self-aware on the cellular level and it must be continually involved in achieving physical health. Janov refers to this as "first-line consciousness."

Human beings have developed a consciousness of individual self. An aspect of this level of self-awareness involves being able to record memories of our experiences and being able to have these memories available to consciousness, so that we can learn from past experiences and react in an informed way in the present. The ability to remember gives us a sense of continuity as individuals. It contributes greatly to our sense of self. This is why the disintegration of this ability (as in Alzheimer's disease) is so frightening. If we are to survive as an individual, this consciousness must be protected from dis-integrating events.

The evolution of human self-consciousness, therefore, required the simultaneous evolution of a protective mechanism, which guards against its dis-integration.

It is known that nature adapts existing structures to the introduction of novel survival challenges. An example of this would be the foot. The foot did not evolve for the purpose of movement on land. Rather, an existing structure, the fin, was used in a novel way, to permit land movement. The fin's continual use in this way brought the foot into existence.

Did nature use an existing structure in a novel way, to protect our newly emerging consciousness of self from dis-integration? I believe that it did. That structure is the primitive amygdalic memory system.

This memory system is ancient. It is possessed by all primates. In human beings, it is the primary memory system during our existence in the womb and for the first five years of our lives. It is not until after this age, when the myelinization of hippocampal structures of the brain is complete, that we begin to encode higher level, conceptual memories.

Amygdalic memory encodes our experiences in the womb and during the first five years of our lives in terms of pleasant and painful sensations and emotions. To recall such memories is to re-experience these sensations and emotions.

Doyle Henderson has theorized that this memory system is the substrate of our entire adult emotional life. Our experience of emotion derives from the automatic retrieval of the contents of this system. What this means is that if the sum total of our early experiences is pleasant, we are capable of experiencing a pleasant adult emotional life. If the sum total of our early experiences is painful or distressing, our adult emotional life will be experienced as distressing. The person whose amygdalic memory system is devoid of pleasant experiences will become a psychopath or sociopath. The person whose memory system is devoid of painful or distressing experiences will be capable of becoming a deeply sensitive and loving human being, one who is capable of the fullest ability for self-actualization and altruism. The majority of human beings form a continuum along this bell curve. Henderson believes that this memory system becomes deactivated upon the maturation of the hippocampal memory system, somewhere in the fifth or sixth year. Thereafter, all encoded memory is completely conceptual and logical in nature. Whenever a conceptual memory does elicit a feeling or emotion, it is because this memory has linked up with an amygdalic memory.

The work of Joseph LeDoux and Bessel van der Kolk, M.D. suggests that the amygdalic memory system may become activated after this period in the case of traumatic experiences. It is hypothesized that this memory system becomes activated by highly charged emotional experiences, which threaten to be disruptive of higher order human consciousness, and that the experience is prevented from being recorded in hippocampal memory by the presence of high levels of cortisol, which are a result of the highly stressful nature of the traumatic experience. Van der Kolk feels that this is the essence of dissociation. By shunting traumatic experience into amygdalic memory, our experience is still recorded, while higher order (third-line) consciousness is preserved.

I am suggesting that the activation of amygdalic memory, in the event of traumatic experience, is an example of nature's adaptation of existing structure to novel experience.

There is, however, a problem inherent in this adaptation. The use of amygdalic memory to record experience (after hippocampal memory is mature) represents an encapsulating event. That is, this process effectively prevents the integration of our memory of the traumatic experience into the whole psychic structure. The automatic shunting of a traumatic experience into amygdalic memory and its simultaneous blockage from hippocampal memory formation can, thus, be seen as the first step in a detoxification process: the identification of a dis-integrative event and its encapsulation.

Thirty years ago, Janov hypothesized that suppressed pain was continually rising to consciousness as a consequence of the body's natural healing processes. It is as though (he says) the body wants this pain to enter consciousness in order for there to be understanding and resolution (healing). He even speaks of suppressed pain as being a "foreign object," which resides within us, and is treated as such by the body's defense mechanisms.

Earlier we spoke of the detoxification process as being a synthesizing event. In order for toxic molecules to be neutralized and safely removed from the body, they have to be combined with other molecules, thereby making them less toxic.

We can think of encapsulated traumatic memories in the same way. The encapsulated memory is recognized as a "foreign object" or toxin and treated accordingly. The forces of detoxification automatically and cyclically initiate a process of synthesis. That is, the encapsulated memory is constantly being presented to consciousness in an attempt to link this memory up with the higher order functions of hippocampal memory. Once this synthesis occurs, the toxin is neutralized. We call this event "resolution." We can now define resolution as the termination of a detoxification process.

Those of us who engage in the primal process recognize that our traumatic memories are continually rising to consciousness for resolution. That's why we pay close attention to "what's coming up" for us during the day and during the night (in dreams). It's as though our body is continually conversing with us, in its attempt to heal emotional wounds. It is constantly saying: "look at this" or "look here." It is an indictment of our repressive upbringing that we can so successfully ignore this conversation. Indeed, we go out of our way not to pay attention. Aletha Solter, Ph.D suggests that we are trained from the cradle up in ways to ignore this conversation. This cluster of learned techniques is reinforced by society and coalesces as an integral part of our core personality.

Elnora Van Winkle has hypothesized that the biological substrate of emotional, behavioral, and stress-related problems is an actual toxic condition within the neural network of the amygdalic memory system. A traumatic experience occurs and is encoded in amygdalic nerve circuits. The normal biological response to that experience is suppressed (initially, and over and over again). The nerve cells that comprise this circuit are enervated by this constant suppression. Unexpressed neurotransmitters are absorbed by and accumulate in the cell body. Sensing an accumulation of unexpressed neurotransmitters, the body cyclically initiates detoxification crises in its attempt to correct this condition. During a detoxification crisis, levels of toxic substances are marginally reduced, but not cleared, due to neural enervation. So the cycle continues. The repeated flooding and clogging of post-synaptic receptors by toxic levels of neurotransmitters causes alternating periods of overactivity and underactivity in the brain. This is the cause of the manic-depressive cycle. As Van Winkle says: "Childhood abuse in itself is enervating, but the primary cause of mental illness is the continual suppression of emotions."

In order for enervated amygdalic neural networks to be able to clear toxic levels of neurochemicals, they must be stimulated. In other words, we must begin using the atrophied nerve networks again. This occurs when emotions are directed toward the right thing/person. Van der Kolk's work suggests that traumatic memories, unlike the memories stored in the hippocampal system, can only be activated in the presence of a highly emotional state. (This is the reason, according to him, that conventional talk therapy is not very effective in treating emotional trauma.) If this happens, the chain of neurons that hold the repressed memory can, thus, be stimulated to fire.

Van Winkle's work places primal therapy into the realm of naturopathic practice. If emotional, behavioral, and stress-related problems are caused by neural toxification, then the practice of primal therapy becomes yet another natural method of supporting the detoxification processes of the body. When someone chooses to engage in this form of experiential therapy, he is supporting the processes whereby good mental health is actively achieved.

Jim Pullaro is a Ph.D. candidate at Clayton College of Natural Health, and also a candidate for IPA certification as a Primal Integration Educator. Jim lives in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

This article appeared in the Spring 2003 IPA Newsletter.