Four Memories

The controversies about memory in therapy might be eased if we accepted that there were four memories, not one.

1. Intellectual memory, or cognitive memory, is located somehow in the brain, mostly in the cerebral cortex. The details are not yet all worked out, but nearly all of the work on memory in psychology has to do with this type. See any good textbook for this.

2. Emotional memory also has a great deal to do with the brain, but here it is mainly in the limbic system, and takes the form of images rather than words. This type of memory is difficult to reach other than by actually re-experiencing the events concerned. This also applies to memories held in the muscles, as Reich and other body therapists have discovered. See Babette Rothschild (2000).

3. Bodily memory is held all over the body, and has also been called cellular memory. Again it has to be re-experienced or relived, rather than called up verbally. Graham Farrant (1990) wrote a good deal about it. Much primal work depends upon this level of memory.

4. Subtle memory, or soul memory, is not located in the body or brain, but in the subtle body. It holds memories of previous lives and of lives lived at other levels of the transpersonal realm. It is not difficult to tap into once one makes the effort, as Roger Woolger (1990) has argued.

Each of these four has its own rules and its own mode of investigation. But types 2, 3, and 4 are hardly studied in academic psychology. Therapists interested in these types of memory (because of their appearance in session work with clients) will find reading material scarce. For this reason, the word gets passed down from therapist to therapist in informal ways. It would be better, in my opinion, for all four types to be addressed properly in academia. If these things exist, they should be studied in all their complexity, and not left to the few therapists who have taken the trouble to write up their findings.

This article appeared in the Summer 2003 IPA Newsletter.