Integral Body Psychotherapy Guides Mothers in Emotional Regulation
Pregnancy is the time when neurobiologically, the emotional trauma stored in implicit body memory rises to the surface. This is when a new mother is hormonally sensitive, and the deepest human needs suffice. The desires and needs within the basic and most important human spectrum—touch, connection, regulation, security, and emotional recognition—are emphasised. The system, the implicit memory, now heightens those unfulfilled needs from the mother’s early period.
Birth is the time when the mother regulates the baby with her own systematic capacity. Regulation is an achievement of early development and parenting experience.
‘Attachment, interactive regulation of emotion, represents the mutual regulation of biological homeostatic states between and within organisms’. *
Connection offers to the child:
- Survival
- Satisfaction of primary needs
- Internal emotional state that is a prerequisite for development processes
- Regulating unworkable conditions
- Reference point for learning about the world
- Openness to learning from parents
How Can Integral Body Therapy Help?
- I gently work on the emotional state of a mother by offering regulation, and the support within emotional conditions that arise in therapy sessions
- Working on the protective layers for the baby in the womb
- Connecting baby and mother
- Navigating mother – how to listen to her own maternal instincts and trust
- I will provide you with your unique understanding of your unconscious emotional demands
- You will gain awareness of experience of your early childhood period
My Story
I never felt that I had a maternal disposition. My partner and I made a conscious decision to get pregnant. And now, after a few years, I can say with certainty that pregnancy changed me completely, and with the birth of my enchanted daughter, gave rise to my hidden feelings of great delight and pleasure. I was mesmerised by the changes in my body; I gained approximately 40kg during pregnancy, and my senses heightened—I could ‘smell’ danger for my system from a long way off. Something switched in me. But it was a rollercoaster of different, unknown, and not entirely understandable emotional fluctuations, especially after giving birth.
For me, while pregnant, it was a consciously chosen game of letting go. But cognitively choosing it and instinctively doing so are very different drive modes. Luckily, I had loads of experience in that emotional game from practicing yoga and meditation for many years. However, I was still very much a beginner because letting go while being pregnant is a different game altogether. The support of my husband greatly helped to create a space of acceptance for whatever came up. But I wish I had the knowledge of early development that I started gaining about 9 months after giving birth because I would have had more understanding and compassion towards my inner rollercoaster, and certainly, it would have been easier for my husband. I wish I had my therapist to experience and build conscious connection, and a knowledge that says that my inner sense of security was shaken due to unacceptance within contact experience from my early childhood period. Somehow, I had managed, mostly, to listen to my inner (new) compass and take contact from my husband, which was luckily always available for me, but not always possible for me to really take it, benefit from it, and integrate. The contact with my baby in my womb took a fine-tuning into my (new) inner compass and really, but really trusting and letting go, going with the flow, and following the impulses. Sometimes it felt like work because rewiring the system takes time and conscious witnessing. Falling into the implicitly known zone was easy.
And sometimes, it would lead to real, deep, dark feelings and expressions. A feeling of dissatisfaction, fear of survival, and the ability of my emotional self-regulation was never great, and being pregnant sometimes looked like an unregulated three-year-old child. Did you know that all of that, and more, your baby can feel in the womb?!
I was preparing for the birth with a pregnancy retreat, books, and guidance, which in reality just made it more confusing. I was in labour for almost three days, with a four-page birth plan, almost none of which was possible to respect. I also felt as if I was reborn. But for every process, it takes time to settle in, to click in, to trust, and to follow. To follow and respect my desires, to follow and respect my needs, and to follow my baby girl’s needs, which were on a high scale after three days of trying to come into this world. It was a rollercoaster of emotions. I wish I had my therapist with me. I wish I had my mom with me. I wish I understood what early development in childhood does to our system and implicit memory because understanding removes stigma and opens the door to trust with compassion to our emotional states.
*Please be aware that this is just a small fraction of my personal story. There are many layers and the possibilities for the individual dive into the subject.
References
*Bradshaw & Schore (Ethology, 2007)
Main – Aileen Dillon Photography
