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In fact, it is the specificity of the person's "signature" that is the telltale marker of a whether or not a client has truly been re-experiencing THEIR birth trauma or fantasizing about it! Once again, the reenactment of birth as in" rebirthing" is NOT, nor has it ever been, part of the primal process. The Primal process is one that treats birth trauma as it unfolds organismically from the client's history and is not "reenacted" or "recreated".

True birth trauma is imbedded deep in the brain in the limbic areas and reptilian system via implicit memory. Implicit memory includes the emotional and sensate traces or aspects of memory. Unlike its counterpart (explicit memory), implicit memory is encoded differently without mental pictures, context, and a sense of time or age. Explicit memory, on the otherhand, is declarative in nature complete with cognitive or language components as well as "pictures".

Birth traumas cannot encode explicitly as the hippocampus has yet to become functional. The hippocampus is the critical area of the brain that must be "on-line" (around age 3) in order for context, language, and "time" to be encoded and for these aspects of memory to later be accessible. This is why preverbal trauma can only be accessed through accessing body memories. Once the trauma is re-experienced somatically, then the adult brain can finally put context, language and details to the original experience. A skilled, knowledgeable primal therapist is instrumental in this labeling and cognitive integration process.

Birth history cannot be accessed in one or two sessions as "rebirthers" claim, nor can such deep trauma be accessed independent of other later childhood wounds or trauma. There is a natural progression for levels of tolerance to pain and intensity that takes time. By feeling later- onset painful memories first, the client's body and brain are then able to tolerate the massive charge and intensity that true birth trauma engenders. 

To claim that a person can re-experience their original birth trauma in just one or two sessions through artificially induced props such as long plastic tubes, blankets or hot tubs is, in the primal viewpoint, disconnected and absurd…….not too mention potentially dangerous as the tragic death of a child in Evergreen has proven. When working with birth trauma it is absolutely critical that the therapist has been properly trained and has experienced the process personally, having healed their own birth trauma as a client.

To reiterate, genuine birth trauma reveals itself through many painful sessions and has specific details and a "signature" that is indisputable and cannot be faked.  Clients who have truly re-experienced their birth trauma consistently report how amazed they are at the detail of their individual births. The traumatic "signature" from the early event is encoded with a precision that is uncanny and repeats itself in session after session until the traumatic imprint is resolved.  This healing process is absolutely no different than treatment for trauma at older levels.  What is different is Primal Therapy developed unique techniques that allow for the integration on a cognitive level of the earliest traumatic experiences. These techniques and knowledge result in permanent changes in accessing and expression of emotions along with marked reduction of tension in the body musculature and nervous system.