Talk:Body memory
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[edit] This
This page only discusses the positive view of "Body Memory" with only a single line against this idea, and even that line was written in a way to make “Body Memories” sound good. This article is written as if “Body Memory” was a fact not a theory. Yet, the American Medical association and American Psychiatric Association all dispute the very notion of Body memory. Also, the Federal Court System has concluded that “Body Memories” cannot be used as evidence in trial and is not scientifically valid.
To be Neutral more information on how this is a Theory and that the medical community disputes the very existence of “Body Memories”, need to be included. It need to be re-written to include a more balanced view.ARTEST4ECHO 20:37, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Bold textYeah, I know, it needs citations, references, links, etc. I'll get there. MaxMangel 02:06, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
I suggest that you might rethink this article... I recently saw a video taken by the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute which showed an ex-Vietnam veteran being de-traumatised. His own experience was a series of very clear physical sensations and reactions in his body which occurred when he accessed memories of specific traumatic incidents. The body sensations/movements occured simultaneously with the memory, and if they are NOT allowed, then the trauma remains unresolved, because (presumably) the somatic components are an integral part of the memory. Of course, lots of this body memory stuff is based on personal experience - as are most of the other consciousness-related subjects. There are pretty good models of trauma by Pierre Janet (and more recent workers), and models of how to successfully work with the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) imbalance caused by a retained trauma.
The issue with this - ultimately - is do you really trust your own body and your own memory? If you dont do that, and think that it's all cerebral, then of course, your world view will be pretty impervious to this kind of phenomenon. This also has repercussions for "False Memory Syndrome" (do you really remember what you had for breakfast yeaterday, and if you ate alone, how could anyone corroborate that?)
The traumatic events which are recalled in so-called "false-memory syndrome" are essentially somatic (body) memories. If memory is partly somatic, then everything our body has progressed through may produce some degree of somatic memory - including prenatal events. These wouldn't be experienced in the normal memory sense, because they occur at a pre-verbal (and possibly pre-visual) period on our formation, but some sensory information may be preserved.
I agree fully that a) it is possible to fantasise, b) if we imagine being attacked, then our bodies respond more or less with increased adrenaline, c) memories can be distorted and mixed up with other memories (and in these days of film and television, that is quite complex). However, you can't get post-traumatic stress disorder PTSD by imagining a bomb or fantasising a rape. And recent research into Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and the more severe DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) shows that there are very clear physiological responses to memories which are abnormal, and cannot be reproduced by actors or by fantasising. These include blood pressure, heart rate, heart rate variability and cortical activity (including L-R incoherence to prevent access to somatic memories). There is very little doubt that anyone who has PTSD or DID has experienced very severe trauma - and that (if you were to work with these people you would observe that) some form of memory emerges somatically. Body memory. Dictostelium 14:33, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
- I am not sure who you are arguing with. Please keep your posts here confined to discussion of how to improve this article. You have made significant changes that do not match the look and feel of how wikipedia articles are presented. Please take the time to peruse more articles on the wiki to see what I mean and fix the problem. Also, the article cannot have sentences that contradict each other. Also, please remember the wiki rules for verifiability - so source any of your statements that might be consindered controversial. I don't want to have to come back to this article and remove all your edits because your statements were biased and unsourced. MaxMangel 03:28, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
- You failed to improve your changes so I reverted most of them. Please read the rules on how to edit articles properly before trying again. MaxMangel 00:15, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
- This article is ridiculous. I have done a rewrite based on some logic of my own. Since this is entirely a pseudo-science theory that any third-grader could dispute, there aren't a lot of "sources" available at this point to discuss it. The only related link given was broken, so we might just as well delete this article. Herunar (talk) 19:18, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Pseudoscience conflated with clinical term
The term Body Memory as used by clinicians who work with trauma survivors basically refers to physiological response, feeling and energy that is dissociated from its original time and place, often due to psychogenic amnesia. A simple example: surges of adrenaline triggered by memories related to the circumstances in which a trauma occurred. IE. a vet sitting at a drive-thru window hears a car backfire and his fight or flight response kicks in. Other uses of the word, sure. But uh, the most common usage has nothing to do with the rather ludicrous pseudoscience given at the top of the page. West world 00:50, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
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The word "confabulation (false memories)" is used incorrectly in this article.
Also, most "body memories" can be more accurately described as anxiety symptoms. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.166.110.177 (talk) 17:16, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
