Historical Development
The relevance of birth experiences has been recognized since the early days of modern psychology. Although Sigmund Freud touched on the idea briefly before rejecting it in favor of the Oedipus complex, one of his disciples Otto Rank became convinced of the importance of birth trauma in causing anxiety neuroses. Rank developed a process of psychoanalysis based on birth experiences, and authored his seminal work, 'The Trauma of Birth'. Freud's initial agreement and then later volte-face caused a rift between them, which relegated the study of birth trauma to the fringes of psychology. The subject was taken up again in 1949 by Nandor Fodor (1895-1964), a patient of Rank's and teacher of British psychoanalyst Francis John Mott (1901-1980). In addition to birth trauma, Fodor emphasized the significance of prenatal trauma.
Developments in the 1950s included a shift in emphasis towards the non-traumatic by Donald Winnicott (1896-1971), and to the transpersonal aspects of pre- and perinatal experience by Maarten Lietaert Peerbolte(1905-1982), and brought attention to the relevance of very early gestation, and even the event of conception by Lietaert Peerbolte. These topics saw later elaboration by Frank Lake (1914-1982) as well as Michael C. Irving, R D Laing (1927-1989), Graham Farrant (1933-1993), Stanislav Grof (born 1931) and others. The expression at a broad social level of basic perinatal feelings, such as "suffering fetus" or "toxic placenta," is part of the narrative in psychohistory, developed by Lloyd deMause (born 1931). Pre- and perinatal psychology is at the core of Primal therapy and Primal integration. Professor Stephen M. Maret (born 1960) has explored these influences in his book, The Prenatal Person.
Material emerging from sessions of psychedelic psychotherapy using LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs was the foundation for research into the enduring effects of pre- and perinatal experiences in adult life conducted by Frank Lake, Athanasios Kafkalides (1919-1989) and Stanislav Grof. Grof went on to formulate an extensive theoretical framework for the analysis of pre- and perinatal experiences, based on the four constructs he called Basic Perinatal Matrices. Lake and Grof independently developed breathing techniques, following Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) as an alternative to the use of psychedelic drugs, which was subject to considerable legal difficulty from the mid-1960s onwards. A related technique called Rebirthing Breathwork was developed by Leonard Orr (born 1937); and Core process psychotherapy trainees relive presumed birth trauma as part of their training.
Public attention was drawn to the importance of prenatal experiences by the 1981 book, The Secret Life of the Unborn Child, by Thomas R. Verny (born 1936), who founded the Association for Pre- & Perinatal Psychology and Health (APPPAH). David Barnes Chamberlain (born 1928), who was president of the APPPAH from 1991 to 1999, published a popular book entitled, Babies Remember Birth (1988), outlining new experimental research that supports the existence of pre-natal memories. Further evidence was presented by Ludwig Janus (born 1939) in The Enduring Effects of Prenatal Experience (1997).
Perhaps the first book to effectively convey the importance of trauma-free childbirth to the wider public was Birth Without Violence (1975), by French obstetrician Dr. Frederick Leboyer (born 1918), which helped popularize the practice of placing newly-born infants in a tub of warm water, known as a "Leboyer bath" to simulate the familiar pre-natal environment of warm amniotic fluid. Following on from Leboyer, another French obstetrician, Michel Odent (born 1930), pioneered the practice of low intervention labour and took the "Leboyer bath" one step further, developing the use of warm-water pools for a water birth.
In 2004, Dr. Wendy Anne McCarty (born 1951), co-founder of the Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology MA and PhD Programs at Santa Barbara Graduate Institute, reviewed the 30 years of clinical research in prenatal and perinatal psychology and current mainstream early development models. In her book Welcoming Consciousness, she introduced the Integrated Model of early development that was reflective of the prenatal and perinatal psychology clinical findings. The transcendental and human aspects of awareness documented from the beginning of life became the core thread in this holonomic holographic model.
Read more about this topic: Prenatal And Perinatal Psychology
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